A Gospel-Centered Vision for the Arts and the Church, by Sojourn Worship Pastor Mike Cosper

Over the next several Wednesday’s we’ll present Worship & Arts Pastor Mike Cosper’s notes from three breakout sessions he delivered last fall in St. Louis at the Acts 29 Network’s LEAD conference.  These sessions centered on Arts and the Church.  In part one below, Mike explores a theology of creativity, looking at creation, fall, redemption and consummation:

A Gospel-Centered Vision for the Arts and the Church
In these sessions, we’re going to take a long view of the relationships that emerge between the art world and the church. In the first session, we’re going to broadly overview the theological issues around the arts. In the following sessions, we’ll be looking at case studies of churches engaged with the arts, and artists who are engaging the world. In those sessions, we’ll try to connect the dots between the theological issues, and the practical issues.

A Theology of Creativity

CREATION
God is the Creator: making all things from no thing, out of his own infinite wisdom and for his own glory and purposes.

• Genesis 2:7
  The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
• This creative act then serves as the paradigm for every creative act we’ll ever engage in, working with what he’s given to us, and imagining what we might be able to do with it.
• This UNIVERSAL CREATIVE SPARK is at the core of all creative work, which is to say, all human work and culture making.

FALL
Sin has corrupted that creative spark, leading us to selfishly seeking our own glory or the glory of idols in the exercise of that gift.

• Exodus 32:8
  They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’
• Isaiah 40: 16-18
  16 Half of the wood he burns in the fire;
  over it he prepares his meal,
  he roasts his meat and eats his fill.
  He also warms himself and says,
  “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.”
  17 From the rest he makes a god, his idol;
  he bows down to it and worships.
  He prays to it and says,
  “Save me; you are my god.”
• 18 They know nothing, they understand nothing;
  their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see,
  and their minds closed so they cannot understand.

REDEMPTION
God doesn’t abandon us in our broken state, but in Christ commits himself fully to re-making us in his image, and restoring our worship in a Godward direction.

• Ephesians 2:10
  For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
• God’s creative work continues in re-making us into his image, forgiving our sins, giving us new hearts and identities in Jesus, and promising to complete that work ultimately in new-making all things.

CONSUMMATION
Ultimately, when Christ returns to judge the quick and the dead, the whole world will be remade in accordance with God’s purposes and all things will be made new.

• Revelation 21:5
  “Behold, I am making all things new.”