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Artistry, Excellence, and the Mission
Jul 30 | Pastor J.D. | 15 Comments |
What is the role of artistic excellence in a local church’s “production”?
On 1 side you have people who pour tons of cash into the “production” of the message, making it as good, or better than, what comes out of Hollywood or New York. Usually, their rationale is that a) God deserves our best, and we ought to make things that display Him as “glorious” as possible; and b) in order to effectively communicate with the world, we need to approximate the medium other messages travel on.
On the other side are people who invest little to nothing in the “production” of the message. Their rationale is usually something like: a) According to Scripture, God does not use glitz and glamor to spread His message, He uses the plain preaching of the Word and the astounding lifestyles of His church; b) realistically, we can’t compete with the world on that front, and it is poor stewardship of our resources to try to do so, especially when so many are suffering, starving and without the Gospel around the globe.
I think you can go out of balance either way. At the Summit Church, we’ve ended up with what I hope is a proper balancing of both. The bottom line is this: We love glorifying God in art, but think that God has given the church an urgent mission, and all things, even good things like art, ought to be seconded to that mission.
Thus, we believe in the principle of ‘good enough.’ We do what is necessary to effectively communicate the message, and nothing more, believing that the real power of our ministry is in the preached word and in the changed lives of people in the church. Jesus did not win the world through a marketing campaign, He died on the cross and His Apostles preached His message and planted churches.
Good art can be an end in itself. God created us to glorify Him in art, and when we do so, we fulfill His purposes in creation. However, our desire to produce good art must be balanced with the fact that God has called us to leverage our resources for the spread of the Gospel. Thus, our (a local church’s) desire to produce good art should be balanced with the urgency of the mission. To make a flawless, Hollywood-video about starvation in Ethiopia is a good thing… to use that footage to motivate people to give their lives to do something about it is the best thing. As a church, is it possible that sometimes our devotion to good things keeps us from pursuing the best thing? I think it is. Thus, as a church, we have decided we will almost always second the desire to produce good art to the urgency of the mission.
We also know that just as a good communicator will often intermix stories and illustrations to help his audience grasp what he is saying, so communicating to audiences in this day means that you have to take into account how people hear messages. Here again, the point is not the production, but the communication of the message. The art of the production, in light of the 1 mission given to the church, ought to be seconded to that mission.
Each individual Christian must hear from God how he or she is best to use their abilities in service of God’s kingdom. Some may sense that God’s specific calling on them is to put more energy and time into glorifying Him in a particular artistic project. That may be the role God has given them in glorifying Him, and I can’t judge them. I don’t say that as a cop-out, but as a recognition of the marvelous diversity of the body of Christ and our freedom to follow the Spirit and our consciences in it.
I also know that each church must ascertain how best to reach its own community, and that it is not helpful for us to judge 1 another in this area.
But this is where we’ve ended up as a church… we do spend money on production and art, but only as is necessary to communicate the message and propagate the mission. We know that, at the end of the day, the real power is not in the medium, but in the Spirit and the Gospel.
Your thoughts?
15 Responses to “Artistry, Excellence, and the Mission”
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I personally believe that true Biblical quality comes from the heart. Quality (musical skill and clear giving of truth) will happen when those responsible have been on their knees in prayer and are listening and acting obediently to the Holy Spirit.
Nice article on your position, but what are your biblical references? As a ‘church’, everything we do should have a basis and backing in Scripture. I have dedicated the last ten years to church ‘art’ and the effective communication of the Gospel through modern media. I have a biblical position on my requirements. You have a nice philosophy that is ungrounded in the Bible. You should do a little more research and then republish this article with a biblical stance. You just might find a new place to land.
Pastor Greear,
This is indeed a very tricky subject.
Many churches today over-emphasize the “contextual” side of evangelism in preaching, and we are left with maybe 20 minutes of preaching and 20 minutes of random videos from videos that 90% of the congregation have never seen or even heard of.
Other churches apparently haven’t realized that it isn’t 1760 anymore and that media is OK when done in a God-glorifying manner. I find it hard to believe that everyone in that congregation would be so caught up in the message without some kind of artistic flavor. Not everyone is a seminary student (unfortunately) and not everyone can go listen to someone throw doctrine at you for 1-2 hours.
To avoid rambling, I will simply say that in my short experience at the Summit, I have found that your staff has done a great job of balancing the message and the media.
One church that provides an EXCELLENT example of this balance is Mars Hill in Seattle. I’m telling you, that Media Production team knows how to do things. They do a great job of catching your eye, making things easy to sort through, and more importantly, Pastor Driscoll’s teaching is always on point.
When talking about arts, music will invariably come up. I come from a baptist church with a more Hillsong-flavored worship team, so I have been adjusting since coming to the Summit, but Mark Driscoll sums it up nicely in his book “Doctrine” quite well, giving me my favorite quote of all time (as I am a musician that has played in worship teams accurately represented in this quote) : “While no church is perfect, nor is the goal of corporate worship meetings an impressive performance, musicians who cannot keep time, singers who cannot sing, audio speakers with continual feedback, long awkward pauses because no one knows what is happening next, and people speaking in tongues or prophesying out of turn in a way that the Bible forbids all distract people from being able to focus on God, and furthermore, falsely portray God as chaotic.”
Man, I love that quote. The worship team at the Summit is great, they play great together, they focus on scripture (which is almost frighteningly rare in the church today), and the audio production team does a GREAT, GREAT job mixing everything together.
The key is to stay God focused, with the ultimate mission of glorifying him. If that is your team’s mission statement, the Holy Spirit will assist your ministry teams in adding artistic flavor to Sunday mornings without over-emphasizing art and under-emphasizing the teaching. Keep it up, you guys have done a great job thus far.
[...] Artistry, Excellence, and the Mission – J.D. Greear asks “What is the role of artistic excellence in a local church’s ‘production’?” [...]
I certainly agree that a balance has to be struck, but will say that in my experience with churches most tend to err on the second side you mention. It amazes me that so many churches staunchly refuse to think of their work like a business, and a business invests time, money and thought into its marketing, customer base, communication, and advertising. We expect the church’s “product” to be so good as to sell itself, but the medium can certainly help the message along.
Another rationale I’ve heard for the “production” side is: We want the Holy Spirit to work in our services with minimal distractions and cultural obstacles. Therefore we do everything top notch with excellence so that the Holy Spirit can be free to speak without any programing resistances.
I kind of see where they’re going. However, the Holy Spirit has the power to overcome any obstacle…and probably works in spite of us more than we realize.
Artistic excellence is, of course, subjective. It has the ability to express the values of a community through it’s content and message. Everything I’ve ever seen and heard from Summit Church is beyond excellent. I know of no other church of our size that is able to ‘produce’ the audio and visuals that we do. The creative forces behind these tasks are truly gifted in every sense of the word.
Its an unfortunate but seemingly realistic observation that our culture values appearances. Competition for the focus of our attention is fierce. We’ve become conditioned to be attracted to certain sights, sounds, and symbols through media and other sources. Artistic expression through video, images, music, is such an enormous communication tool that it would unimaginable to not use it.
Its probably not too much of a stretch to think that in some way the hip graphics, video, and music that a church uses are ‘bait’ to attract a broad (or narrow) demographic of people. Its a fine line between tasteful artful expression and overproduction. Summit Church strikes that line to perfection in my opinion. Its bold, it catches one’s attention, and its powerful in it’s messages.
At the end of the day, however, it’s the power of the Gospel that has to take over as the overriding message to be broadcast to the masses. And if there were a way to measure the artistic excellence in delivering this message, JD Greear would have to be considered a Picasso.
While the music, art, video, production and such are huge tools that no doubt have helped shape the Summit Church into a place that is attractive to it’s congregation, there are a great many people that exit the doors on a Saturday night or Sunday morning are not thinking about that production. They are, rightly, thinking about the Gospel based message that has been shared.
It’s my opinion that it’s the compelling story of the Gospel as delivered by JD or any of the other blessed communicators on staff that brings people back week after week.
That and, of course, the body of believers that one is surrounded by at the Summit Church. An amazing, truly amazing, life-filled, extraordinary body of diverse people.
No amount of production or artistic excellence will ever replace these two things.
In Jesus.
TN
I have a friend who is a seminary student and former music major. He recently told me that he was talking to a pastor about this very thing. The pastor actually told him, “I wouldn’t mind if the piano were out of tune, because then people wouldn’t be so ‘distracted’ by the music, but be able to focus more on the words. I’m sorry, but if the piano is out of tune, I’m guessing that I’ll be more focused on how horrible the sound is. But that’s just me.
I’m a visual artist and have always and will struggle continually on how to maintain quality aesthetics with an authentic Christian worldview without making it too ‘kitschy’ or look like it belongs next to a Thomas Kincade painting. I try to create art that ultimately points towards Christ and opens a dialogue between myself and the viewer, between myself and God, and hopefully the viewer, or fellow worshiper, and God. Isn’t that the point?
JD great subject.
I have the privilege of pastoring and very artistic bunch of people we have people that mime, dance, rap, musicians, artist, etc. Our leadership team in intentional about shepherding them to now put the ‘craft before Christ’ and that comes with discipleship.
I think primarily the eldership staff will steer the ship to ensure that the gospel is central and not production, but to negate any form of christocentric artistic expression will hurt the church and the different gifts place in the church. We can’t be so hard against ‘what could happen’ that we strangle the creativity within our churches, I’m pretty sure God knows who will attend our churches as well as the gifts that he has placed in each local body.
I’m for putting more into production to creatively present the gospel while not altering the message at all. While I agree that the Holy Spirit doesn’t need production to work on a persons heart, I believe He can and does work thru the vessels producing and we should encourage that in our people.
I think you guys at The Summit do a great job of this and that you have found and maintained that balance. I’m encouraged and challenged by you guys to engage the culture with relevancy and excellence in preaching and creativity.
Ultimately it’s God who we want people to be impressed by and when our people give Him the glory for their creativity, production and art, those that see it for the first time are left with a the person and work of Christ and production and expression of self.
Grace and Peace,
-Jerome
I read this article first when it was published, and after letting it soak in I found a few things worth mentioning.
I am a believer that comes from a secular music background. In considering “worship-driven” music, I realized that excellence on a local church level is still subject to playing more or less popular worship songs and playing them well. From my point of view, those songs aren’t that artistically valid to begin with. So in a sense, the local church expression of art in music is subject to songs the congregation knows (no matter how cheesy or artistically weak they may be.)
In other disciplines it seems to be the same battle. Walk into a Lifeway Christian Store and what kind of art do you see? The next “Mona Lisa” is nowhere to be found, but we do have nice paintings of sheep and crosses.
Until the local church learns a proper role within culture (yes, artistic culture too), instead of partitioned from culture, the artistic value of local church art is crippled. If a congregation does not communicate with or understand good art, it cannot edify them.
On a practical level, why not take a chance to equip artists from within the church? So many artistic souls are ready to donate their mind to the local church, but find there is simply not an opportunity.
It is helpful to me to recall ages in church history where churches were cultural and artistic hubs in which creative people worked.
And just a note from a secular perspective on excellence, “being in the spirit” while critical to the effectiveness of worship does not change the artistic identity of the musician or artist. So many Christian musicians I know have excellent, Spirit-focused hearts and very poor skills. Just like any discipline, old fashioned practice plays a huge role.
Also, Edwin, I would love to hear a bit about your scriptural basis for art. What passages do you think speak to this?
As an artist and Christian, I have found a lot of biblical support for how Christians could perform in artistic arenas from these (and other) various passages in the Bible:
• verse about the intrinsic goodness of God’s creation: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:31&version=NIV
• passage about the beauty, complexity and specificity of the building and furnishing of Solomon’s temple: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Kings%207&version=NIV
• verses with adjectives describing what to think about/ponder (I think art falls into this category): http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians%204:8-9&version=NIV
Ethan wins: “… the Holy Spirit has the power to overcome any obstacle…and probably works in spite of us more than we realize.”
At the end of the day, the Holy Spirit will bring the dead to life, and awaken our weary souls to the glories of God. Or He won’t.
The most important role any church can play is that of prayer.
There’s nothing wrong with pursuing excellence, but I wonder what the ‘creative strategy meeting’ time to prayer time ratio is in a lot of churches where ‘creativity’ and ‘excellence’ are the big focus.
Also, as a fairly discerning (good way to say it)/critical (bad way to say it) person who has been coming to the Summit for almost a year now, I feel like there is a good balance.
I’m coming into the discussion a little late, but as a jazz musician quite often without even the benefit of lyrics to aid expression in my art, I’ve searched a lot for specific ways the arts can be glorifying to God. And while I can’t say I’ve been shown God’s specific methods of translating art into an appreciation for Himself, if the goal is to be intentional about how we value art as Christians, I read something recently that may be helpful.
One of my favorite books is C.S. Lewis’s “The Great Divorce”. For those who haven’t read it, Lewis tells about human souls visiting Heaven, where they encounter spirits who try to convince them to let go of their biases and “lesser loves” and seek the perfection of God. One such visitor was a famous painter on Earth who, when he encounters the beauties of Heaven, can only say, “I should like to paint this.”
The Heavenly spirit replies, “Why, if you’re interested in the country only for the sake of painting it, you’ll never learn to see the country.”
“But that’s just how a real artist is interested in the country.”
“No, you’re forgetting…that was not how you began. Light itself was your first love: you loved paint only as a means of telling about light.”
I think this is a great observation of how easy it is to get so wrapped up in art for art’s sake that one forgets where beauty comes from. This could be said of any profession or ministry–even the most noble cause ceases to be meaningful if it is only a cause. In the end, every human need we can seek to attend to on Earth will pass away except for the need for God.
Art is like anything else–redeemed when it looks to God, and meaningless when its focus is on anything else. If your skill is music, play your heart out with a prayer that your audience might wonder where the beauty comes from. Beauty has deep truths to say about God that words sometimes can’t.
As far as planning for art’s role in worship, I think Summit utilizes its resources really well. It seems that the church doesn’t make use of music and media as a mandatory or “religious” element of the service, but rather allows those with specific gifts and a love for God express what is in them naturally. Along the lines of what Insider was saying earlier, if no one in a congregation can play instruments or sing, I’m not sure what the value is to anyone to force a praise band project upon them. But if God-loving, talented people are present (which Summit is blessed with in abundance), then by all means let them share what God has given them.
Thanks for a thought-provoking post, JD!
If anyone is interested in plugging in to what some christian artist are doing locally you can check out our Facebook group. “Christian Creatives in the Triangle” please request to join : )