Home Worship & Creative Leaders Articles for Worship & Creative 6 Reasons You Should Always Have Snacks at Creative Meetings

6 Reasons You Should Always Have Snacks at Creative Meetings

Here are six reasons why I’ll always have snacks at my creative arts meetings:

1.) Community: There’s a reason why we eat a meal on dates, as our central family activity and as a church every Sunday during Communion. Food brings people together. Community is the essential foundation of creativity, and food helps jump-start both.

2.) Hospitality: Because I love my artists and want to create a space through my leadership and hospitality for them to use their gifts to serve the church. Providing for them physically is one way to equip them to serve and to thank them for using their gifts to honor the Lord.

3.) Energy: Creative meetings are always long, and snacks provide the energy to engage at a high level for a long period. Plus, I always have at least one artist who missed the previous meal and really needs some food for energy. Healthy snacks are a must—no empty calories or sugars here.

4.) Focus: Doing something tactile, like dipping a chip in guac, helps keep artists focused. If there’s nothing to do, attention wanders and boredom ensues. (There’s another reason why we eat or go to coffee to get to know one another—taking a sip of latte or a bite of food gives us something to do when the conversation lulls.)

5.) Stimuli: The touch, smell and taste of good food excites our senses and inspires our creativity. This is why real, tasty food is important for arts meeting snacks. Fruit, nuts, real chocolate (not candy), cheese, crackers, guacamole and beverages (not soda) put us in touch with the creativity of creation.

6.) Joy: Serving the Lord can involve sacrifice, but at its heart it is joyful. Food looks forward to the feast that we enter into when we adorn the world with beauty and take part in God’s enterprise of wonderfully restoring the world.