Art Is Essential for Life

There are people, including some Christians, who view the arts as a frivolous indulgence, especially in times of economic difficulty. If they consider that the arts have any value at all, they believe the arts to be valuable only insofar as they can be used to teach people or manipulate people or preach to people. In other words, their appreciation of the arts, if it exists at all, is strictly utilitarian.

I just came across a very good article, published in Christianity Today two days ago, which addresses the aforementioned fallacy. Incidentally, the portion of the article consisting of a quotation from Karl Paulnack is the portion from which the title of this blog post was derived.

Street Ministry and the Arts

Here's a link to information regarding an interesting book pertaining to the relationship between the arts and Christian "street ministry". Here's a link to an excerpt from that book. I can't vouch for the book yet because I haven't read it, but it definitely looks very interesting.

NOTE: The Sound of the Harvest is another book by the author, J. Nathan Corbitt. Amazon.com's reviews of the book seem to suggest that it's well worth reading as well, if one is interested in Christian music.

NOTE: One way in which the arts could definitely play a role in street ministry would be a scenario in which Christians combined street ministry with busking.

The Born Again Poets' Society

If you have taken the opportunity to download my Christ-centered poems from this publicly accessible file folder, you know that I count poetry as one of my talents.

Some people may consider me to be a very talented poet. Other people may vehemently disagree. Different people have different criteria with regard to such things. If nothing else, however, I think that I've made a conscientious effort to produce poems which contain thought-provoking, faith-based content, in a format which is familiar to people who lean more towards formalistic traditionalism than the avante garde. (I'm one of those anachronistic people who still think that the best poems contain something in the way of rhythm and rhyme.)

There was a movie, a while back, called "The Dead Poets Society". It occurred to me that there ought to be a group specifically for Christian poets. I thought that "The Born Again Poets' Society" might be a good name for such a group.

The BAPS might offer opportunities for regular fellowship, poetry readings and poetry slams, audio recordings (distributed online), poetry anthology books, and other activities and projects designed to integrate poetry into the Christian faith in a meaningful way. It could also be involved in advocacy, in terms of encouraging pastors and other Christian leaders to integrate poetry into more worship services.

I confess that there's some poetry which isn't my cup of tea, and I know that that's true of some other people as well. But I believe that the Body of Christ ought to have room for people with diverse tastes --- and I also think that we all grow when we're exposed to new things with which we were previously unfamiliar. Poetry isn't necessarily the most popular art form, compared with pop music, but poetry is a part of every culture, so we Christians ought to be involved in culture on that level. Otherwise, we leave a void which unbelievers are more than happy to fill.

If you're a Christian with a gift for poetry (or an interest in the same), please contact me so that I can add you to a list of people who might have an interest in a Christian fellowship group for poets and for people interested in that art form.

Mark W. Pettigrew
mwp1212(AT)gmail.com

A Brief Introduction to the Christian Arts Initiative

The specific purpose of this site (as well as a related web site known as ArtisticChristians.com) is to distribute information (including my initial proposal, progress reports and more) pertaining to the Christian Arts Initiative.

In addition to the various web pages which can currently be found at ArtisticChristians.com, I'd like to recommend that you visit one of my publicly accessible file folders in order to download several different documents which will help to more fully explain my vision for the Christian Arts Initiative. Here's a link to a folder containing PDF files pertaining to that project.