A Church Says Thank-you

We recently wrote an ad in the MountainX called a church says thank-you, this helps explain that a little further.

For many years I grew up in a culture of church that really only expressed it’s self through limited avenues. We sang, we talked, and we listened. It almost became this thing we did out of habit, kind of mass production of expression. After moving to Asheville I’ve become keenly aware of something, the creativity in the church sucks.

It really makes no sense to me. Shouldn’t the people who claim the Creator of the universe as their God be able to come up with something more creative? If the Spirit of God lives in people, as the church proclaims, then shouldn’t we be more expressive? I mean God was so creative, He didn’t just create a beautiful red sunset, he created the actual color red. I mean everything we see was created from nothing, a blank canvass.

As I listen to the local bands play, see the local artists paint and walk through the local galleries, I’m inspired. I’m inspired to actually somehow create, and express as they do. Shouldn’t that inspiration been just as vivid in the church? It’s so frequently lacking and it’s our own fault.

We’ve proclaimed some many things to be “evil” and haven’t aloud for the freedom of expression because we’re so scared it’s not “of God.” We’ve shut our hearts to the creativity God instilled within humanity and have missed out on the beauty of the arts.

Well the artists are still creating and I’m convinced that God finds great pleasure in what He sees. We look into the creation and see things still doing what they were created to do; a song bird singing, a flower blooming and we call it worship. When I see final product of an artists mind come to pass I can’t help but think, “I wish I could worship like that.”

To all of the artists we’d like to say, Thank-you.