Multi-media
I am catching up on questions today. Here is one of them that I pasted into my new book on Wabi Sabi Multi-media: Multi ways to abuse your artists.
I have also seen another evil under the sun. The abuse of artists and creatives for the sake of building a cool worship service. Creatives are used like outboard motors - we strap them on to the stage to drive the service in a funkier, more artistic manner, providing a show that we think will attract creative, post-modern people. But those people notice how the artists are made servants to the preacher, their art subject to the sermon, in a form of ecclesiastical colonialism, and they don't come back. The artists themselves also leave, feeling used and bearing scars.
Ask not what your artists can do for your service, but what you can do for your artists.
Maybe helping your artists set up their own exhibition/clubspace/fill-in-the-blank and inviting their friends will be of greater consequence for the Kingdom than squeezing their art in between the sermon and the offering.
I have also seen another evil under the sun. The abuse of artists and creatives for the sake of building a cool worship service. Creatives are used like outboard motors - we strap them on to the stage to drive the service in a funkier, more artistic manner, providing a show that we think will attract creative, post-modern people. But those people notice how the artists are made servants to the preacher, their art subject to the sermon, in a form of ecclesiastical colonialism, and they don't come back. The artists themselves also leave, feeling used and bearing scars.
Ask not what your artists can do for your service, but what you can do for your artists.
Maybe helping your artists set up their own exhibition/clubspace/fill-in-the-blank and inviting their friends will be of greater consequence for the Kingdom than squeezing their art in between the sermon and the offering.
