This week on social media, a friend posted a great quote:
“The true purpose of arts education is not necessarily to create more professional dancers or artists. [It’s] to create more complete human beings who are critical thinkers, who have curious minds, who can lead productive lives.’ Kelly Pollock
While I agree with everything written here, I wish more had been said. I used to work for an arts education organization and there was one thing that bothered me. It seemed there was an unwritten pressure from schools to prove that studying the arts would make students better at things deemed “more important,” like math. What a shame! You see, I believe the arts bring beauty and meaning to our world. Further, it is in creating that human beings manifest part of the image of God we are here to bear. The arts also help us to express the complex things that are going on inside us and helps us to get those things out. My friends who teach in the arts, are not just making kids good at math, they are making the world a better, more beautiful place by virtue of teaching kids to make art. The arts for art’s sake do a lot of good in our world and they should not be reduced in importance to how good they make us at other things.
As I was thinking about this, though, I hit a struggle. You see, I use art in my ministry and if you asked me, I would freely tell you that the arts are a tool I use to communicate the Gospel. Is that really any different from what others might say about the arts? I’ve decided it is and to really help you understand, I’m going to tell you a story.
Once when my son Chris was little, we had a family birthday party for him. Someone in our family got him one of those toys that requires a lot of batteries. This relative decided to have mercy on my son and us, and also bought him the king sized pack of batteries and they gift wrapped them as well. Normally we would give the gift first, and then the batteries, but somehow the packages got shifted and he opened the batteries first. He was such a kind and grateful child, that upon seeing what was in the package, he said with all the glee a small child can muster, “BATTERIEEEEEES!” I was so happy to see him react in such a way. To him batteries were a big deal, even before he had something to put them in.
As I was thinking of this story (which Chris has never lived down), it all came together. Batteries are not a great gift on their own, but the “real gift” was powerless without them. With my ministry, for some people the art is the battery that empowers the story. For others the story empowers the art, but both the art and the story are the gift. Likewise in your creative pursuits, for some people, your God-given gift will be the big thing and for others it will empower the big thing to do it’s work on their hearts. I think that’s why the Bible says, “Each one should use whatever gifts…” The role your gift plays is in the hand of the Father and the heart of the recipient. Our job is to give the gift, whether it’s the gift, or “just” the BATTERIEEEEEES.
Assignment: What are your batteries and how do you charge them? How can your gift “charge” someone else?
AMOKArts 