I know this is a drum I beat a lot, and I pray you’re not sick of hearing it, but I feel like I have to express it. I’m doing a series of revival meetings this week and as usual they center around using our gift to spread the Gospel, practicing what I preach by using mine. The church is wonderful, the people are wonderful and I feel the Spirit of God moving as I share from my heart. This is my passion, my calling and I love what I get to do.
The one thing I really want to be sure to express though is I am not trying to make the people I speak to into artists. If they’re already artists and I can inspire them to dedicate that gift to the Lord, great, but I’m not trying to make them artists. Instead I am trying to get them to look at why they have been gifted to do and find a way to use it to serve God. So in a sense, while I am not trying to make them artists, I am asking them to be creative. I believe we a children of the ultimate Creator, we all have creativity and it is imperative that we put that creativity into the hands of God and put it to use. We are on a mission and that mission is urgent.
Here’s why: When I first started as an artist, I would create a work of art, copy it and send it out to 10-100 companies, depending on the creation. I would then run to my mailbox every day to see what would come of my efforts. Usually this would amount to a string of rejection letters. The more letters, the harder it was to start the next project. There was nothing else I could do. Working as an artist, getting my work to the masses depended on my ability to get past the gatekeepers and get a deal and a contract. Most of the time it was really disheartening. I don’t do that anymore.
Now I have the internet. I can have all the distribution I can handle and share my work with the masses. I can have my own publishing company with the largest retailer in the world (and I do). I can create a piece of art and have prints for sale in minutes (I have that). I can design and sell T-shirts with my art on it all over the world (I have that too). I can even have my own broadcast channel (ditto). I even have a communication channel where I can share my thoughts with people all over the world (you’re reading that right now). I can do all of that stuff and I do without ever once facing a gatekeeper to tell me I’m not good enough. Most of it costs me NOTHING but time. It’s amazing but there is a catch. Everyone else can do it to. Where before my message had to compete with hundreds or thousands, now I compete literally with billions for the attentions of an already media saturated world. To make a message stand out in that playing field demands creativity.
Friends, the Gospel is just one of those messages. We know it is the most important message, the greatest story ever told. We know it is anointed by the power of God, it also faces more opposition than most of the messages out there from a power whose sole purpose is to resist the Gospel and the salvation is brings. Church, we are up against tremendous odds, admittedly backed by a greater power, but I believe this is God’s mission for our time. I believe this is why He is raising up creatives in the church to find new and powerful ways to take the unchanging message of the Gospel to an ever changing world. If you are a creative in the church. I believe this is your time, our time.
Creatively taking the message of the Gospel to an ever changing world is our mission.
Do you choose to accept it?
Stay tuned!
AMOKArts 