Who is really in charge of media at your church? Is it your media pastor, or does the senior pastor have to sign off on everything? Is your creative director responsible for directing the creative elements of your services, or does he simply execute the senior pastor’s vision?
At many churches, a tension surrounds the graphics, video, lighting, etc. Senior pastors have plans for what they want to accomplish, years of ministry experience, and theological training. Artists in the church also have plans for what they wants to accomplish, which are accompanied by years of production experience and media training. Believe it or not, all these plans, experiences, and years of training don’t always perfectly align. The result—a senior pastor who feels compelled to take the media reigns, so to speak, and an artist who feels chafed from a lack of freedom—are rarely pretty.
With that in mind, we solicited perspectives from a senior pastor, Ben Arment, and an artist, Barton Damer, in attempt to discover the keys to a synergetic relationship between the two roles. We believe beyond the aforementioned tension lies a powerful ministry dynamic from which your staff, your media, and your congregation can all benefit.
A PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE:
Irreverence, Jesus, and the Big Game
As Super Bowl XXXVI approached, I decided to plan an exciting worship service that used football themes to attract unchurched guests to our church. I called it “Super Sunday” and asked our graphic designer to create a series of thematic images for our jumbo projection screens.
I had all the confidence in the world in our designer. After all, he owned his own graphic design studio and freelanced for some big name clients. I had seen his work; he was extraordinarily gifted.
With five days until the big game, I handed him the assignment and waited with great anticipation as he prepared the most prominent (or at least the most visible) part of our service.
Our designer took four days to craft his masterpieces, and when he finally e-mailed them to me, I couldn’t wait to open them. I visualized a cheering crowd in the stadium or a huddle of players on the field to convey the excitement of game day. Imagine my surprise when I opened the ZIP file to find a picture of Jesus … in a football helmet.
I understand this might sound ridiculous, but you had to see the artwork to judge it. The artwork was beautiful, and in some strange way, I was drawn to the images. I wanted to give my designer the benefit of the doubt. I tried to find ways to justify the artwork, but it was just too much of a stretch.
Okay, I’m being too kind. It was quite possibly the most blasphemous piece of artwork I could have chosen for a Sunday morning service.
A tremendous tension exists between pastors and artists in the Church. They both want the same thing—to make the biggest impact on the Kingdom of God they possibly can—but they have very different ways of achieving their goals.
The artist sees the objective apart from the politics and sensitivities of the church. Most great artwork is by its very nature irreverent. I don’t mean irreverent in the sense of sinfulness, but in terms of what’s generally accepted by the masses. Great artwork shocks your sensitivities. Great artwork goes against the norm. Great artwork questions conventional thinking.
For instance, Granger Community Church drew criticism for their message series, “My Lame Sex Life.” They wanted to communicate a biblical perspective of sexuality, which is wholesome and pure, but got railed by Christians for their irreverent billboard ads.
The pastor, on the other hand, sees the objective in the context of the church’s complicated history and political undercurrents. He weighs the overall impact of the art, no matter how unfounded the gripes. Truth be told, whenever people have an axe to grind over creative content, they rarely call the graphic designer or the video editor. It’s the pastor’s head that rolls.
When I was in college, I started experimenting with youth ministry at my father’s tiny church in Tipp City, Ohio. He had nothing to lose by giving me the opportunity—there were only five teenagers.
With this opportunity, I rented a theater on Main Street that had been converted from an old gristmill. The community used it on Saturdays for bluegrass concerts and country line dances, but we got it free on Friday nights in exchange for concession revenues.
I invited my friends to help me design an outreach program that would attract all the bored teenagers who were otherwise occupied on Friday nights with drag-racing, Communication rabble-rousing, and make-out sessions.
We put on some of the most irreverent programs you could imagine: videos overlaid with Beastie Boys soundtracks, skits about the newly released movie Scream, you name it. And somehow, in some way, we creatively connected all of the themes back to the gospel.
The first Friday night of that summer we filled the theater with more than 125 kids and never looked back. Teenagers gave their hearts to Jesus every Friday night. We had the CDL version of a creative license, and we used it to the point of irreverence and yet, to the glory of God.
Nobody blew the whistle because we did all of this outside the walls of my father’s church. No one knew what we were up to. We created a new wineskin for new wine that wouldn’t stretch or crack the old one.
Creativity in the church is a different matter. Several years later, when I became a pastor, I had to consider the impact of artistic expressions on the church as a whole, not just one audience.
My worship pastor recently joked with me that he didn’t know what the rest of our church looked like on Sunday mornings. He spent all of his time setting-up equipment, rehearsing with the band, leading the service, and then tearing down in the auditorium. He was right. He didn’t have to consider the children’s ministry, the greeters, or the hospitality area. This is a unique role that belongs primarily to the pastor.
One of the great things about planting a new church is that you can start fresh with a creative approach. You don’t have to protect the past because there is none. You can dictate the kind of people you reach on Sundays by your artistic expressions. It’s a blank canvas.
Most pastors don’t get to enjoy this luxury. They have to shepherd their churches gingerly and delicately out of the past.
Now, a pastor who dictates the creative process is a whole other matter. Some pastors are so controlling that tweaking typefaces and background music at the last minute gives them a power trip. If you’re an artist who is working for someone like this, my only advice is to run.
But not all pastors are trying to be malicious, they’re just unaware of the time and effort it takes to create excellence. They don’t know about rendering time or color printing costs or all the work that goes into a redesign.
If you’re a pastor, here are four tips to improve your working relationship with the artists in your church:
1. Give plenty of lead time for the project.
Last minute assignments are no fun for any artist. Sometimes you can’t foresee your needs, but when possible, plan your projects or sermons several weeks out. If you come too close to a deadline, weigh the negative impact on your designer with the positive impact of the project. I’ve actually cut or rescheduled projects when I knew how much stress they would cause.
2. Sign off on concepts early on.
Asking for concepts early on in the process protects the artist from getting too far ahead with an idea that you might later reject. Beginning with a conceptual rough draft is better than pulling the plug on something in its completed form. Your artist has invested his or her heart in the piece, so you’re not just scrapping an idea. You’re discarding a little piece of them.
3. Explain what’s at stake in the church.
If you need to protect people’s sensitivities in the church, take some time to explain this to the designer. You may get some push-back, some unwanted encouragement to be irreverent. However, if your artist is unwilling to hear your concern and respond to it, you’ve got the wrong artist on your team.
4. After all this, trust the designer.
Once you give enough lead-time for the project, sign off on the concept, and explain the sensitivities, let it go. Trust the artist to complete the project. The finished product might not be exactly what you’d do, but remember that your congregation is made up of people who aren’t like you either. The artist’s unique perspective might speak to someone in a way that you can’t.
I have rejected ideas from artists in our church, but I’ve also signed off on projects that didn’t suit my preferences. I realized that creating ownership in our church required giving up some creative control, and it has paid off. After giving them my trust and freedom, these designers bent over backwards to match their work with the church’s sensitivities and my message.
A talented video editor once told me that using her gifts in the church didn’t seem worth it. She said, “You pour so much time and energy into a complex project, but for what? It plays for 60 seconds on a Sunday morning and then it’s forgotten.”
I’m not so jaded. I believe creativity is one of the most incredible offerings we can offer God in worship. Creativity has the potential to impact people’s hearts in a way that no sermon can. I want to equip and empower the artists in my community to use their greatest gifts and ideas for the glory of God.
That is, as long as they don’t put Jesus in a football helmet.
Ben Arment is the founding pastor of Reston Community Church near Washington, DC, and a daily blogger at benarment.com. Starting in June, Ben will be working as a director for the Catalyst Conference to create a new experience in Los Angeles and regional events throughout the country.