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 C'mon Church, Take a Risk on Artists!Ministry requires a brave heart and attitude.
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So, how do you attract artists? How do we create church cultures that are attractive to these people who are able to create and facilitate these spiritual experiences? Artists Need a Risk-Taking EnvironmentArt by its very nature is about risk-taking. Art is the risk of expressing in song, dance or on canvass what you feel in your heart or hear in your head. And much of the church is still afraid of the risk that comes with the arts. So, we relegate the arts to certain seasons like Easter and Christmas. We curtail their creativity by making sure they deal with only certain stories (again Easter and Christmas). Or we tolerate it from our children or even our teens. Why? Because arts and artists are too risky! What if we make a mistake? What if we cross over the line? For the last several years at Community Christian Church we have made a shift to what we call, "experiential worship". Experiential worship is not letting emotions determine truth, but it is allowing people to come to an understanding and an experience of truth through both their head and their heart. Experiential worship is created and facilitated by artists. Experiential Worship Example #1: One weekend our topic came from the Ten Commandments, "Thou Shall Not Kill." Our artists made the entire service a full-on murder mystery. They had different participants on stage become suspects for a staged murder. The audience had to pay close attention during the service for clues and then vote who did it at the end. Each suspect had different motives, like speaking really cruelly to the victim, or telling someone else they wish the victim was dead. That whole experience made an excellent set-up for the teaching time on how we can kill with our words and attitudes. Experiential Worship Example #2: Our artists created a Celtic worship time, complete with giant drums, violin, Irish flute and Irish dancers. We celebrated through this inspiring sequence of music, singing, hand-clapping and finally dancing. After a long period of applause, we returned to finish with the song "We Will Dance," emphasizing "from every tongue, and tribe and nation, we will join in the song of the Lamb." The whole sequence was based upon what worship will be like in heaven. It was a risk … but it turned out awesome! Not all of our worship experiences go that well. There was the one time we had a fire on the stage and it got so out of control that all the smoke nearly suffocated everyone. We have had people leave early and wonder "what in the world was that?" So, yes we have made mistakes and yes we have crossed over the line. Following Jesus is more about taking risks to reach the lost than it is about never making a mistake. These spiritual experiences would never have occurred without artists using their gifts or without an environment that says we are willing to take risks. |             |
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