How can the arts undermine the calling and mission of the Church? What are the possible excesses and misuses of the arts in a church setting: in the worship, in the discipleship, in evangelism and service?
Our desire here is to help pastors anticipate potential dangers in their use of the arts. What works at the playhouse may not be suitable for the sanctuary. The experience of art can become a substitute for an experience of God. The stirring of emotions may simply be that: emotions, not a stirring towards transformation. There can be too much wow factor, or technological whiz-bang, or spectatorship instead of participation in the worship of God.
More art is not necessarily better. What is old can be deadening. What is new can be inappropriate and disruptive. What brings life to one congregation may bring death to another. All of this compels us to seek wisdom from above so that we may be as shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves in our shepherding of the artists among us.
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