This question is inspired by worship service Power Pointing. You know: The words are on the screen, but behind them is a dancing light beam, or a morphing Picasso. To me, that is more distracting than anything. But my point is the ‘power’ rather the visual arts…
Painting, photography, digital art and more…
What are your thoughts about the visual arts in relation to the church? Do you have a heart or a vision for a greater emergence of them?
Ronni said:
Oh now you just hit an itchy spot.
I am a member of our artists group at church, a former professional photographer, and graphics person. I also worked in the visual arts at my church.
I think that there are appropriate places for all of this in the church. We have two side screens for lyrics and a center screen… we hope to have the words on the side screens and appropriate artwork, photograpy, etc in the center screen. We also would like to decorate parts of the church with artwork. Our church is very “advertised” and clean looking… considering our associate pastor used to own an ad agency it’s not suprising… but it’s very cleanly and tastefully done…
I think that since our culture is SO visual, this is an incredible opportunity to advance into areas of art and culture that the church has withdrawn from in the recent years. The church used to be the place where artwork happened hundreds of years ago but since then, it was deemed worldly and our churches look like architectural nightmares with bare walls and industrial carpet. I think we need to reclaim beauty and creativity. God is creativity and if we truly want to show the beauty of God to a society that doesn’t see true beauty very often, we need to take back the arts.
Could you imagine driving through the concrete and trash filled jungles of our modern day world, and entering a place that was pure beauty and creativity? What would that do to the soul of a person to experience that? Is that why our society has such a hard time understanding the beauty of God…because they are surrounded by such ugliness? Face it, our cities are ugly.
Unless you spend time with art, or have the opportunity to get out of the city and go to a 3rd world country and stand on the side of a mountain where there are no modern conveniences for hundreds of miles, it is hard to truly grasp the fullness of God’s beauty.
Let’s use what tools we have for the Kingdom!
Posted on February 17, 2007 at 11:11 am
Shawn said:
Ronni, you said
Could you imagine driving through the concrete and trash filled jungles of our modern day world, and entering a place that was pure beauty and creativity? What would that do to the soul of a person to experience that?
That’s what I do have vision for. Prophetic, anointed artwork. When my sister put on her BFA Exibit it was the first time I have ever seen anointed artwork.
People that wern’t saved would say “Wow, there is something spiritual about this, but I don’t know what it is.”
I would love to see Godly artists, encounter God in the secret place and then produce Godly art that leads people to fall in love with Jesus.
Posted on February 17, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Theresa said:
As a dancer and a mother of an IHOP dancer, I am all for the arts in the church. I think anointed visual arts are a form of worship and help to draw people closer to God. Did you see the dance at onething on Matthew 25. To say it was powerful and sobering is an understatement. It woke me up to press into God and be a “wise virgin.” I hope the church as a whole continues to expand these forms of worship. Here in California several churches I know of make room for the visual arts. You can watch people paint and draw during worship. Even graphic art on computers. (they must be macs, don’t you think?) It is beautiful. I believe it blesses God to see His created, creating.
Posted on February 17, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Dennis said:
There is a fine line there. I am like Ronni and am in charge of photography and graphics at my church. You want to make things professional, clean and appealing to the masses but not take away from the pastor or the message.
Posted on February 17, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Shawn said:
So what is this ‘fine line’ you guys keep mentioning?
Is it a line between the arts durring service being ‘a little odd and distracting’ versus ‘helping others worship?’
Posted on February 17, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Dennis said:
I was referring to media being distracting from the message.
Posted on February 17, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Elise e. Biesee said:
la-te-da the topic of the hour for me…
how kind of you shawn to provide an outlet for all my updated thoughts.
Recently me and a few of my other christian artist friends have been discussing and praying about these these very issues.
We came to many conclusions that rang true in all of our hearts and are very excited about them.
First of all i feel obligated to address the subject of liturgical art.
This is indeed a hot topic. Churches, especially “emergant” churchs are asking themselves how they can incorperate art into their services as a part of worship.
The church is recongizing the importance of visual arts as a tool of worship but they don’t know what it is suppose to look like.
The cathloic church is probably the best example in history and today with being intentional about incorperating visual art in order to stimulate more medatative worship.
I also am reminded of buddist temples that i visited in china that were inendated with paintings and sculpture. They were idols and demonic but non the less the power of the visual representation provoked staggering emotion.
So the recognition for visual arts in church is there but there must be a breech between “morphing picassos’” and allowing God to use our gifts to fill his temple with truth, beauty and redemption. Causing hearts to be moved and healed.
It always bothers me when churches project some abstract art peice on the wall and call it done. They are trying to appeal to a crowd but not to the heart of God.
I believe this is a tender subject to the lords heart and he greatly desires to bring this sort of art into the mist and fabric of churches today.
(I have seen art in some churches where it is powerful and works. It is not compleatly absent but perhaps starving)
This is a topic that books are writen about so i won’t go too crazy but here are a few points in which our ideas of art and artist must change in order to allow God to come and have his way.
These are issues i believe many artists are hungry for.
-Redefining our Identity, being rooted and grounded in the word and the knowledge of GOd
-Letting the judgements of God come to his house first that we may repent for the lies we have believed about art, and the artist
-Praying for Meekness and humiliy rather than Pride and elitism
-Boldness rather then insecurity
-Rightiousness, standing in agreement before God and cleansing our hands in which we work with.
-Abiding in community and fellowship.
Christians should be paveing the way in the art world. Which will come from and lead to intercession, intimacy, and the prophetic.
But thats just my oppinion. And there is much more to it then that.
Posted on February 17, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Ronni said:
I think the line requires discernment. Along with truly prophetic art. Truly prophetic art requires the anointing and the anointing requires….intimacy. I know that when I’ve painted something that truly spoke to someone… it was at a moment that God anointed me to do so. It took discernment to stop what I was doing and go pick up my paints.
It also takes discernment to know where to draw the line. That entirely depends upon the church, the people within it, and the circumstances. It requires wisdom… and we all know where that comes from.
I think the problem is when people who are too immature to make these decisions do so. When someone who is mature and truly hears God makes the decisions, then it is good. Unfortunately we are too uncomfortable calling black, black sometimes and saying the truth.
The prophetic is all about the balancing act, hearing God, and doing the stuff.
Not all art claimed to be prophetic is, so there is a deep need for that discernment.
Yes, there is a theme here… the closer we come to the end… the higher the need for discernment in everything we do!
Posted on February 17, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Shawn said:
@ Elise: That’s incredible how even the demoic idols were emotionally moving. What a need for revival of artists in the Christian church.
Posted on February 17, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Ben Cunnington said:
Personally I think art sucks and should never be allowed in church! Ha! Just kidding. But seriously what are people thinking? No just kidding again. My church uses a lot of media and visual effects in our services to communicate and honestly it took me a while to adjust to it but I do see the value and place for it. The culture is defiantely saturated with media infuence and so we use it in a way that brings creativity but also a more universal way for people to grasp things. It can really be powerful as well. I do believe that God is the true author of all creativity and we are to tap into the well of this creative God. I think it all needs to be discerned and used with wisdom and understanding but I think it can be used in a powerful and greatly expressive way. But that’s just my opinion and I think the arts suck. Ha kidding again of course.
Posted on February 18, 2007 at 12:21 am
Shawn said:
@ Ben: You should come back next weekend when I ask about “sarcasm in the church”….
The Rock of Roseville does a great job of incorporating visual arts into it’s culture I think. And very tastefully too…
Posted on February 18, 2007 at 1:18 am
Scott said:
‘Distracting’ is a great word to describe the grass blowing in the wind, or the in and out fade shots of sunsets and waterfalls while your trying to read. When I hear feedback coming from the stage and people singing on every key from behind me, I put my arms down and open my eyes to get my bearings only to receive an Ezekiel complex. I think I’m flying over the Grand Canyon in a trance, and all I’m trying to do is make it though to the next song, Halleluiah!
Posted on February 18, 2007 at 10:15 am
Evan Olsen said:
I’ve seen churches that put up really odd pictures of random mountains on the backgrounds of the lyric screens (you can barely read the lyrics). I believe that nature itself worships God in its very being (it’s in the psalms somewhere) so I don’t really know if it’s appropriate or inappropriate to have images of art/nature during worship. Honestly, most church-goers wouldn’t match worship and mountains together..they might think “mm, pretty mountain..I wanna go to the alps someday..but it’s so cold there! ah..cold..I need to buy some new winter coats. OH SNAP, I almost forgot about the sale and Dillards. I should go on Tuesday..” and then..well, they’re just lost and not in God.
So I agree with Ronni, Dennis and Elise about there being a super fine line with what’s appropriate. But I love art and especially art that is God inspired.
It would be interesting to get a group of artists that are strong in anointing and deep in intimacy with Christ together and have them paint things then maybe use that art to evoke thought about God’s beauty in worship.
Posted on February 19, 2007 at 1:11 am
Shelley Paulson said:
It is refreshing to find other who feel the moving backgrounds on powerpoints a distraction. I am an extremely visual person and much prefer a simple color or black background, so I’m not pulled away by the “shininess” of the powerpoint. I also find PP distracting when it is used with a sermon. I look ahead and then check out mentally. I think it kind of dumbs the whole thing down. But then again, there are probably some people who are helped by it.
Another problem occurs in churches where there is no gifted person to work in the visual arts. There are plenty of people who enjoy using clip art and playing with PowerPoint, but if they don’t have gifting/training in color, composition, etc, a train wreck occurs.
We had this in one church we attended. The announcement slides were created by a well-meaning, passionate-about-powerpoint, favorite one of God, who wasn’t really in touch with our culture. One day, there was an announcement about getting anniversary dates from everyone. The graphic she chose to use was an animation of a wife yelling at her husband. Ugh!
I’ve been bugging Randy B. to do an arts workshop or conference at IHOP. I know there are many anointed artists out there who feel alone in their pursuit of God in their art. We could encourage each other to become messengers through our arts, share out hopes, dreams, struggles…that kind of thing. I would love that!
Posted on February 19, 2007 at 9:11 am
elise said:
three cheers to;
“God is the true author of all creativity and we are to tap into the well of this creative God”
Indeed we need to fill our buckets with this living water and drink deeply in a place of prayer.
and to ronnies comment on discernment is very true.
good topic brv
Posted on February 19, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Milt Wear said:
We are a large group of Professional Christian visual artists who’s ministry is the conduct of shows in Northwest area churches. We have long since abandoned the idea that what we do has any longevity or meaning if we are in the “show business” of ministering To the church rather than to the artists within. Unless the church responds to the commandment” Neglect not the gift that is in you” by recognizing the gifted (whatever that gift may be be) and their responsibility to help them discover and develop their talents, we will never respond to Gods command. How much more gratifying it is to leave the church and move on to the next one with something viable and ongoing in place. Milt Wear
Posted on May 4, 2007 at 4:27 pm