Tomorrow evening I’m speaking to a first-time gathering of artists and creatives at one of the larger churches in New Zealand. While they come from the charismatic, evangelical category of worship, the categories are much less rigid in NZ than they are in the USA.
The brief is to “talk about your experience of the interaction between art and worship in a Church such as ours. How can artists be incorporated more… anything that might inspire people!”
I have been invited by the senior pastor, which is a very good start as nothing of significance will happen in this church without his support and permission.
His language gives me hope in that he uses the word “interaction” and “artists.” I have been part of a church where the vision statement was “to use the arts more.” Read “to abuse the arts more,” and to “abuse artists more.”
To have integrity for the church and for the artists the interaction must be about artists rather than about art. It’s the artists who are part of the worshipping community and its they who need to have expression for their gifts, and access to engagement with God through those gifts, in the same way those with singing or musical roles do.
Most churches are more interested in getting a recognisable painting of Jesus to hang on the sanctuary wall than they are of an abstract interpretation of an artists engagement with what God has done in their life in allowing Jesus to die on the cross.
So I’ll be talking about that important distinction, and why I don’t think this church will actually allow their artists to interact in any significant way with their worship. Its simply too dangerous for most senior pastors and leadership teams. It’s too open-ended. It’s not measurable. It’s not containable in a nice box: it hangs over the edges and the lid won’t fit on. The moment an artist gets beyond simple description and into the depths of interpretation there is the potential, even likelihood, of the “C” word.
Controversy. No pastor likes controversy. Pastors will defend theological minutae to the death (theirs and their congregation’s), but an artist who causes controversy among those who pay their salary? They will allow that person to be hung out to dry. I often hear stories of this happening. While I can understand it. It is wrong.
This is exactly why we need artists contributing to the life of our churches. In worship and other ways. They bring insights and challenges that unsettle and question in ways that nothing else can. It’s in this opening up that God can speak to us. Particularly to those of us who are less through spoken words and more through visual media.
Even if the pastor who has invited me to speak does support these artists, I know there are strong people in leadership who will react badly at the first whiff of oil paint they don’t understand. Will this pastor be willing to stand in that gap between the artist and the leader, or the artist and some vocal members? That’s the role of the pastor in my opinion. It’s a role very few pastors are willing to take, and a support and permission that artists in most churches lack.
I’ll be saying that tomorrow as well. Might as well get it all out there so they have something to talk about after I leave.
This church has a tagline ‘No perfect people allowed.’ We’ll soon see how true the inverse of that is – are only those who consider themselves, or others, imperfect allowed? I’ll be putting that to the test.
I’m not great at saying hard things clearly and directly, but this is my intention tomorrow night. What would you say if you were in my situation? I’ll let you know how I get on.
This post originally appeared on Creative Worship Tour, October 28, 2009.
Image © iStockphoto
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