For the Artists...
The launch of a new thing...
Sometime ago, I blogged about the notion of a ministry not made of artists working for the church, but a directed attempt to serve the artists in their work. In other words, how can the church help empower the artists and creatives to do the work God has placed in them to do? Callings and vocations and "God told me to do this or that" can be difficult to discern, hard to talk about, and flat deceptive if we're not rigorous in our listening, honest in our hearts (as well as our language). Anyway, it is in my heart, as it has been for years, to begin to pursue this very thing.
The launch of a small effort to be intentional about helping artists looks like this: it starts in prayer, and I need people to pray. I am looking for a team of people who will be willing to pray both generally for the artists in their lives, as well as specifically for the work of one or two artists, as part of the strategy will be to have certain kinds of pairings between artists and people willing to pray directly for them.
Nothing too fancy about this at first, nothing more than a direct interest not only in the "spiritual" life of an artist, but an interest in their lives as artists. Their work, their difficulties, their aquisition of craft, their blocks, their victories (large and small), the mustering of the daily courage to work.
What are the artists in your life working on? How's it going for them? Who cares? What difference will their work make? What does God care, as long as it's moral? What impact is it having on their families? Their finances? What are their dreams? Why do they have those dreams and not others? What is the desire for fame doing to them? What is the rejection they feel regularly doing to them? Do they have a community of like minded people who help them? Do they still get joy from the work? Do they have a place for their work to land? Are they being heard? What inspires them? Does anybody in the church care what inspires them? What is the work for? Again, who cares?
Beauty is part of the paradigm. It didn't have to be. It's a gift, that far too easily used word. But what other word is there besides "gift"? We didn't make up the thought...Beauty belongs to God.
Do we not believe that to pray for those instinctively bent toward making beauty is to pray more Beauty into the world?
Don't begrudge the world the Beauty that will flow from these hands you pray for...
9:51:55 AM
