Don’t Sacrifice Genre for Directness

The heavens declare the glory of God, and
the sky proclaims the work of his hands.
Psalm 19:1

How do the heavens declare God’s glory? 

With literal words? What explicit reference to Jesus? He, of course, is the radiance of God’s glory (Hebrews 1:3). 

No.

Their proclamation is one of functionality. 

They declared by fulfilling their purpose. 

Skies exist to provide shelter from the sun. They soak up water, then nourish the earth again. Perhaps this caused the Psalmist to marvel. Their very existence indicated they were created by their Maker. 

They need no preacher to declare that they are clouds. They simply need to do that which God designed them for.

So it is with genres. Brian Schrag defines genre as, “A community’s category of communication characterized by a unique set of formal characteristics, performance practices, and social meanings.”

Church leaders can pressure new believers to evangelize, and rightly so. But often the heroes who are portrayed as “faithful” evangelists are those who are merely direct about Jesus in all their interactions.

The result: this preaches to our imaginations that directness = faithfulness. The more one knows how to mic drop the non-believer, the more admirable.

The downside is that the everyday genres we use in interactions get dumbed down for the sake of “faithful” heralding. 

We sacrifice genre for directness.

Imagination Killer

“Abuse killed my imagination.”

Jennifer had an imagination problem. Her horrific upbringing led to this lamentable paradigm. The woes of the world mangle both our beliefs and our internal world-building capacities. 

Cognitive engagement alone cannot mend our vision-wounds. We need Beauty back. We need God’s Story heralded forth through all the senses: tasting, hearing, singing, touching, and smelling. We need God’s new creation image bearing creatives to restore what’s been broken.

The Gutenberg Parenthesis

Until Gutenberg invented the printing press in the mid 1400s, the world’s people functioned as oral-preference communicators and learners. 

This means values and beliefs were communicated via dance, music, riddles, proverbs, poetry, and visuals more than monologue. Interactions occurred face to face. Then something happened.

Literacy took over the world. 

Due to the digital age we find ourselves in, many say we are heading back to an oral world. 

Tom Pettitt called the 500 year gap “The Gutenberg Parenthesis.” 

This is not to say we throw print out with the literary bathwater. The Old Testament always had its scribes, for sure. But before the Torah was read for morning devos, it was vocalized to the people of God. 

Artists, 100% of the world are oral learners. 

We need your gifts.

The Subsidiarity Principle

I used to think, “Man, if Eminem got saved, then he could evangelize the world and have an insane impact! So many people would come to Christ!” 

There’s, of course, some truth to this. The word of God has the power to change people. So, the math would go: the greater platform one has, the more people can hear God’s word. 

Fair enough.

But what about the rest of us non-Eminems? What about the regular Joe, socially awkward, artist who've never left the small town they grew up in?

The subsidiarity principle encourages us here. At the root of this principle is how governments solve problems. 

Should major problems be handled by the highest level of government? Some think so, especially after the past century of growing government control, notably under socialism.

The higher up one depends on for solving problems, the lower the local incentives become to address localized issues. 

Eminem’s conversion could speak to mass issues of domestic abuse, drugs, anger, sex, etc.

But the greater the audience, the flatter and more generic the answers.

Keeping things solved at a local level ensures that the complexities and nuances of our problems get worked on. 

When Jesus died on the cross, the guy living in the mountains of Papua New Guinea was still going about his day tending his pineapple garden. Large platforms don’t always equal ministry success. God calls us to be faithful with the lot he’s given us.

Reconciliation: A Gift & A Mission

For Paul, reconciliation was both a gift received and a mission we steward:

• Reconciliation was something Christians have received (Romans 5:11). 

• Reconciliation was the message preached (2 Corinthians 5:19).

• Reconciliation was the work Paul knew he was to steward (2 Corinthians 5:18) 

How you use your rights as an artist has everything to do with how you view reconciliation. To be a Christian is now to be a co-laborer with God in his mission.

Multiplying A Corpus of the Church’s Good Works

Since its inception in 2000, Sermonaudio.com now contains:

• 51,722 - Speakers from around the world

• 3,084,675 - Sermons

• 485M - total plays

Amazing.

Now, what would happen if we have flipped it from the teacher’s artifacts (sermons) to the peoples? Let’s imagine that every one speaker (51,722) represents 50 people in their congregations.

The new math would be 2,586,100 people.

And what if they made one new Scripture-infused artifact a week? How many artifacts would this little experiment manifest in the world after 1 year?

134,477,200.

Love is Custom Made

We possess custom made guitars, vehicles, houses, cities, and sculptures.

All the things which fashion our lives contain the world’s raw materials which are then customized to our benefit and liking. When something is custom made, we find it more valuable. We attribute greater care and finesse to something custom made.

Ought agape love not be the same?

Truth Telling

Isn’t it interesting that “speak the truth” isn’t a fruit of the Spirit? Preaching, teaching, prophesying. None of them are fruit of the Spirit.

Here is the question then about truth-telling: 

What does truth-telling look like with the fruit of the Spirit?