Created to Create

By Jeremy Bouma

There is a way of life prepared for you — specific, unique, made for you from the foundation of your very being. The question isn't whether you have one. It's whether you know what yours is.

Keep going this year, fully empowered and equipped to create for Christ.

There has never been a better time to be a Christian creator — especially a Christian writer. And I want to empower you with the insights and skills and inspiration you need to wield the pen for the sake of the cross.

There's Never Been a Better Time to Create

From my perspective, after a 15-plus-year full-time-ish professional career as a writer — writing, creating content, marketing, publishing, editing other people's works and my own — there's been no better way to impact the world than through the power of creating passion projects. Through wielding the power of the pen.

And there's been no better time to be a creative, especially a Christian creative, than it is nowadays.

In light of all of what's going on around us — the good stuff, the bad stuff, the painful stuff, the opportunities, the pain, the struggle, the chaos, everything swirling around us — I want to empower you as a Christian creative to take up this vocation, this calling, these good works that God has called you to do in light of your rebirth in Christ, your identity as a new creation.

CROSS + PEN came out of my own desire to wield the pen for the sake of the cross. To create stories and books and devotionals and other helpful material. To craft stories that are exciting and thrilling, offering escape and insight and inspiration for the faith. To do all of that in a way that is purposeful and intentional, to ignite faith in my own world and the world around me. And this space was created to foster that in you — to take seriously that calling and to leverage all of the tools at our disposal in our new creative economy to impact our world for Christ.

I'm Not a Guru

Let me put that up straight away. I'm not one of these internet gurus who's going to promise you the world if you follow these simple steps and my formula to rake in the dough or rack up the followers and the sales.

I'm an average guy who has garnered a good decade-plus of real publishing, writing, and marketing craft experience that I've marshaled in my own author business and used for other publishers. Some big and well-known that you might have heard of — Zondervan, Thomas Nelson, HarperCollins Christian Publishers. Some not as well-known, like Broad Street Publishers. Working on everything from devotionals to Bible studies to a study Bible and Christian resources. Then my own projects through my company, Emmaus Way Publishing Group, that have been primarily fiction-oriented: short stories, full-length novels, 30+ novels, 50+ short stories, novellas, novelettes.

All of that while also being a very full-time father and stay-at-home dad. Able to write the books I want to write, put out the stories I want to write, create the studies and devotionals I want to, in order to impact my own world for the sake of God's glory and human flourishing.

So I don't want to say I'm an expert necessarily, even though I have expertise. I'm not the guru who's going to hand you a simple formula for racking up followers or sales or influence.

What I do have is the insights and the experience to pass along to you.

Created in Christ Jesus for Good Works

In Ephesians 2, Paul lays out Jesus Christ's life, death, resurrection, and exaltation — salvation that isn't merited through any sort of good works, but that we have been saved by grace through faith, raised up with Christ, and seated with him in the heavenly realms. After laying out all of that, he says this:

For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
— Ephesians 2:10, NRSV

In other words: we have been created to create. You've been called to create.

There is a way of life — specific and unique to each of us, made for each of us — prepared for us from the foundation of our very being that we are meant to do. A goodness, a specific goodness, that is meant to be our way of life.

Field Note

Notice the order in the verse. The good works were prepared beforehand — before the work, before the platform, before you were any good at it.

That's the difference between a calling and a career plan. A career plan you build. A calling you find, and then step into. Which means the question isn't whether you've earned the right to create yet. It's whether you're going to do the thing that was already set aside for you.

So What Is That — For You?

That's the question worth sitting with. Not what someone else is called to. Not what's working for the writer whose newsletter you admire. What is the specific goodness prepared beforehand to be your way of life?

Quick Wins

  • Finish the sentence: "I was made to write ______." Whatever comes out first is usually closer to true than the polished version you'd give an audience.
  • Name the calling you've been comparing yours to. Then set it down. Someone else's prepared way of life was never assigned to you.
  • Ask what you'd write if nobody paid you. Not because money doesn't matter — it does. But the answer tells you where the calling is underneath the business.
  • Write today, not once you feel ready. Prepared beforehand means the readiness was never the requirement.

Your Next Steps

  1. Take the Calling Stewardship Audit. It's the tool I built for exactly this question — a structured way to name what you've been given and what you're doing with it. Free at audit.crossandpen.com.
  2. Write down the one project you'd regret not finishing. If a specific goodness was prepared for you, that project is usually where it's pointing.
  3. Put one hour on the calendar this week. Not a plan for the year. One hour, on a specific day, for the work that was prepared for you.

Now go and do it. Live and lean into the creative good works you've been created to create this year, this week, this day.

Hand your gifts over to Christ to use them for his glory.

Let's create for Christ together. 🖊️

All for God's glory and your neighbor's gospel good.

/ jeremy