"The Place of Art in the Worship Service" Video Transcript

The Place of Art on the Worship Service

All right, so this is the last in this series elements of a worship service beyond the music. We've looked at the place of Scripture, we looked at the place of prayer. This session, we're going to look at the place of the arts in a worship service. And you may wonder, okay, what does arts have to do with a worship, service? worship, uses symbols. Worship is a dialogue between God and His people. And really, it's, it's God and his people and his people and his people and God, it's this kind of triangle thing. And the dialogue is accomplished through communication. That's, you know, if people if two people are standing next to each other, if the communication has to there has to be some kind of Some kind of communicate something going on between the two of them.

And communication is via a language some kind of a language. And language is really made up of symbols. Language is in fact, symbols, art communication through symbols and various forms I. I'm gonna write something here on a piece of paper. Hopefully you can see this Write a word out. I'm going to write the word boy. It's English word. And these symbols. These little scratches that I make on the paper, are letters and we put these letters together and it becomes a word and over time, we have associate Did the word boy, those words that sound we associate those that sound boy with a male person who's not an adult. So we have the thing. And then we have the way to symbolize the thing. And in order for us to communicate with someone, we have to use the symbol I want to talk about this thing over here. But I need to insert just pointing, I suppose that's the early way that people communicated. They just pointed, you know, I want food you just point to the food and then you, you know, pantomime, you know how you want to use it. But eventually we started writing things and these are all little symbols.

So this is the word boy, but it stands for something else. So now it's a picture of a boy. And this too is now a symbol representing the real thing. In fact, this is how words once were hieroglyphics are really just pictures instead of writing out letters, people just wrote a picture. In fact, a lot of the Chinese language is still that way. They have all these sticks and little things, and you have no idea what it means anymore. But at one point, there were little little pictures of what they wanted to communicate. Very interesting enough, though. I'm a Chinese language. I don't know what the symbol is. But the symbol for the word flood is actually a boat with eight people in it. that what do you think they got that?

If you look at Noah and the story of the floods, somehow that story came down, and that became their symbol for flood So art really is a way of symbolically expressing things. We use symbols now in our worship service. We tend to use words as our symbols to communicate with one another. Sometimes we put those words to music, sometimes just music all by itself communicates a certain communicate stuff. So if I play by play a major chord sounds very simple sounds happy. Sounds good. Bye. Play a minor chord. sounds sad. So it's this this symbol of of sound communicates something. This is the sustain note, this is a note. There's a lot of tension in the sustain though because it wants to go somewhere. Do you play with that sustained note, play a nice little song, just play a minor sustained gets resolved. So music is very symbolic and over time we've associated certain feelings with that music. But music isn't the only symbol or, or art as we call it to communicate something common arts use to help communicate in the worship service. 

Music, of course, PowerPoint these days, that's become a thing or we're using PowerPoint right now. Now I'm not using PowerPoint in a really cool way. It's just words and so on. But you can have pictures, you can have things that move. You can have mp3, you can have JPEGs, you can have all these different things happening on on a PowerPoint slide, all things that communicate props you can hold. I remember, remember one service, I had a big podium, and I put on the podium, a can of Coke. None the other podium, I had this Chalice from our communion set and I had a prominent right in front. So when people walked into the service, they saw the coke on this big podium on this stand. And they saw the chalice on the other stand. And then we just went on with our service just like like nothing, I didn't explain it. We sang our songs. We did our prayers that I got into my sermon. And I didn't say anything, I just act like those things weren't there. And so people are wondering, why is a coke can on the podium and a chalice from the communion set the podium. Finally, at the very end of my sermon, I said, we have two things on two podiums here. 

They both claim to be the real thing. At that time, coke was advertising itself as the real thing. So they both claim to be the real thing, but only one is. You have to decide. So that the prop became something that piqued people's curiosity. It spoke to them it was a symbol in the culture. But it also could be used to communicate something I couldn't just use words with. decorations. Churches will have flowers and trees, but sometimes they'll put banners that say Something or sometimes the banners will just be colors or the banners will have things on them and you're not quite sure what it's all about. But it's communicating something the artist is trying to say something. lighting, lighting can make such a dramatic difference. We're going to we're going to have a whole session just on lighting and what lighting does so and save some of that for later. Live drawing or painting.

This is really effective. I didn't I wondered about whether it would be effective, but I've discovered it really is. Sometimes, you know, I'll have a sermon, and I'll give the sermon to a person who can draw just a pencil drawing, and they will likely just draw out certain things from the sermon, the lightly draw it on a big piece of paper, and then while I'm preachy, they'll just fill it in with a marker or draw it darker so people are wondering, you know, they're listening Now I thought that maybe people would be distracted that you could only either I gotta watch the guy do that drawing? Or I gotta listen to the preacher preaching. But what happens is when you have two things going on, and they're related to each other people actually pay attention more because they have to the hundred percent of their brain is being used because they're looking at the guy drawing, wondering what he's doing and then listening to the pastor, then they go into the painting, and then they're just because it's like a clue. It's like, there's a puzzle going on. And if I if I if I don't pay attention here, I'm going to miss out on the puzzle and I won't know what's happening. 

So and it's just simple stuff. People will you know, if you're talking about a story of Jesus, and Jesus got in the boat, they drop out, and then they threw the Nets out, they draw the net and they draw the, the fish and they just draw whatever that's being talked about. We have an artist in our church who will sometimes paint and he'll, he'll spend the whole time painting one painting and people have no idea what he's painting. So again, that they're watching him, but they're also listening. They don't want to miss out on anything. And finally, at the very end, you know, they figure out what this painting is about. We had, we had an artist do that from, from, from Palm Sunday, he started the painting. And then on Good Friday, he continued the painting. And he kept adding things depending because of what was going on for that day and then find on Easter, he actually had some tape on the painting that he ripped off because he had under painted something and it all became this really cool thing, but it for some people, you know, some people are word people and they, they hear words and they like words and they, they they're logical thinkers. Other people are more, you know, a picture's worth 1000 words to them. They can't, they can't understand it with words but you show them pictures and they and they get it or just art or Just colors are just a feeling that that the whole service is giving them. 

So don't forget to try to speak in these different ways so that people of different backgrounds can get it dance. Some churches will have interpretive dancing, there'll be a song or maybe just scripture and people will sort of interpret that song with some kind of tasteful dancing. drama. Our church used to do quite a bit of drama. We haven't done it for a while. But drama can be very effective. And drama can be as simple as just telling the story. You're doing a Bible story of David and Goliath and you have people come out and act. We did the story of Moses dividing the Red Sea and to so the Israelites could walk on dry ground and we just took the hook congregation, we we gave parts to the whole congregation. We divided the congregation into two sections. You know, you know, the waters here we had them, you know, act like water. And then Moses said, you know, put a staff out there and then the people backed up. And so now we had a path and then we have the kids they were the Israelites and then we had the some older folks that were the Pharaoh and his chariots and we just acted it out. And we and we had a great time doing it. 

It can be a drama, short, little drama about the problem that the passage you're going to talk about is you're trying to solve and those little little three minute five minute dramas can be so powerful. I know for myself, my wife did when many years ago she I think she only did 200 lights on. And she did this little drama with a there was a few other people, but she played the role of a teenage girl An adopted teenage girl, and the adopted father was there and she was sitting at a table. And she was being real, you know, stubborn and it was just kind of pouty and she was playing, I think with a carburetor or something, some park for my car. She was playing with it. And the stepfather comes walking by and he says, You got to be careful with that. And she just ignored him. This kept playing with it, just kind of, you know, sultry, new mood, just kind of, you know, an attitude. And he said, Hey, I said, you got to be careful with that, you know, that's an expensive thing. And she kept playing with it. And finally, you know, he sent it again. And finally she looked up at him. And this was her. She was acting, she was doing her lines and she looked up at him and said.

I don't have to listen to you. You're not my real father. She would look down Very powerful. I don't have to listen to your my real father. And the father the accurate who is the father playing the the stepfather row, he paused. Then he looked at her and he said, I know. I'm not your real father. But I'm the father that's here. And I remember when he said that line, it spoke to me, because, you know, as a pastor, and certainly worship leader too, there are a lot of people in church and a lot of issues and people have problems and, and they have a lot of anger and they'll take it out on you. People will take out their anger on a leader, and it hurts you know, people are upset with you. They're, they're taking their anger out on you and it's easy to take it personally. But when he said that I'm not your real father, but I'm the father that's here, I realized that that's what a leaders role is. A leader is the father that's there. And people are angry at their real father, they're angry at somebody else. They're angry at God. But you're the father that's there. You're the leader that's there. And when I said that, I realized I can do that.

I can do that I can. If you need to be angry at me, because you're angry at someone who's not here and I'm here, fine. I can do I can be the one that you know, because that's what Jesus did. Jesus took on our pain in our suffering. And that's what we're called to do. And I can do that because this is not personal. And not angry at me. They're angry at someone else. They're just taking it out on me. So drama can be a powerful way to communicate the words we want to communicate the words of Scripture, but sometimes we use other forms other than words to communicate with Just a little bit about craft versus art. Craft is where you take things, you make them nice. My wife is really into crafts, she likes making quilts. There's always these little craft projects that she and some of her friends make and they get together and they glue things and they sew things, they paste things and they creatively put things together. People will decorate their homes and kind of a crafts style. You know, I like that, you know, put flowers here. 

And then you know, certain colors there and then and then we'll put a picture of a ball and you know, some blocks over here and it's just sort of random kind of things that all look nicely together and the colors blend and the carpet looks nice and so on and so forth. Craft is sort of this, you know what looks nice kind of thing. And it's sort of obvious in a craft you're making Birds or something and you pretty birds, and you put them together and you look at it and you go, yeah, that's a bird or some people like ducks and they start putting ducks everywhere. And you look at it and it's a duck, you know exactly what it is. Art is more, you know, I'm going to create something, but you're not going to know exactly what it is right away. It's, it's, it's not as obvious. It has some layers and maybe double meanings. And, and, and you're not going it's not going to just be a duck, it's it might be just colors that represent a duck.

Or it's, it's like I'm trying to say something meaningful here. I'm not just trying to create a pretty thing. So what we're doing our renovations now with our church, and an example is one lady, we're gonna we're gonna make a stage a new stage, and so on nice stage. And then what are we we're trying to figure out what to put on the front of the stage. And one lady was like, Well, I think we should put a nice black curtain kind of thing, you know, pleated skirt thing that you you can put and it's nice and you've seen them at hotels and so on. And that will look nice. And that there was someone else who was like, Well, okay, it might look nice, but it doesn't say anything. what's what's the meaning of a black skirt going around? It's just, it's just something to do. It's something to decorate with, but doesn't communicate and it doesn't say God is here or, you know, Jesus died for you or it just doesn't say anything. So the person says, Well, what else would you do? He said, Well, what if? What if instead, we take reclaimed wood, and we just pounded on vertically, and people are starting to do this kind of thing. And we let people either find the word or take the word home, and they write down their family prayers, or they write down their family's favorite verse or something on this piece of wood. And then then we pound it all on the front of the stage. 

I mean, number one, it kind of looks cool. I mean, it has some, you know, like, like a craft, it looks really cool. But it also means something, it's like that this isn't just a stage. And we're not just, you know, lifting up the pasture, and the singers and so on. This is all of us. This is our church. This represents our relative relationship to God, this this place this space that we worship in is not about any person. It's about all of us together, and our connection to the Word of God and God Himself. See, art is trying to say something so we don't just paint the walls. We want the walls to say something we want the space to say something cathedrals were were tall because the space was supposed to communicate the bigness and it utterly worldliness of God the awesomeness of God. So, so lean on, you know, craft is good, it's good to have things you know go together and the colors match and so on. But if you can always think a little bit about art, what are we trying to communicate because that's what you know what we're trying to do and that's this this session really is about how to use these different ways and symbols and so on. How do we use these things to to communicate with not just words, word pictures in the Bible. 

There's baptism, baptism and water and we sprinkle or some churches you dunk them under and you have this dunk tank or or you do it outside you go to a river it's dramatic picture of the words that say you are part of the family of God. So baptism is like this drama, this word picture that describes these words, hey, you're welcome to the family of God. The Lord separate again. You know, Jesus blood in his body was broken on the cross for us. And so we use these symbols to say the same thing. And even the symbols, we use them so much that sometimes people just okay, here's the bread. Jesus died for you. It was broken for you. here's the here's the wine. His blood was shed for you. I remember one guy when he did communion, he took a loaf of bread, took the loaf of bread. And then he took a board that had a spike in it. And he said, this is the body of Christ broken for you and he took that spike and he put it into this loaf and he just ripped it. Then he took the communion cup. And I don't know what he put in it must not mine but he threw it I mean it just went everywhere is trying to dramatically set you know paint a picture of what is actually being offering offered because you know we hear the words and we hear him over and over and soon they don't mean is much the rainbow you know God's promised never destroy the world again with a flood in a rainbow comes when does it come it comes when it rains.

The temple the temple with its ornate its gold and, and the outer cord and the inner card. All these things were pictures. In fact, we're going to talk about in another session how that the temple layout can help us as we worship we start in one chord and we move towards the Holy of Holies God's presence. The parables they were stories that people could picture. There was a sower. You see the sower. There he is. He's got a handful of seats. And he's, he's walking in the field and he's reaching out and he's taking these seeds, and he's scattering them and some falls on on the road and some falls, you know, and you can almost see these stories as Jesus was talking about appeals to, you know, different senses. Images, you know, all the main images that we have, in in the churches, the communion table, the baptismal found, even some churches have a pulpit that it's an image that says, you know, the Word of God is important. Well, there's some dangers in the arts some dangers to be aware of. 

One is the arts can detract from the word instead of adding to it. I noticed sometimes people do this with PowerPoint with with the singing. They'll have the words on the PowerPoint, but then behind the words, they'll have this dramatic waterfall Sometimes the waterfall is moving, they'll actually have moving pictures, and or a sunset or someone going down a river on a raft or something. And it's like, you know, I'm singing the song and all of a sudden I'm watching this guy go down the river on a raft. And you know, the river on the raft is really cool. But the sunset is so cool. I forget what what song we're singing. Because I'm, I'm looking at an image. And sometimes the image doesn't really go with the words. So I got two things going on that don't relate to one another. And the image is not adding to the word it's taking away from the word. Can become more about the artists than the message of the art. Okay with that, especially true with a singer, you know, person sings, and that person does such a good job, that sometimes people are thinking more about, wow, what a great voice that person has, or Well, that's a really cool song. That's a really good guitar player. And the person goes on for five minutes and it's like, okay, Hold it. 

What What do you know? Are we worshiping God? Or are we worshiping the artists and what they're doing? So somehow the artist is good to, to have the artist, but the artist has to know that he's there to enhance the word, not detract from it can become overwhelming to the senses. Sometimes we can just add metaphor upon metaphor upon metaphor. I wrote one down here. I've heard someone say something like this. We must be salt, and light. As we tell the soil to find the last, who have bankrupted their lives, in the mud and mire of the cesspool of the prince of darkness. It's like, you know, there's like eight different images, eight different metaphors all in one sentence, and I can't think about soil and light and being lost and found. I can't think about all the Things in that short of time, I guess, you know, there's a saying don't mix your metaphors. If you have one metaphor is you know, let's talk about light. There's darkness, darkness and light. And salvation is like finding the light and people are are lost in the dark, they can't find their way and so they need the light. And they explain what the light is, or the light is the word of God. 

But how does that work? Well, I'm sticking with one image. And now I can pay attention but if you just throw images at me, is like, like Christian language that is just being used, but we never really contemplate it. It's not it's I'm being my senses are overwhelmed. I can't think of all those things. So I just shut down. I don't think about any of them. So, I want to encourage you with the arts, it's it's in some churches don't use them at all. But remember that people are they're not just minds hearing words, your eyes, your smell, your taste. Your touch. Let people experience God's love and let's experience worship of God with each other with all of our senses. Thank you