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Restoring the relationship between faith and art.

When people describe the Church, "creative" probably isn't the first word that comes to mind. This sad truth isn't the result of a lack of creative Christians, but rather, Christians who don't know what to do with their creativity.

Many believers struggle to balance their art and their faith. Some think that to be a truly successful poet, painter, musician or producer, their work must be held separate from their faith. Others may believe unless their song, design, book or film is not littered with overt spirituality, it cannot glorify God. Either way, their art suffers. Is there a third way—a place for Christian artists to embrace all of their callings without sacrificing their creative integrity or their heart for the Kingdom?

RELEVANT recently caught up with a few individuals who are asking this important question. Their artistic endeavors are varied—abstract paintings, documentaries, worship experiences, musical communities—but together they are seeing the rebirth of a creativity that is neither held back nor excluded by the four walls of the Church. Below are some of their thoughts on faith, success and why Christians artists don't have to be bound by labels.

Why creating is like faith:

Linnea Gabriella Spransy

“The way life behaves and the way plants grow are incredibly interesting to me. The ways human beings behave and the possibility of healing is also inspiring to me. I am continually staggered by the ingenuity of God in the world around us. We have so much to draw on. ... The true artist displays to the world a manifestation of the inner meditations of their heart and mind. Being an artist is, in and of itself, an incredible parable for having faith. You’re in this position where you have to step into the unknown without hesitancy, with all of your resources and with every intention of seeing it through, and you know it may be disastrous. ... Community puts us in a place where we can’t hide our worst and our best, and so there’s incredible opportunity for discipleship. In community that is caring and healthy, an artist brings not only beauty and inspiration but also powerful observational skills and spiritual awareness. We can become a source of joy, blessing and the voice of God in other peoples’ lives.”

Linnea Gabriella Spransy is an award-winning painter and leader of the artist community at the Boiler Room. She has her M.F.A. from Yale and has had exhibitions from Brooklyn to China. You can see some of her work at her site: linneagabrilla.com

How the Church can benefit from creativity:

Whitney George

“A friend of mine, Marty Taylor, says it best. He says, 'Before God created man, He created a beautiful environment for man to worship in.' The way he approaches it, and the way I approach it would be the same way: Large-scale production can create a beautiful environment for people to worship in. Do I think it's absolutely necessary? No, I don't think we have to have it in every case. Production and art can have profound impact in a lot of things. ... I think art can connect on a lot of different levels. The difference between a lot of Dreamworks animated films and Pixar animated films. The Dreamworks films are smaller, less budget—honestly, just less art; I think most of them are terrible, I really don't like watching them. But Pixar puts all this extra money into making each film, all the extra effort, and when there's heart and soul behind it? It works. My opinion is that when there's real heart and soul and it really is good art, it can connect whether it's big or small. I completely recognize that there are cities that wouldn't handle what we're doing, but where we're at it's working. It's similar to Pixar: They say that they make movies that they love, I make services that I would want to go to.”

Whitney George is the creative director of Church on the Move in Tulsa, Okla.

Why success as an artist doesn’t always look like you think it does:

Chad Johnson

“The focus is asking how we can connect the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people in the world who have been burned by the Church or burned by their Christian experience or burned in some way. What's the smallest way of us going: 'We want to treat you with so much honor. We want to treat you with so much respect and so much love'? It's an opportunity to remind somebody they are loved by God, and that's a whole lot harder to communicate via a website or anything else. Really, the thought behind it is there are people in the world who need to know God paid such a dear price for them, and how do we communicate that? How do you really raise up a follower of Jesus in an artist? There's so much distraction, and the world speaks so loudly to artists. Our challenge is just, don't worry about the business component—worry first about the Kingdom. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Chad Johnson is the founder of Come&Live!, a nonprofit mission organization that joins hands with artists and “musicianaries” to provide guidance, direction and accountability.

Why a Christian artist doesn’t have to make “Christian art”:

Nathan Clarke

“I did five years of campus ministry, and when I was leaving I had the opportunity to take a [video editing] job. I really liked it because I could engage with ideas, engage with stories, but in a way that allowed me to work really closely to a story, or a topic, or a person, or a profile and then leave it and move onto the next thing. ... I have no fear of judgment by my Christian peers. I actually feel more fear about judgment from the secular that this is just another piece of Christian propaganda. Ultimately, I wanted to create a piece of art that would be taken at face value, that would be judged because it's a piece of art, not because a Christian created it or didn't create it. I believe God has made us to create things—that's what I want to do. I just want to create something that causes people to stop, to think and maybe to consider their life a little more deeply. If I've done that, I'm pretty excited.”

Nathan Clarke is the founder of Fourth Line Films and the director of the award-winning documentary Wrestling for Jesus.

When art gets in the way of the story:

Blaine Hogan

“There's some really phenomenal mediums that may appear to be very entertainment-based. But the question I have to ask is, 'Did the medium serve the content?' I think what starts to happen is that once we get into these realms of needing 3D in our churches or holograms in our churches, people aren't asking why except for the sake of relevancy. It happens when we don't think of the story before we figure out how we're going to tell it. My goal is to tell the most incredible story ever. We don't start with a turntable and projection and say, 'OK, now we have these things, what are we going to tell?' I think that is the biggest thing that gets in the way. You can use whatever you want to use, as long as you have a really great story that you want to tell first. I think what ends up happening is that the medium trumps the message because we want to be relevant, we want to be cool, we want to fit in. I just don't care about that stuff. We've got the greatest story ever told; we just don't tell it that well usually.”

Blaine Hogan is a former actor and the current creative director at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago

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At the risk of not showing honor to peers in ministry, I want to tackle the topic of honor today. I’m concerned. I see a trend in churches that I think is unhealthy. Honestly, I believe it’s also unbiblical.

There are a number of churches today that are trying to teach a culture of honor. The concept of honor is biblical. In fact, Romans 12:10 tells us to:

“Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” (ESV)

We should show honor to our leaders, but God designed it to go both directions. If it’s one-way, it’s unhealthy and unbiblical.

Let me explain further how God designed honor to work in church leadership. First of all, we are supposed to submit to our leaders. Hebrews 13:17 says:

“Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

One of the ways we show honor to our leaders is by submitting to their authority. At the same time, though, leaders are instructed to show honor by serving those they lead:

“But Jesus called them to him and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’”

That’s the servant leadership that seems to be missing when the “culture of honor” is carried out to the extreme. Servant leadership only goes one direction. When that happens, honor only goes one direction.

Honor is supposed to go both ways. That’s not what I’m seeing in churches today. Some churches are trying to create a culture where all the underlings are supposed to honor their senior pastor by serving his every need, by guarding him from the congregation and by always saying “yes sir” to every request among other things. Being armor-bearers to each other is one thing, when it creeps into making the pastor the “king” it’s a completely different deal.

My fear is that this “culture of honor” trend plays right into the sin of pride. Unchecked, pastors can quickly get to a very unhealthy place for themselves, their ministry and their marriages. God did not design the pastor to be the rock star. God charged pastors to equip God’s people to do the work of God. When an unhealthy “culture of honor” is promoted, God’s people wait for “God’s man” to do the work of God. That may work for someone who only intends to be a preacher, but it doesn’t work if you are trying to be a pastor.

Here’s some wisdom that may help you begin taking steps in the right direction:

“The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor.” (Proverbs 15:33, ESV)

If you want to receive honor, you have to give honor. If you want to experience honor, you have to embrace humility. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Rather than expecting your church to show you honor, maybe your focus should be on serving your church.

I’m thankful for leaders in my life who have modeled a healthy approach to servant leadership. I’m learning daily what it means to be a servant leader.

Curious to learn more about my theology of leadership? Download my new eBook for free.

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Over the course of our ministry, the most common pastoral issue that Tim and I have confronted is probably marriages---either actual or proposed---between Christians and non-Christians. I have often thought how much simpler it would be if I could remove myself from the conversation and invite those already married to unbelievers do the talking to singles who are desperately trying to find a loophole that would allow them to marry someone who does not share their faith.

That way, I could skip all the Bible passages that urge singles only to "marry in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 7:39) and not "be unequally yoked" (2 Corinthians 6:14) and the Old Testament proscriptions against marrying the foreigner, a worshiper of a god other than the God of Israel (see Numbers 12 where Moses marries a woman of another race but the same faith). You can find those passages in abundance, but when someone has already allowed his or her heart to become engaged with a person outside the faith, I find that the Bible has already been devalued as the non-negotiable rule of faith and practice.

Instead, variants of the serpent's question to Eve---"Did God really say?" are floated, as if somehow this case might be eligible for an exemption, considering how much they love each other, how the unbeliever supports and understands the Christian's faith, how they are soul-mates despite the absence of a shared soul-faith.

Having grown weary and impatient, I want to snap and say, "It won't work, not in the long run. Marriage is hard enough when you have two believers who are completely in harmony spiritually. Just spare yourself the heartache and get over it." Yet such harshness is neither in line with the gentleness of Christ, nor convincing.

Sadder and Wiser

If only I could pair those sadder and wiser women---and men---who have found themselves in unequal marriages (either by their own foolishness or due to one person finding Christ after the marriage had already occurred) with the blithely optimistic singles who are convinced that their passion and commitment will overcome all obstacles. Even the obstacle of bald disobedience need not apply to them. Only ten minutes of conversation---one minute if the person is really succinct--would be necessary. In the words of one woman who was married to a perfectly nice man who did not share her faith: "If you think you are lonely before you get married, it's nothing compared to how lonely you can be AFTER you are married!"

Really, this might be the only effective pastoral approach: to find a man or woman who is willing to talk honestly about the difficulties of the situation and invite them into a counseling ministry with the about-to-make-a-big-mistake unequal couple. As an alternative, perhaps some creative filmmaker would be willing to run around the country, filming individuals who are living with the pain of being married to an unbeliever, and create a montage of 40 or 50 short (< 5 minutes) first-hand accounts. The collective weight of their stories would be powerful in a way that no second-hand lecture ever would be.

Three True Outcomes

For the moment, though, here goes: There are only three ways an unequal marriage can turn out, (and by unequal I am willing to stretch a point and include genuine, warm Christians who want to marry an in-name-only Christian, or someone very, very far behind them in Christian experience and growth):

1. In order to be more in sync with your spouse, the Christian will have to push Christ to the margins of his or her life. This may not involve actually repudiating the faith, but in matters such as devotional life, hospitality to believers (small group meetings, emergency hosting of people in need), missionary support, tithing, raising children in the faith, fellowship with other believers---those things will have to be minimized or avoided in order to preserve peace in the home.
2. Alternatively, if the believer in the marriage holds on to a robust Christian life and practice, the non-believing PARTNER will have to be marginalized. If he or she can't understand the point of Bible study and prayer, or missions trips, or hospitality, then he or she can't or won't participate alongside the believing spouse in those activities. The deep unity and oneness of a marriage cannot flourish when one partner cannot fully participate in the other person's most important commitments.
3. So either the marriage experiences stress and breaks up; or it experiences stress and stays together, achieving some kind of truce that involves one spouse or the other capitulating in some areas, but which leaves both parties feeling lonely and unhappy.

Does this sound like the kind of marriage you want? One that strangles your growth in Christ or strangles your growth as a couple, or does both? Think back to that off-cited passage in 2 Corinthians 6:14 about being "unequally yoked." Most of us no longer live in an agrarian culture, but try to visualize what would happen if a farmer yoked together, say, an ox and a donkey. The heavy wooden yoke, designed to harness the strength of the team, would be askew, as the animals are of different heights, weights, walk at different speeds and with different gaits. The yoke, instead of harnessing the power of the team to complete the task, would rub and chafe BOTH animals, since the load would be distributed unequally. An unequal marriage is not just unwise for the Christian, it is also unfair to the non-Christian, and will end up being a trial for them both.

Our Experience

Full disclosure: One of our sons began spending time a few years back with a secular woman from a Jewish background. He heard us talk about the sorrows (and disobedience) of being married to a non-Christian for years, so he knew it wasn't an option (something we reminded him of quite forcefully). Nevertheless, their friendship grew and developed into something more. To his credit, our son told her: "I can't marry you unless you are a Christian, and you can't become a Christian just to marry me. I'll sit with you in church, but if you are serious about exploring Christianity you will have to do it on your own---find your own small group, read books, talk to people other than me."

Fortunately, she is a woman of great integrity and grit, and she set herself to looking into the truth claims of the Bible. As she grew closer to saving faith, to our surprise our son began growing in his faith in order to keep up with her! She said to me one day, "You know, your son should never have been seeing me!"

She did come to faith, and he held the water when she was baptized. The next week he proposed, and they have been married for two and a half years, both growing, both struggling, both repenting. We love them both and are so grateful that she is both in our family and also in the body of Christ.

I only mention the above personal history because so many of our friends in the ministry have seen different outcomes---children who marry outside the faith. The takeaway lesson for me is that even in pastoral homes, where the things of God are taught and discussed, and where children have a pretty good window on seeing their parents counsel broken marriages, believing children toy with relationships that grow deeper than they expect, ending in marriages that don't always have happy endings. If this is true in the families of Christian leaders, what of the flock?

We need to hear the voices of men and women who are in unequal marriages and know to their sorrow why it is not merely a disobedient choice, but an unwise one.

"Why do bad things happen to good people? It only happened once, and He volunteered!" R.C. Sproul

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1. Find a road that leads to Jesus.

In the course of conversation, be thinking of how Jesus intersects with the discussion, because Jesus intersects and touches everything in our culture: sports, music, art, politics. Look for bridges to introduce Jesus into the conversation. It should be just as casually or passionately as you talk about everything else.

2. Donʼt be weird and awkward.

“So...now, Iʼd like to talk with you about Jesus.” If all of a sudden you put on your "Jesus" hat and you are talking to them like a project and not a friend, then you're entering awkward territory. Now, there will be times it becomes awkward because talking about Jesus and sin can be that way, but don't let it be because you are socially weird.

3. Be winsome.

Included in that word is the word “win.” Be “winning” friends and the conversation by being engaging, friendly, and kind. For more on being winsome, check out Soul Winner by Charles Spurgeon.

4. Counter stereotypes and caricatures of Christians.

Many urban, secular folks have a particular caricature of a Christian, which is not very flattering (judgmental, harsh, the “morality police”), although many don’t personally have any Christian friends. Be gracious and talk with them, serve them, and love them.

5. Host an open house.

When my wife and I moved into a new apartment building we hosted an open house for the whole building and went over the top with really good food and wine. Dozens of our neighbors came out and it was the foundation for future gospel-centered conversations.

6. Be honest about your struggles and failings.

We all fall short. We all struggle and fail. The credit has to be given to Jesus in your life. Many non-Christians donʼt want to talk with Christians as they will feel guilty regarding their own problems.

7. Actions also communicate.

Serve your neighbors. Serve your neighborhood. Look for opportunities without being an attention-getter. Your neighbors are watching you and just as James said, faith without works is dead.

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Have you ever sat down and read some of the creeds of the Christian faith? I’ve recently been looking at the Apostles’ Creed, one of the oldest that has been preserved for us. It’s amazing to how the early church distilled the essentials of Christian doctrine: An early formulation (although without explicit explanation) of the doctrine of the Trinity (“I believe in God the Father . . . and in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son . . . I believe in the Holy Ghost”). The distinction of the creator from His creation (“Maker of heaven and earth”). Jesus’ virgin birth, crucifixion and resurrection on the third day.

And in the middle of it, there’s this odd line:

“He descended into hell.”

Not too long ago, the question of what this means came up when we were visiting some old friends for dinner. They attend a church that recites the creed as part of its liturgy and our friend found he couldn’t recite this portion. The idea of Jesus going to Hell didn’t make sense and he wondered if I could explain. So I started to see what I could find out. While researching, I turned to J.I. Packer’s little book, Affirming the Apostles’ Creed and found an interesting explanation. What Packer asserts is that the part of the problem—aside from the creedal statement being based on an extremely difficult verse to interpret (1 Pet. 3:18-20)—is a translation issue. Here’s what Packer writes:

The English is misleading, for “hell” has changed its sense since the English form of the Creed was fixed. Originally “hell” meant the place of the departed as such, corresponding to the Greek Hades and the Hebrew Sheol. That is what it means here, where the Creed echoes Peter’s statement that Psalm 16:10, “thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades” (so RSV: av has “hell”), was a prophecy fulfilled when Jesus rose (see Acts 2:27-31). But since the seventeenth century “hell” has been used to signify only the state of final retribution for the godless, for which the New Testament name is Gehenna. What the Creed means, however, is that Jesus entered, not Gehenna, but Hades—that is, that he really died, and that it was from a genuine death, not a simulated one, that he rose.

In other words, while one must be careful to avoid speculation on the precise meaning of a difficult text, what this could mean is that the creed is saying that Jesus really died—He didn’t fake it as some suggest (such as proponents of the swoon theory—that he merely passed out on the cross and people thought he was dead; incidentally, here’s a great clip of Matt Chandler’s reaction to that theory). But all speculation aside, here’s why Packer suggests this line of the creed matters so much:

What makes Jesus’ entry into Hades important for us is not, however, any of this, but simply the fact that now we can face death knowing that when it comes we shall not find ourselves alone. He has been there before us, and he will see us through.

Because Jesus has conquered death, it no longer has power over us. Christ’s victory is complete and we need not fear. ”He has been there before us, and he will see us through.”

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And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel. (Rev. 7:4)

Many sincere Bible-believing Christians would understand the 144,000 like this: The church is raptured prior to the great tribulation. During the time when the church is gone, a remnant of 144,000 ethnic Jews is converted (12,000 from each tribe). These Jewish converts, in turn, evangelize the Gentiles who make up the great multitude in white robes in v. 9. That’s one understanding of Revelation 7.  A lot of godly people hold that understanding. Let me explain why I understand the 144,000 differently.

The 144,000 are not an ethnic Jewish remnant, and certainly not an Anointed Class of saints who became Jehovah’s Witnesses before 1935. The 144,000 represent the entire community of the redeemed. Let me give you several reasons for making this claim.

First, in chapter 13 we read that Satan seals all of his followers, so it makes sense that God would seal all of his people, not just the Jewish ones.

Second, the image of sealing comes from Ezekiel 9 where the seal on the forehead marks out two groups of people: idolaters and non-idolaters. It would seem that the sealing of the 144,000 makes a similar distinction based on who worships God not who among the Jewish remnant worships God.

Third, the 144,000 are called the servants of our God (Rev. 7:3). There is no reason to make the 144,000 any more restricted than that. If you are a servant of the living God, you are one of the 144,000 mentioned here. In Revelation, the phrase “servants of God” always refers to all of God’s redeemed people, not just an ethnic Jewish remnant (see 1:1; 2:20; 19:2; 19:5; 22:3).

Fourth, the 144,000 mentioned later in chapter 14 are those who have been “redeemed from the earth” and those who were “purchased from among men.” This is generic everybody kind of language. The 144,000 is a symbolic number of redeemed drawn from all peoples, not simply the Jews. Besides, if the number is not symbolic then what do we do with Revelation 14:4 which describes the 144,000 as those “who have not defiled themselves with women”? Are we to think that the 144,000 refers to a chosen group of celibate Jewish men? It makes more sense to realize that 144,000 is a symbolic number that is described as celibate men to highlight the group’s moral purity and set-apartness for spiritual battle.

Fifth, the last reason for thinking that the 144,000 is the entire community of the redeemed is because of the highly stylized list of tribes in verses 5-8. The number itself is stylized. It’s not to be taken literally. It’s 12 x 12 x 1000—12 being the number of completion for God’s people (representing the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles of the Lamb) and 1000 being a generic number suggesting a great multitude. So 144,000 is a way of saying all of God’s people under the old and new covenant.

And then look at the list of the tribes. There are over a dozen different arrangements of the twelve tribes in the Bible. This one is unique among all of those. Judah is listed first because Jesus was from there as a lion of the tribe of Judah. All twelve of Jacob’s sons are listed—including Levi who usually wasn’t because he didn’t inherit any land-except for one. Manasseh, Joseph’s son (Jacob’s grandson), is listed in place of Dan. So why not Dan? Dan was left out in order to point to the purity of the redeemed church. From early in Israel’s history, Dan was the center of idolatry for the kingdom (Judges 18:30-31). During the days of the divided kingdom, Dan was one of two centers for idolatry (1 Kings 12:28-30). And there is recorded in some non-Biblical Jewish writings that the Jews thought the anti-Christ would come out of Dan based on Genesis 49:17. The bottom line is that the number and the list and the order of the tribes are all stylized to depict the totality of God’s pure and perfectly redeemed servants from all time over all the earth. That’s what Revelation means by the 144,000.

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"Church planting is the most effective form of evangelism under heaven," said C.Peter Wagner. I know he said that. I was there. I was a young [and good looking] Seminary student sitting in his classroom when he said it.

It was a welcomed idea, proven scientifically more effective than trying to expand older church structures. Back then, there was little argument against it and the idea was embraced by mission societies and church denominations who played it out in their strategies all through the 90's and also during the noughties when the thinking became mainstream rather than rebellious. I was part of that movement the whole time.

But now it's 2012 and while some young, enthusiastic people are out there planting churches like its 1997, others are focusing on launching more sustainable, more holistic, more measurably transformational Kingdom solutions.

One of the biggest trends in church planting that I observed in my recent 30+ country trek is the SHIFT AWAY FROM planting churches towards NOT planting a church at all but focusing on a wider range of transforming Kingdom activities. Some church planters are delaying the worship service piece of the pioneer missional ministry for as long as possible and sometimes indefinitely.

Andrew Jones (better known as Tall Skinny Kiwi) is an itinerant social entrepreneur and father of five kids who loves to blog. Read more on his site.