Chapter 4: How to Launch an Arts Ministry in Your Church
Welcome to the online extras and resources for Chapter 4: How to Launch an Arts Ministry in Your Church of The Creative Church Handbook. What you’ll find here is material that is helpful and important, but couldn’t be included in the book because of space constraints. Some thoughts include a reference to the specific page they would have appeared on.
For information and discussion on similar topics see The New Renaissance Arts Movement site at TheNewR.org. For questions, comments, or use permissions you may contact the author directly at Scott (at) TheNewR.org.
Visit our CreativeChurchArtsIdeas.org website for more ideas for creativity and arts ministry in the local church!
This page is under construction. Please check back for updates!
Chapter 4: How to Launch an Arts Ministry in Your Church
Whether you are a layperson or a church leader, this chapter is a helpful step-by-step guide for beginning an arts ministry.
Read everything on the arts you can. See the online resources and extras
for this chapter for a list of recommended books. (Coming soon!)
Artists at Lincoln Berean Church study a book by Rory Noland. Photo: Jennie Prescott.
Cindy Limbrick talks about her first arts ministry meeting at Woodman Valley Chapel, “I remember driving up that morning and thinking out loud, ‘What if there are only three people that show up?’ And I felt like God just said to me, ‘Well, then be committed to those three people.’” Pg 55
For PASTORS AND LEADERS who want to start an arts ministry, program or outreach at their church
1. Seek God for His plan. Ask God to give you a vision for what He wants to do through the arts in your church. Just as pastors have specific messages from God for their congregations at specific times in history, so it is with the artists He has planted in your congregation. If you teach them to hear God’s voice they will bring powerful messages that enhance what He is doing in your congregation 4. You might read a book like Heart of the Artist or Finding Divine Inspiration to better understand how to disciple and encourage artists. The arts have endless applications in ministry, as we explained in Chapter 2. God will use them in unique ways to convey His love to your congregation5.
2. Pray for the right person to lead your artists. You want an arts ministry to develop naturally, in God’s timing, and to not be forced. Arts leaders can be difficult to find. Your ideal arts leader will probably need to be a mix of pastor and administrator. Their pastoral tendencies will be important to shepherd, encourage and understand the artists, and administrative skills will provide the follow-through that artists and artistic projects need. It’s helpful if the leader has artistic talent, but not mandatory as long as they understand the creative temperament. Make a commitment to disciple this person; they will be a huge asset to you and your church7.
3. Invite artists to meet and pray. When you have an arts leader, or at least someone who feels led to spearhead an arts effort, enable them to put a notice in the bulletin inviting interested artists and creative types to meet at the church or a nearby coffeehouse. Invite them to pray and talk about possibly starting an arts ministry. Use the time to gather contact information and circulate a survey (PDF above) . Share the vision God has given you for the arts in your church. You might also take some time during the meeting to brainstorm and model how to listen to God together, seeking to collaborate with Him through the arts to bring His messages to your congregation. It’s very helpful to share the vision and values of the church with the artists and ask them to think about how the arts might enhance those.
4. Understand their point of view. Some artists have been offended by the church or by Christians. Just spending time with them in this group setting will help them heal. You will bless them immensely if you take the time to pray for each of them at some point during the meeting. As these artists flourish, your congregation will flourish. When the arts and artists begin to integrate into a church, that congregation becomes more complete and mature because the Body of Christ is operating as it should, with each part and gift building up the other (Romans 12:4-6) 8.
5. Help launch the ministry. Later, when you have an arts leader and they have built community with artists in the church, have them
Friends enjoy the paintings of fellow artist Bryn Gillette on display. Photo: Sheila Hudson. (From page 52.)
call another meeting—which you attend—to talk about specific arts projects you and they want to do. Your attendance will help commission them and clarify direction. NOTE: It is important to meet at least occasionally with your arts leadership. Discuss difficulties, challenges and dreams they have. Give them a list of dates, topics or services you’d like to see the arts integrated into, and provide them with the church’s mission and values. Make sure you’ve spent time listening to them first. If you give them ideas first they may be overloaded. Help them to set up a plan for discipling the artists in their care. Let them know you and the church believe in and trust them.
Ministry Motivation
From Jessie Nilo: The church and the arts ministry leader should ask, “What is our/my motivation for starting or leading this ministry?” Maybe your church needs some artwork done for a program or physical area of your building. Maybe you have a sermon or message for which you’d like to have visual or dramatic illustrations. Do you want your church to be known as a place that celebrates artists? These are goals are fine, but you’ll want to put them on hold, or at the least avoid doing them consistently, until you begin building artist community. Like any other person who serves in your church, if artists are serving but not connected to consistent community, not experiencing pastoral support, or not growing in faith, they will burn out. And they may even become spiritually or emotionally wounded. That is the opposite of a good church experience.
I bring this up because artists can be especially sensitive and sometimes a little “different”. These are some of the things that make them wonderful and a gift to the body of Christ. But over the years local churches haven’t always understood the role of the artist, and the artist hasn’t always understood how to take their place in the church, or they’ve allowed themselves to be easily offended. As a result some artists have been wounded by churches that wanted their talents but didn’t know how to support or pastor them. This problem seems to be improving as the attitude toward the arts in churches changes, but the situation still requires effort from both sides.
Bottom line, a large part of any church’s or leader’s motivation for starting an arts ministry must be to serve, encourage and pastor the people who will be a part of it. Without that, your arts ministry won’t go far. Pg 66
Artists from the Indy Vineyard Arts Community (IVAC) share dinner and creative ideas. Photo: JSM (From page 58.)
Luann Jennings advises,
“It’s incredibly important for an arts leader who is also an artist to continue to have some kind of creative outlet, either in his or her primary creative discipline or another one. Several years back I took up quilting and other forms of needlecraft, at which I am decidedly mediocre. These pursuits have given me a new creative outlet with no leadership responsibility whatsoever and no pressure to “excel” – they are just for God and me to share together. I’d be lost without them.” Pg 74
Arts leader Lisa Marten says: Spiritual growth is essential to every artist, so I highly recommend a group study of Rory Noland’s phenomenal book Heart of the Artist(Zondervan), a barrier-breaking and soul-searching book for yourself and others who are excited about art in the church. I also recommend for art leaders For the Beauty of the Church (Baker) by W. David O. Taylor, particularly Chapter 6 called “The Practitioner,” which should encourage ministers who themselves are not artists. What really matters is to love artistic hearts, and God will guide you. You need only prayer, relational skills, a growing appreciation of beauty, and a willingness to learn from the artists you pastor. Humility sums it up.
