A Community of Artists

August 13th, 2009 by Ian

What is the value of a Christian arts ministry? Should a church even have one? If so, should it serve those inside or outside the church, or both?

I hope this blog will be a place where we can address some of these questions over the coming months, and where we can continue to think more carefully about the role of the arts in the church.

As a starting point, one of the things I hear again and again from artists in the church is the need for a strong Christian arts community. The general consensus is that it would be a place:

to wrestle through and think about how and where our faith and art intersect
to support one another in our walk with Jesus and in our work as artists
to create art together

In thinking through the what of a Christian arts community, I came across an essay by Tim Keller on art and the glory of God that expands more on the why. He says this:

“The Christian artist needs to interact in community because of what he will bring out in others and what they will bring out of him…We need one another because only together do we get some idea of the multifaceted array of God’s glory.”

If artists, as he argues, stimulate the imagination and show the world that things have meaning, and the meaning of life is ultimately the glory (or significance) of God, then artists point people to God’s glory in their work. And if we all point to various aspects of God’s glory through our different work as artists, then we need to work and interact together to help express God’s glory more fully and to point one another (and the world) to His glory.

If individually we are only able to express a ray of God’s glory, then together we are able to show (and see) a much more vibrant picture of God’s glory.

Makes me want to spend more time in community with fellow artists, together reminding one another of the depth and breadth of God’s glory and expressing that to the world.

Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
– Psalm 96:2-3

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