The Power of the Arts
This past Saturday I preached at a joint prayer meeting in Seoul on a subject that God has been relentlessly speaking to me about since I started dating Sky: the power of the arts. I want to encourage you to take a listen to this sermon and share it with anyone you know who is creative or is in the arts.
Here is a link to the sermon. You can right click on the play button and select “save as” to download it as an mp3 on your computer. Or you can find it on iTunes under New Philadelphia (podcast section with “Christian Lee” as a sub-header).
Here is a link to the slideshow that I showed as I was preaching. You will have to scroll down as you listen. It was pretty humorous how few people recognized Vice President Joe Biden, but that only emphasized the point on how much more recognizable people in the arts are compared to those “in power.”
Creative people tend to be very misunderstood because they are offering a perspective that is new and different. Creativity can be stifled in cultures that focus too heavily on quick results, that don’t allow for any failure, and that emphasize keeping to the status quo (or the cultural norms). But when creativity is encouraged and is given room for practice (and error), breakthroughs can come that can shift things across languages, cultures, and time. There is a reason why people in the arts are remembered much more readily and more fondly across nations compared to people who were once in places of power (government, business, etc).
The arts possess a ridiculous power. Just check this link for the the people in the world with the most twitter followers: http://twittercounter.com/pages/100. To save you time, President Obama is #4 behind Bieber (no surprise), Katy Perry (???), and Lady Gaga (*sigh*). Bill Gates is the the next non-entertainer (and non-app/website) at #40 and then Dalai Lama is the next non-entertainer at #90. Out of the top 100 on Twitter there are only THREE PEOPLE who are not in the arts/entertainment sector. People love their entertainment!
This translates over to Christianity. Listen to the sermon to see how much God loves the arts and how much power is behind them in our worship to Him. He first revealed Himself as “Creator” and He delights in seeing us use our creativity for His glory.
Be blessed!
