A Call To All Artists
The other day, myself and some others at the church were having a discussion about the value of art (particularly gallery art). In any prestigious gallery, there are pieces with stunning beauty – beauty that makes you feel something, or evokes a sense of awe in you. And then, there are pieces that will befuddle you. They seem to defy logic – and they evoke confusion more than a sense of awe. Alas, I am naïve. Perhaps I simply just don’t understand the beauty in abstract – but to my eye, the best art grounds me in something that’s real, tangible, and true.
It’s often said that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” As evidenced above by my own personal tastes and experiences, there’s certainly truth in this. Thus, when it comes to making art for the Lord – which I believe is an act of worship in itself – our goal is to make art that befits the eye of its beholder. While God can certainly be glorified in the abstract, I believe we see in the Scriptures that He receives the most glory when the things we offer Him are soaked in truth. This is a big part of the reason that we sing songs every week that speak of the attributes we know to be true about God. It’s the reason that throughout our church building, artistic depictions of scripture can be found on almost every wall (and even inside the walls!). It’s the reason that we use the medium of beautiful captured video to tell testimonies about how God has impacted the lives of His people. These are things that we place great value in because they are all clearly aimed at the things that befit the eye of the One beholding them – mainly, they amplify the glory of God.
As we know – there’s no “one” form of worship that pleases God’s heart over another. Worship is an offering that displays the worth of God – that puts His value on display. One of the really cool roles that I get to take charge of at our church is to help get artists together to display the supreme worth of God. I mainly do this through the medium that God has gifted me in – music. But I know there are many artists in our congregation with various gifts, talents, and abilities. To name a few: there are videographers and photographers, poets and authors, visual artists and graphic designers, musicians, and other performing artists.
If you express worship to the Lord through the medium of art, in any form, I would LOVE to hear from you for two reasons.
1.) I would love to help connect you to other artists within our church body.
2.) I would love to help curate some artistic projects that edify our church body.
There are a couple such projects in the works already – such as a film team who is helping to capture video testimonies, along with filming big events that happen at EBC. Recently, some new artwork has been put up in the foyer that was created by EBC church members (seriously, check these out this weekend!). There’s also an effort to start a poetry collection written by members of EBC to be shared with the church body, and at times, used during our corporate gatherings.
I love the diversity of gifts within our church body – and I love that art is a medium by which we can express the things we know to be true about God in a way that links our head and our heart. One of my goals is to help us put on display the worth of God from the various members He’s given to this body.
If anything I’ve said here resonates with you, or you’re curious about how your artistic expression of worship could be used for the edification of the whole church body, please reach out to me at raufenkamp@evergreenbible.com and I’d love to chat with you more.
In His Mercy,
Pastor Ryan
PS – Because a couple of people have asked, here is a link to the poem I shared a couple of weeks ago during the song “Holy Holy Holy.” It was a poem that I wrote in response to that song – particularly focused on how we relate to the attributes of God’s Holiness, Goodness, and Mercy.
Categories: Evergreen Connection