The Powerful Voice of Art: Saying What Nothing Else Can to Those Who Hear No Other Way

As I've read through the Bible, I'm struck by the vast array of art that is present in it. But, as is often the case, some of the most interesting stuff lies beneath surface. There are the obvious, books like Psalms which are clearly poetic or even literally lyrical in nature, but that's just the beginning. Beyond the other books and passages that contain poetry, references to instrumental, vocal music, and dance are throughout the old and new testaments. Then there are the far less obvious. Read Ezekiel 4. The stuff God directed the prophet Ezekiel to do there was nothing short of a cross between performance art and civil disobedience (not an unfamiliar combination.) In chapter 8 of the Gospel of John, Jesus Himself certainly shows an awareness of the power of visual elements to redirect a conversation when instead of answering a direct question, he kneels down to write in the dirt. The combination of whatever He scratched-out on the ground, the posture that action created, and the words He said clearly silenced the accusers and saved a woman's life!

Both the scriptures and the archeological record make it clear that since man's earliest days, art has been a major voice in our midst. It's also a voice that tends to last and comes to symbolize the people and the time that gave it birth. And it's a voice that's uniquely human.

What is it that gives rise to art wherever human being are present? It's my belief that it is the image our Creator shining through. Creativity is a reflection of how we're made in His image. It allows us to express things that can't be said any other way, or at least offers another voice that reaches people who might not hear.

Here are a few ways I believe art in all forms communicates to those who will listen or observe.

Art offers brings a unique voice to the conversation.
What is it that the poet, the songwriter, the painter, or any other artist has that others don't? Skills in a particular artistic discipline? Perhaps, but it's not the whole story. Almost anyone can learn to paint, play an instrument, or write given the right set of experiences and proper instruction. But even with the right skills, only a portion of these people would become "artists." That's because an artist isn't just someone who has certain skills, they are a person who sees the world differently, and who is able to document that in their chosen medium in such a way that others get a glimpse of it. This is why art can at times be powerfully divisive. It can lead people to see things they otherwise would't, and sometimes that's uncomfortable.

Art gives a voice to what we already know in our hearts.
What we believe, feel, know, and experience is far richer than words can convey. We all know this. Who can't remember a time when they found it impossible to fully express what they were feeling inside? This is so because our inner voice, that which God truly hears, doesn't need words to express what it feels. Nonetheless, to communicate feelings to other people, words are our default medium, despite their limitations. Artistic mediums aren't perfect either, but they give voice to our feelings in a very different way. Physiologically, they address different parts of the brain. In bypassing (or supplementing) language, art moves us in a wholly different ways. In this, it can give voice to to that which others already think or know, but are unable to put into words. As the same art is taken-in by more people, it becomes a collective voice.

Art can be a voice to and from the Holy Spirit.
As asserted earlier, it's our inner voice that the Holy Spirit hears. The Apostle Paul in chapter 8 of his letter to the Roman church discusses how the Holy Spirit comes to our aid by going beyond what we can express in words and interceding on our behalf without words. This is amazing, and it underscores the limitation of human language. But it highlights the ability of our spirits to connect with the Holy Spirit and bypass words to communicate truly heart-to-heart. Did you catch that? That's our hearts, directly communicating with God. Wow! I believe it is from this holy place that truly inspired art comes. In conversation with artists over the years I've often heard the creative process described as feeling more like "dictation" than "creation." That is, that it felt as if the ideas flowed through them, not from them. Having experienced this personally, I agree that it's noticeably different from what we normally experience as creativity. This is inspiration, and I believe it's a different thing all together.

How does this match-up with your experience?

Expanding the Scope of Worship Arts Ministry

As anyone who's subscribed to this blog for long will known, I believe we need to actively and attentively seek to make room for the Holy Spirit to shape the way we plan and conduct worship gatherings. Here's a refresher of some convictions I hold close to my heart:

• Worship should be both a personal and communal expression TO God. (See Framing Our Worship Expression)
• Worship expressions can and should be expected to transcend words alone (See Hearing the Spirit in Worship: Transcending Language and, Beyond Words: The Power of Art to Communicate)
• Communal worship should seek to include as many kinds of artistic expressions as are well represented in the community because each offers a unique voice that Spirit can use (see Where's Michelangelo?)
• That the worship art of a church should largely originate from the local body itself, not simply be licensed from other sources. There is a place for use of art, particularly music, from contemporary and historic Christian culture (e.g., CCLI Top-100 or traditional hymns). But a substantial portion of the worship art of a community should ideally come from the Spirit speaking TO them THROUGH them. (http://blog.realfaitharts.com/2010/09/sing-new-song-lord.html)

To make these kinds of things real means we need to make room for them in our planning. I find it a disturbing reality that this rarely happens. Part of the reason for this is that we need to become comfortable with experimentation, trying things out that may be unfamiliar. Part of it is that it's simply harder work. It also requires that we trust the Spirit and each other more. Pastors and leaders need to trust the artists in their community to be earnest and honest in the pursuit of their work and how it's expressed in public. Artists and congregations need to trust their pastors and leaders to try things that are different, that might not be familiar, and that sometimes might fail. But this is one key way we can allow the Spirit to truly lead us as we mature in our worship expressions. Rather than seeking relevance by using the same "new" material that's being used somewhere else, dare to allow your own community to find it's unique voice. This isn't the easiest road, but it will yield results like no other. But it is a test of your trust the Spirit as you have to embrace the reality that it doesn't all hinges on you. You can't control it completely.

Of course all these things assume a certain level of practical proficiency too. In order to speak, you must develop a vocabulary and know how to structure sentences. In order to write, you must learn alphabets and how to spell, and penmanship (or at least how to type ;). In order to be an artist who can readily respond to the Holy Spirit and faithfully follow the lead, a reasonable command of their discipline is needed. Knowledge of the fundamentals of your craft, be it painting, dance, filmmaking, music, etc. Is an essential element to enabling your work to be useful to others in worship. The better you are, the more useful you can be. Expanding your artistic vocabulary will enable the Spirit to speak through your work with the minimum of friction.

Being a leader in this kind of ministry environment requires that you take ministry to the artists in your community far more seriously than perhaps we often do in practice. If we are to rely on the artistic voices among us to truly help be the Holy Spirit's voice in our communities, we must start to treat them more like ministry partners than simply craftsmen or commodities. Leading, mentoring, and modeling spiritual disciplines that result in spiritual transformation needs to be a top priority — at least equal to things like scheduling rehearsals and work sessions. You'll actually need to know these people and be mindful of their spiritual growth. This is where the rubber meets the road... but I fear it rarely does.

If you're in arts ministry today, in any capacity (pastor, leader, participant, etc.), how does this line-up with your experience today? Does this reflect the way you work today? How do you engage with the artists in your ministries spiritually?

Beyond Words: The Power of Art to Communicate

Words are amazing. Together, they form thoughts and ideas that are made portable, in letters, emails, books, blogs, even text messages. As I write this, my intent is to take these thoughts from my brain and implant them into yours. You get to judge them, try them on, adopt them, or discard them.

Words move ideas from one person's mind to another's, over and over again.

This, of course, assumes that the reader understands words in the same way as the writer. In practice, that's not always the case. So words and sentences are limited in their ability to convey ideas uniformly. Writers don't always perfectly encapsulate their thoughts. Readers may differ from the writer in ways that dramatically effect the meaning they draw from the words. Experience, education, culture, time, place, and countless other variables color what we glean from what we read. Add to this the fact we don't all speak the same languages in the first place, and the idea that the human race can communicate at all becomes all the more amazing.

But words don't tell the whole story.

Those who study these things claim that the majority of human communication is non-verbal. How often have we heard, "it's not what you said, but the way you said it..." And of course we know it's often true. Right? So words are only one tool in our communication arsenal.

These are issues we have communicating with people. But what about how we interact with and relate to God? What modes of communication do we rely on to express our spirituality and connect with our Creator? Even Jesus' closest friends, the disciples, asked him how to pray, and He gave them an example in the Lord's Prayer. In the apostle Paul's letter to the church in Rome he also acknowledges that we don't always have the right words to pour out our heart to God, so the Holy Spirit himself speaks on our behalf in a way that transcends words.

So words are not the whole story in how we communicate with God either.

In a recent Facebook pole posted by YouVersion, most respondents reported that they find worship music to be the easiest spiritual practice to enter into, closely followed by prayer.

While a Facebook pole is certainly of limited statistical value, these results are certainly consistent with the proposition that there are modes of expression other than words alone that can be useful in connecting with God. And why not? Music is mentioned throughout the scripture. Many of the Psalms are actually lyrics for which specific melodies are called for (though those are largely unknown.) Musical expressions are present in virtually every culture known to man, as are many other forms of art.

I'm not afraid to admit it — I cry at movies. But it wasn't until the last few years that I realized it's usually not the story that moves me. It's the soundtrack. Sure, the story plays a role, but I can listen to certain compositions alone that have the same effect. Music moves us in very deep places. It connects meaningfully, and it does so apart from words alone and in unique ways that are all its own. This is surely what drives the movie industry to pay millions of dollars for original scores written to precisely match the narrative of the film. The script and the images may tell a story, but they don't tell it completely. It takes the right soundtrack too. The right music.

I'm a big fan of instrumental music. Composers like Maurice Ravel, John Williams, and Pat Metheny have an uncanny ability to tell stories, spark images, and convey feelings without words, on a canvas of music alone. Many times I hear a certain song, passage, or maybe even just a single chord and I immediately have the sense that what I just heard was "true", and true in precisely the same way as if I'd read an idea that resonated as true. I've had exactly opposite experience as well. I've heard music that is deeply troubling, disconcerting, false. So for me, music can convey meaning. And I know I'm not alone in this, though I recognize that just as we don't all speak the same verbal languages, our ability to understand and speak in "artistic languages" varies as well. Music may not "speak" to you, but a you may see something profound in an impressionistic painting that I might miss entirely. I do believe this sensitivity can grow with exposure and experience. It can be exercised, practiced and developed.

Art is often judged simply simply for is esthetic value, how pleasing it is to see or hear. Perhaps instead we should look for what art speaks, implies, or for what questions it stirs in you. Humans are the only species with a written language and the only one that produces art. These aspects of creativity are surely among the many ways we reflect the image of our Creator. The rich and varied modes of expression we have at our disposal empower us to endless ways of connecting with God and with each other.

What experiences do you have with these concepts? What moves you? If you're an artist, does this resonate with your experience of the creative process?