I was pleased to meet several Christians involved in the arts this weekend at Sojourn’s Cultivate Beauty Festival and to share thoughts with them over coffee, donuts, pizza, Indian food — you can see that it was a both a filling weekend and a fulfilling one. I thought you’d be interested to know a little about them and their various ministries. These people are on the front lines of, as Dr. Harold Best says, “Thinking Christianly about the arts.” I’ll provide links to all of their ministries so you can learn more about what they’re doing in their cities.
Of course the list includes Dr. Best himself — you can visit his home page any time from our Helpful Links section. There is nothing stuffy or elitist about this humble servant of Christ who just so happens to be one of the foremost educators about worship theology, and Christianity and the Arts, alive today. He is the emeritus professor of music and dean emeritus of the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music, and author of Unceasing Worship and Music Through The Eyes Of Faith.
I drove Dr. Best to and from Kashmir, one of Louisville’s fine Indian restaurants, where we had lunch with Sojourn Worship Arts Pastor Mike Cosper and a couple brothers I’ll mention later, and thankfully, I didn’t get so nervous that I ran a stop light or anything like that. But then, he knows how to put a person at ease and, at all times, he lives out the humble, communal transparancy that he teaches is the proper temperament for all believers, artists or otherwise.Â
I was also glad to meet Eric Morgan and fellow leaders of Sojourn Church from Huntsville, Alabama. That’s right — their church has the same name as ours. And both churches are involved in the Acts 29 network. We were pleased to host them and I was glad, personally, to meet Eric, given that we follow each other on Twitter, the micro-blogging site.
Eric did some video-documentation of their trip for his blog. Be sure to check it out — in his “video four,” you can see me in the background (he points me out in the video) talking with Allen Rodi, whom I’ll mention below.  Eric and the other brothers and sisters from Sojourn (Huntsville) asked great questions and painted a good picture of what God is doing with and through them in their city.
Ed Marcelle and Scott Womer are two pastors from fellow Acts 29 church Terra Nova in Troy, NY. These were the other two lunch companions at Kashmir on Saturday, and I enjoyed hearing about Terra Nova’s involvement in the arts. This church has only been in existence for a couple of years and is already having a good impact on their city up north.Â
Ed and Scott participated in a roundtable discussion with our Pastor Mike and with Dr. Best and another brother I’ll mention in a bit on Saturday morning, on the theme “Thoughts For Christian Artists.” They took many questions from the crowd of gathered artists and worship leaders. We recorded this panel Q&A, along with Dr. Best’s two lectures, and will be sharing the audio with you soon on sojournmusic.com.
Martin Ban, the other speaker at Saturday’s Q&A panel, is an experienced PCA church planter currently pastoring Christ Church in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Santa Fe is a city of artists, with many counter-Christian tendencies and religious viewpoints. Martin’s church has been able to show the love of Christ in this culture and join in the artistic endeavors of the city. I would love to be present for one of their “God and the Arts” events.
Allen Rodi is a visual artist with a gift for planning and coordinating activities in the art world in his hometown of Atlanta. His church, First Baptist of Smyrna, has enabled him to begin dialoguing within the visual arts culture there and laying the groundwork for increased artistic involvement. He and Sojourn Visual Arts leader Michael Winters have had repeated discussions about doing art Christianly, and Allen’s passion for the topic is evident in even a short discussion.
Taylor Worley and Joe Garner both work for Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. You may remember this as the university that was devastated by tornadoes last February. Taylor and Joe tell me they’ve been slowly rebuilding and are blessed in that no lives were lost. A few students are still in bad shape, physically, and so our prayers are needed for them and for the university as they continue to rebuild.
Joe is a singer-songwriter. Our own Jamie Barnes played with him a few months ago and speaks very highly of Joe as a performer, urging others to hear him, particularly if you like, in Jamie’s words, “Iron and Wine, Pedro the Lion, Tom Waits, or Dylan’s Nashville Skyline.” Good company, there. Joe gave me a compelling three-song EP Sunday and I have listened to it repeatedly. Check him out on myspace.com/joegarnermusic.
As I said above, we will publish the audio from this weekend’s lectures on the sojournmusic.com podcast, so keep coming back. Better yet, subscribe to our RSS feed so you don’t miss a thing!
