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There
is a phenomenon in churches today—yes, yet another one.
The arts and worship. I’m
hearing about it, I’m experiencing it.
I am even teaching it. And
I am worried about it, a bit. I
suppose we are “a ways off” from church leaders completely usurping
it, because focusing on the arts in worship is still a subculture.
Well, maybe not entirely a subculture.
We’ve done the arts in worship forever—it’s not a new
phenomenon, entirely.
But
we haven’t really TALKED about the arts and visual art in worship in my
lifetime, that I remember, up until about the last 8 or 10 years, it seems
to me. I first remember
hearing about “worship and the arts” at a Willow Creek conference
about 6 years ago. And in the
last year I’ve heard about the arts and worship a LOT.
Now we talk about it as a great tool of communication, and THE WAY
to reach postmoderns. So,
this phenomenon is gaining momentum.
That’s
why I’m worried. I am
worried because I don’t want to write an article that is some sort of
pedantic preaching about how YOU should USE the arts because it is what is
WORKING TODAY, and it is what is GOING to work in the 21st
century to bring people to CHRIST. AMEN.
That posture wouldn’t be very true to art OR the artist.
But I fear that people will do that anyway, like a formula, like a
program. I don’t want to be
a part of that. But it may
happen.
So,
I am going to try to focus differently.
What is it about art that is Godly? Who is the artist?
What is it about art and the artist in each of us that is so
important to the pathway to wholeness, to finding Jesus in this crazy
world in which we live? What
is it about art that transcends time and space and era, and just speaks?
Modern
Images of Jesus Christ
http://www.clark.net/pub/webbge/jesus2.htm
THE ART
Todd is my son. He is
17, and an artist. Visual
arts. (If you want to see some of his artwork, head to my website: www.wellsprings.org)
The other night, he and I and the rest of our immediate family (dad
and brother/husband and other son) were watching the news.
There was a powerful story about a traveling photography show that
depicts racism, showing photographs of lynchings and hangings and burning
of African Americans, in the south, during the time of much racial tension
and hatred. Todd wondered why
this was being presented at art museums, since it was so horrible that it
couldn’t be art, because art is beautiful, said he.
Aha, maybe mama can still teach this strapping young lad a few
things after all…
Art isn’t always about beauty.
Art is sometimes simply about the truth.
Art tells a story.
Art is creative, and expressive.
Art gets at what is inside someone.
Art brings the inside outside.
Art makes you internalize what you perceive.
Art begins conversation, and dialogue.
Stephanie Bowman: Outcast
http://www.artmax.com/artmax/docs/bowman.htm
Art
originates from pain
Art originates from pleasure
Art is controversial.
Art is creation.
Creation is art.
Creation is AN art.
God’s creation is art.
God’s creation is a thing of beauty.
God’s creation is filled with drama.
God’s creation includes people.
God’s people do wonderful things, sometimes.
God’s people do horrible things, sometimes.
Art can speak to the beauty and the horror in ways that mere words
cannot,
always.
Art is music, drama, dance, paintings, photographs, video,
poetry...
Art is the language of the soul.
Art makes you experience feelings.
It evokes a reaction.
Art keeps revealing new things, because art expresses nuances.
Art makes you see yourself in ways that mere words cannot.
Yes,
Todd, those pictures we were talking about are aptly suited to art
museums.
The Artist
I’m an artist too. A
musician. Todd gets it from
me, from my side of the
 family.
He is a lot like me.
He is volatile, sensitive, strong willed—peaks and valleys,
dramatic, expressive, intense. He
is enraptured by beauty, and by the painstaking work of someone who took
the time to create something. He
sees injustice and feels the pain of it.
He has not yet used his art to say that, though he will some day.
For now, he is clever. He
is able to express things that make you go, “Hmmmm…”
He
has to mature. His art will
help him do that. It will
help him move along the pathway toward understanding.
And when he gets to that place, I hope that he will not be marred
and held back by the controls of a world that doesn’t want to be
transformed. I hope that he
will still be free, and be able to say what he thinks through his medium.
I can’t wait to see what he really thinks. Art is the expression of the artist. And it is an expression that is not eroded by dogma, thereby
letting the soul of the artist speak with power.
The
artist is a student.
The
artist is a teacher.
The
artist is always growing, always changing.
The
artist is always leading, always showing a new direction.
Even
when the artist only “paints the present,” it is a new perspective.
The
artist is a contradiction in terms.
The
artist is difficult.
The
artist is touchy.
The
artist is sensitive.
The
artist is vulnerable.
The
artist is a perfectionist.
The
artist is strong.
The
artist is passionate.
The
artist is authentic.
The
artist is struggling to find a place to be.
The
artist is struggling to be accepted.
The
artist is struggling to be heard.
The
artist is struggling to be free.
The
artist is soulful.
The
artist sees many things.
The
artist pays attention to detail.
The
artist values beauty.
The
artist finds beauty in a variety of places.
The
artist creates and expresses for the sake of creation.
 God
is an artist.
God
is vulnerable, authentic, soulful, powerful…
God
sees beauty in many things.
God
sees beauty in me.
God
sees beauty in you.
God
sees Jesus in me.
God
sees Jesus in you.
Jesus
is the fulcrum of God’s creativity.
God
releases the artist in me and in you.
Jesus
is the artist in me and you.
Jesus
is seeking to flow free.
In
some ways, I believe the artist is in all of us.
Worship and the Arts
The artist
in a human being is sacred space. God
lives there, in the midst of the struggles of life; the tugs and pulls
that try to tear us down, that need a medium to be shared in order to be
able to address them. The
artist seeks a journey of expression, to find a place in this world, to
establish a foothold. The art that the artist develops is a way to move through the
journey toward wholeness and peace. The
very PROCESS of creating is a way toward spiritual maturity.
For God will guide the artist along the artistic pathway; God
redeems the darkness every time it finds its way into a limerick or a
palette. There’s the
beauty, and it transcends the forces of life that try to hold it back…
Artists are uniquely gifted to express a life journey in language
that gets at the depth of it all. Their
art can confront and confound the most guarded individual like a saber,
cutting through the layers of hatred and boredom and pride and folly to
bring that individual to a fuller understanding of self.
The artist is like a midwife, unearthing the shards of their own
and another’s past, and providing a space where God and human can meet.
And when a person is taken into the depth of a soul experience
through the artistic expression of another, there they too can find their
own artist, and the God of Jesus, who is waiting to be experienced.
Modern
Images of Jesus Christ
http://www.clark.net/pub/webbge/jesus2.htm
And
when they experience God, and know the heart of compassion that awaits
their shame, they will begin the journey to express the love of Jesus to
another lonely artist that is still hiding in another heart.
And that is how I experience the interplay between the arts, the
artist and worship. In a sense, the artist is not only one who has a talent, but
is also a metaphor for one who endures the pain of life. I don’t know a single adult human being that doesn’t
suffer, do you? We experience
tremendous loss in life, most of us resist change, and even the most
even-tempered of us has to deal with the disparity between highs and lows. This is the human condition, and it is the condition in which
people find themselves when they come to a location we call public
worship. Real art is borne
out of this “stuff” of life, and real worship occurs in the midst of
it, freeing the artist within to praise The One who loves her beyond all
distraction.
And real art is not canned. It
is not a program or the latest rage to bring people into the church.
Don’t use it like that. Let
it be what it is, an outgrowth of the human experience that finds a
blessing from the Almighty. Encourage
THAT in your people, not for the sake of growing some numbers or for doing
what everyone else is doing because you don’t want to be left behind,
but for the sake of the artist that seeks the artist that seeks the
artist—that seeks the Artist. Encourage the art and the artist, and watch Jesus transform a
broken heart. It’s
God’s masterpiece…
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