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Kimberly Creasman
Dawn Fung catches up with Kimberly Creasman — artist and mentor to many local Christian artists in Singapore — after six years! Kimberly Creasman was the first artist to be interviewed at CreateLeVoyage.com Quotes are from our 2003 article. In this issue, we continue with Artist and Mentor: Kimberly Creasman (Part 2), where Kimberly shares more about her role as a mentor.
Writer: Dawn Fung
Kimberly Creasman on youtube!
Dawn: Here’s another one : “However [Kimberly] feels that people still need to be exposed to more theatre and be more perceptive before they can embark on better projects.” This is a true principle for any medium — that its practitioners should be exposed more. Looking through your blog, http://spicetolife.blogspot.com/, you do try to “expose” people very much to more things, be it articles, books, reviews, events etc. You’re like a one stop hub!
Kim: I had taken the test “Strengths Finder” from the Gallup Organization’s study/Marcus Buckingham book Now Discover Your Strengths. According to this book, strengths come naturally to everyone, and these have the potential to develop the person into becoming something ‘world class’.
The reason I blog so much is that my top 5 strengths were INPUT, WOO, COMMUNICATION, POSITIVITY and SIGNIFICANCE. I read this book when I was rather new to Asia, had no platform from which to influence, and didn’t have any sponsors to put me forward as someone with something to contribute. It was also at the dawn of the blogging era.
I’m a voracious collector of information and a tireless connector. I can’t keep from searching and discovering new facets of gems on what it means to be an artist and a follower of Jesus Christ, and then when I learn it, it’s not enough to keep it to myself. I want to pass it on! I don’t even know where to begin giving examples since I’m not sure who will read this. My blog about theatre art as a platform for ministry has a load of my favourite links to others more gifted and articulate artists. I post my lessons for workshops online not because I think I’m really great, or I want to be a famous writer, or artist. I do it because I cannon NOT do it. I long to hear all of the people in my circle of influence saying the same thing!
We’re all so unique. If only we could just keeping our eyes humbly and gratefully on Jesus in view of his mercy. And from that posture, if we could find out what we are strong in, and do it, and grow in it, and STOP comparing ourselves to others, this world would be a whole lot different! Maybe even, His Kingdom would come… on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Dawn: You’ve got more active blogs than most people. A lot of it is teaching or mentoring, which seem to be your main hats. I myself have been blessed by your ministry as a friend and mentoree. I find myself thinking, “What would Kim say?” in certain situations. Would this blogging practice tell me that a key mentoring and communicating strategy is through the net? And given that you meet so many people along the way who come and go in your life, what has the word “mentor” become to you?
Kim: When thinking of what we’d like to have in a mentor, most of us think this: We want to find some older person we respect who can guide us into becoming a successful, wise and happy grown-up. We hear of people who have a mentor, and we wish for one ourselves. We look around in our circles and search for people we admire and want to emulate, but we aren’t quite sure how to get a mentor. We’re also quite jaded by having seen so many great leaders/heroes fall from their pedestals, so some of us are a little despairing that we’ll ever really have a mentor. It’s a pipe dream.
In CRMS (Church Resource Ministries Singapore) we teach that there are different types of mentors for different needs in life.
1. There are INTENSIVE mentoring relationships such as the intentional short term mentoring you would get in a Discipleship relationship, with a Spiritual Guide, or a Coach.
2. Then there are OCCASIONAL mentors; the kind along life’s road who are Counselors, Teachers, or someone who acts as your Sponsor. A Sponsor is the one to give you the helping hand you need to advance in your career or ministry.
3. There are also PASSIVE mentors, and this is the category where I feel something like the posts in my blogs would fit. It’s the impersonal exposure we have from reading or observing Contemporary or Historical people whom we admire or who are teaching us memorable life-defining lessons. Whether what I’ve written is in regards to making new discoveries in theatre, growing in excellence and holiness as creative artists, whether it’s in navigating life in a cross-cultural setting, or whether it is transparently chronicling my own intentional development, I hope that readers will be inspired to follow my example.
Most of us expend a lot of energy trying to cover up, or be something we’re not, and we’re miserable. I’ve found a freedom in just being real. I’m finally so confident in God’s love for and acceptance of me that if someone thinks less of me because of what I write, or what I think, or how I act or who I am, then it’s really their problem. Of course, If I’ve been offensive, or said or done something inappropriate, I am certainly open to loving correction and growing! But I digress in trying to address your question about the role of my blogs in mentoring others…
4. Another interesting kind of Passive mentor is a Divine Contact. This is a person you may not even know well who happens to have the right thing to say to you at just the right time. You know when it happens that it is a message from God and you are profoundly impacted by the encounter.
Earlier this week I learned how I played a role as a Divine Contact for the artist/writers of CreateVoyage.com — rarely this side of heaven do we get to know of such things! I always try to write these things down so that I’ll never forget it, and can remind myself that God is at work, even in the times when he seems silent and impotent in the affairs of men.
In one of your earliest print issues I wrote an article, “Should Christian Artists Work in Church for Free?” This magazine was casually picked up at a Christian concert by a young poet/writer Aaron Lee. He read it and thought the article was daring and provocative (which apparently was a good thing!). He was ecstatic to realise that there was such a circle of believer/writers in Singapore. He combed through the magazine and found the email contact for a Dawn Fung, contacted you and set the wheels in motion for his becoming a mentor and host for this group which has now been meeting for years! I have only gotten to know Aaron better in the past year, and known him first as a leader among The Group, and I had no idea the role the Lord had me play in getting him connected with the team. I heard this part of his story just this week as he and seven others sat in a living room finding out all kinds of divinely ordained ways that our lives had already intersected, never knowing that eventually we’d all be in the same living room embarking on an intentional mentoring journey together called Focused Living. Focused Living is something that my husband, James, uses with pastors and other Christian leaders. This is the first time we are using it with married Christian couples who I’ve met through the arts.
One final note before I move on from this subject of mentoring, I suggest that if you apply this simple list of types of mentors to your own experience. Sit down and began to look back over your life and those who are in your life right now. I’m certain you could make a wonderful list of many mentors you’ve already had. You just may have never realised or acknowledged their role as such in your life. If you do write out such a list, I encourage you to take a moment to write to at least one of them and let them know the impact they had on your life. They will treasure such a note!
[On looking for a mentor]
Looking at that list, you will also be able to identify that there are areas for development that you’ve been lacking a mentor in.
- What are the ways you want to grow?
- What kind of mentor do you see that you could use right now?
Then ask.
Tell the person you admire whatever it is about their life and wonder if they’d be willing to meet you for coffee sometime so that you could ask them some questions and learn from them. If the coffee-time goes well, ask them for more, like:
- What do you think you need?
- What do they see that you need?
Then you be assertive in asking for what you’d like, and following through.
- Should you ask them to meet with you regularly for a season, or just touch base in a month or so?
- How regularly is reasonable?
Coaching relationships usually meet for up to two hours every other week for at least 3 months. You set a date for the next time you’ll meet. You do the following through.
Most people LOVE to have people ask them questions and give advice, but they’re not going to go around approaching younger people, “Say, I noticed that you’re really a gifted artist but you don’t know anything about marketing [or parenting, or interpersonal, communication or leadership]. I’m great at that. Can I help you grow?” Ha. That just doesn’t happen. You gotta ASK, and follow through.
I look forward to hearing how it works out for you!
You can email Kimberly Creasman at kimberly@crms.org.sg.
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