This week I received a box from my father with a variety of items I purchased and had sent home. My father is great at getting me the things that I get sent back home, Thanks Dad! But anyway, I had bought some resources from a Christian organization for use here in Prague. I was looking forward to seeing the products, as I have used similar resources in the past with satisfaction. (NOTE: I am purposely keeping the resources and the organization/company anonymous.) When I had opened the box and removed some football stuff, workout stuff, mail and etc. I grabbed what I was looking forward to use and upon checking it out disappointment and discouragement filled my heart a bit.
“Why?”, you ask.
The reason why is simple – conveying information for the sake of conveying information. All too often, I see Christians (including me at times) fall subject to this epidemic of mediocrity.
So I want to issues a challenge of sorts,
Dear Bride of Christ (the Church), including pastors, lay leaders, Christian organizations, Christian artists, Christian thinkers, and Christians at large please, please don’t fall to this epidemic of mediocrity and miss the point. Our God is the greatest Creator of all time! He is more amazing, more creative, more awe-inspiring than Masaccio, Donatello, Brunelleschi, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Titian, Tintoretto, Bellini, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Ghiberti, Giotto, and Raphael all put together. He is the Creator God. He is the one who fashions us as a potter fashions a pot. He is the brilliance beyond any artistic brilliance we see, because after all each and every human being, whether believer or not, is still created in the image of the Creator and thus have an amazing potential to create beauty! Please dear Christian, have a big view of God that inspires you to go beyond mediocrity! Beyond merely conveying information! Don’t settle. Use your God-given potential and ability to rise above the mundane! I can’t imagine what would stir in the hearts of sincere skeptics if we rose above this epidemic! I think we would be following in the steps of the Master Artist Jesus!
Okay, I going to get off my soapbox, known as the blog world, now. I just have been fired up all week about this and to be honest, saddened as well. A dear Creative Christian friend, Mike Gorter, sent me an email some time ago with some great thoughts in this very same vein over at the Mosaic Alliance, here are the links; Observe 1: Secrets of the Heart; Observe 2: The Conversation; Observe 3: Our Dad vs. our Dad’s; Observe 4: Beyond Words; and Observe 5: Everybody’s Doing It. My favorite entries and sections came from 4 & 5, here is one great section from Observe 4:
I have that approach with the art I create for Mosaic, minus the interest rates. There’s an aspect of spiritual art where we feel we have to understand and explain everything or else no one will get it. Most fliers I see, especially for churches, are plastered with INFO, INFO, INFO, INFO. The film industry for years, however, has been getting people’s attention and drawing them into the beauty of their films with some of the most intriguing and eye-opening posters where the words and information are the smallest things on the page.
How about you? What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Do have any other links we could add to this list? Or books for that matter? Sound off…