An Open Letter to Christian Creatives (Collide Magazine)

I found this article/letter online and would to share it with the world, and the closest thing I got to a world-wide publication is this humble blog available to everyone to read as they please. :)

An Open Letter to Christian Creatives
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about creatives who exist in the church—people who create their church’s videos, design and maintain their church’s websites, lighting and stage directors and artists, and musicians. There are so many things I want to say to you, but haven’t.

Until now.

I guess I want to make this simple statement first and foremost: After watching people like you for years and years, I want you to know that the stuff you create doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. After years of experience, I’ve come to the conclusion that the artistic designs you engage in may only marginally impact someone’s life. I know that’s a very blunt statement, but someone needs to say what everyone else is already thinking.

I wonder if it all starts at the top of the food chain? I wonder if the lead pastor and executive staff team have sold creatives (like us) a bogus bill of goods? They’ve told us that the stuff we create every week has the potential to change lives. But just be honest for a minute. Can you actually name someone whose life has been changed as a result of your craft? I doubt it.

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You awake in the middle of the night with creative ideas, mixed with the stress of deadlines you can’t possibly meet. You’ve ignored, or even dropped the most important relationships in your life. You stay late at the church office, and no one knows, or even really cares. And all for what? All to create and maintain art in the desperate hope that someone’s life will be impacted?

Really?

And what about this obsession with beauty? You uphold beauty like it’s the gateway to God Himself. God only communicates His presence through His written Word. He has chosen never to communicate through any other means - His Word even says so. Again, my greatest fear is that you’ve been sold a bill of goods that simply doesn’t produce over the long term.

And so here’s what I really want you to hear and meditate on: Easter is coming. It’s the biggest day of the church year. Over the next few days, your schedule will be taken with creative meetings that you don’t want to be a part of; with pastoral conflict at the highest levels; and with late nights away from the people you love. You are preparing for something that will come and go in a heartbeat. By the time you’re Easter services are over, most of the people will be at brunch, arguing about the choice of music, or the pastor’s sermon.

And I’ve just gotta ask this most obvious question: Why labor in vain?

Wouldn’t you be a better steward of your church’s financial resources if you didn’t put as much time and effort into one weekend? There’s a time to know when “good enough” is “good enough,” and it might be a good time for you to back off of any unrealistic expectations you have of creative beauty, and to simply declare “good enough.”

Will this Easter change lives? Probably. But do you need to take any of the responsibility for setting up an environment for that to occur? In my experience, the answer is a resounding “no.” Let God be God. He will do whatever He wants.

I openly invite this conversation to continue.







Yours truly.

Satan

The link to this article and many others are found at Collide Magazine