Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Art and Worship
In an arts ministry list to which I belong the question was raised about visual arts ministries in the church. Someone on the list who is a really good guy with a brilliant mind responded with the differences between the modern and postmodern ideas on the topic. Like most of the postmodern discussion. I felt a little stupid in reading that response, not because I necessarily disagreed, but because I didn't understand the terminology in his response. I decided to try to clarify and it led into a lot of other thoughts on arts the church and what worship should be.
Here's part one of the response.
I am not sure I follow. I think we're on the same page but I have always sort of felt that one of the big problems in the postmodern discussion is that it's proponents do not explain anything in plain English and so most of the church is left out. :) So let's unpack it a little. Visual art ability is a gift from God to be used to His glory whether we are using it within the church or, for lack of a better word, the world. We are called not just to worship in the church but to live lives of worship, that is to attempt in Christ to do everything we do as if we were doing it for God in the hopes that people will "see our good works and praise our Father in Heaven."
Tony, I believe is asking specifically about art in the context of the community of faith and ways artists can serve within the church. This narrows it down a bit further. I have made a life verse out of 1 Peter 4:10 Each one should use whatever gifts he has received to serve others and so I believe I am in agreement with Edward that we use our gifts in service to the body. Sometimes we may be in the foreground creating on the stage as it were but we must also be more than willing to work behind the scenes allowing our work to be used in a supporting role, enhancing the various ministries of the church. I relate this to the years I spent painting theatrical sets for a local high school. I put three months of evenings into a backdrop that was on stage a total of ten minutes and then painted over for the next year. The effort hardly seemed worth it but it enhanced the number done before it. There were no accolades for it, but it looked great, I know I did my best and it helped to make the point of the story. We are called in ministry to do the same thing. It's about the story and anyway we can be used to help the story stick is worth the effort whether people recognize our efforts or not.
In an arts ministry list to which I belong the question was raised about visual arts ministries in the church. Someone on the list who is a really good guy with a brilliant mind responded with the differences between the modern and postmodern ideas on the topic. Like most of the postmodern discussion. I felt a little stupid in reading that response, not because I necessarily disagreed, but because I didn't understand the terminology in his response. I decided to try to clarify and it led into a lot of other thoughts on arts the church and what worship should be.
Here's part one of the response.
I am not sure I follow. I think we're on the same page but I have always sort of felt that one of the big problems in the postmodern discussion is that it's proponents do not explain anything in plain English and so most of the church is left out. :) So let's unpack it a little. Visual art ability is a gift from God to be used to His glory whether we are using it within the church or, for lack of a better word, the world. We are called not just to worship in the church but to live lives of worship, that is to attempt in Christ to do everything we do as if we were doing it for God in the hopes that people will "see our good works and praise our Father in Heaven."
Tony, I believe is asking specifically about art in the context of the community of faith and ways artists can serve within the church. This narrows it down a bit further. I have made a life verse out of 1 Peter 4:10 Each one should use whatever gifts he has received to serve others and so I believe I am in agreement with Edward that we use our gifts in service to the body. Sometimes we may be in the foreground creating on the stage as it were but we must also be more than willing to work behind the scenes allowing our work to be used in a supporting role, enhancing the various ministries of the church. I relate this to the years I spent painting theatrical sets for a local high school. I put three months of evenings into a backdrop that was on stage a total of ten minutes and then painted over for the next year. The effort hardly seemed worth it but it enhanced the number done before it. There were no accolades for it, but it looked great, I know I did my best and it helped to make the point of the story. We are called in ministry to do the same thing. It's about the story and anyway we can be used to help the story stick is worth the effort whether people recognize our efforts or not.
Arts in Worship part II
Worship in the context of the church is a difficult thing because the audience is unclear to many. Clarifying the audience may be the greatest thing to come out of the post modern "discussion". At this point, we have a stage and we have seats, the people in the seats feel they are the audience and right or wrong pastors are hired and fired by how the people in the seats are "entertained." The problem is the people in the seats are not the audience, they are worshipers too and the audience is God. (I know we give this lip service but I don't know that we are really there.) I believe that the role of the people on the "stage" is to lead people into worship. The more of people's gifts that can be incorporated into the worship hour, the better, because people will be inspired to live lives of worship with the gifts we have been given. This to me is why all the arts (as well as recognizing all kinds of gifts) are important in the worship hour. At this point our lives are compartmentalized. There's church and there's everything else. We sit in church for an hour and unless we can preach or sing or play an instrument, all we do is sit and listen and sometimes judge whether the pastor's message was good enough to justify another week (Since when did pastors become employees of the church? but that's a different story for a different day.) The more people that are involved in telling the story the more people will be challenged to see how they can be used of God.
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Worship in the context of the church is a difficult thing because the audience is unclear to many. Clarifying the audience may be the greatest thing to come out of the post modern "discussion". At this point, we have a stage and we have seats, the people in the seats feel they are the audience and right or wrong pastors are hired and fired by how the people in the seats are "entertained." The problem is the people in the seats are not the audience, they are worshipers too and the audience is God. (I know we give this lip service but I don't know that we are really there.) I believe that the role of the people on the "stage" is to lead people into worship. The more of people's gifts that can be incorporated into the worship hour, the better, because people will be inspired to live lives of worship with the gifts we have been given. This to me is why all the arts (as well as recognizing all kinds of gifts) are important in the worship hour. At this point our lives are compartmentalized. There's church and there's everything else. We sit in church for an hour and unless we can preach or sing or play an instrument, all we do is sit and listen and sometimes judge whether the pastor's message was good enough to justify another week (Since when did pastors become employees of the church? but that's a different story for a different day.) The more people that are involved in telling the story the more people will be challenged to see how they can be used of God.
