How many lead singers does it take to change a light bulb? 

One.  The lead singer holds the bulb, and the world revolves around him.

Recently, I was talking to someone new to the Christian faith.  Which is also to say that he is new to the evangelical Christian subculture.  He knew that I was a worship and arts pastor, and so our conversation eventually drifted to the weekend services at his church.  In the conversation, he said something that jolted me momentarily.  He referred to the person leading worship at his church as the “lead singer for the band.”

At first I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.  After all, he was a new Christ follower, and without a Christian background to give you a frame of reference, the obvious equivalent phrase to “worship leader” is “lead singer.

A little boy turns to his mother and says, "Mommy, when I grow up, I want to be a musician!"

The mother looks back at her child with concern and replies, "But honey, you can't do both."

I was told by my Mom that I had always wanted to play the piano, even as a toddler.  If there was a spinet in the room, I would inevitably be found scaling it, like a mountain climber ascending the shear face of a mountain, looking for a foothold or outcropping, daring gravity to grasp a handful of ivory above me.  It got to the point that my parents decided to get me piano lessons—at the age of "almost five."  By the time I was eleven years old or so, six years of piano lessons on our family's old mahogany upright had convinced me of my life calling:  I wanted to be a classical pianist.

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Hair fashionably mussed, a soul patch beneath his lower lip, the Singer steps onto the small stage and eyes the small audience seated before him.  A man in a dark T-shirt impatiently eyes the Singer.  Pen fidgeting in his mouth, he inquires tersely, "Okay, what do you have for us today?"

The Singer takes a deep breath before answering.  "Well, I'd like to start out with 'Not to Us' by Chris Tomlin."

"Okay," the man responds without emotion.  "Good luck."

Apprehensive, jittery, nonplused, the Singer takes a step forward.  And with all that he has, and all that he is, he opens his mouth.  And sings.

"Not to us, but to Your name be the glory," he proclaims.  "Not to us, but to Your name..." he repeats, each time with greater conviction.  The certainty of his beliefs seem to steady his voice, and he digs into the phrase deeper.  Taking a deep breath, he readies himself for the first verse.

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Scenario 1:   A married couple—he a gospel singer and she a talented painter—describe to me the shared frustration of having the man's work regularly encouraged and applauded in their church while she has no place or artistic voice to express herself.

Scenario 2:   I receive an e-mail from a Christian artist frustrated and deeply hurt by the continual lack of support for his art throughout his life.  From a father who deemed his painting as sissy to a home church that disallowed creative expressions outside of music, he carries both childhood scars and adult wounds for being an artist.

Scenario 3:    A friend of mine is excited to bring an arts conference to a few churches he knows.  But as he dreams and plans about the opportunity, he also shares his wariness over a particular denomination that is suspicious about anything having to do with visual arts or dance in the church.

Scenario 4:  I meet with a woman after a conference who confesses that she is a semi-professional jazz singer who won't tell her pastor what she does on Saturday nights.  She is fearful that letting her church leadership know what she does musically will disqualify her from her praise team.

Four hundred ninety three years after the dramatic beginning of the reformation, and the evangelical church still seems to have an underdeveloped understanding of the arts—and the artists.  Outside of the narrowly defined genres of hymns and choruses, most musical styles are misunderstood.  Dance is frowned upon, except under the guise of "worship movement."  The visual arts are often limited to iconic representations (e.g., doves and crosses), or as backgrounds behind the lyrics of songs.  Drama is limited to Christmas and Easter, or demoted to children's ministries.  Other art forms, like poetry, sculpture and painting are noticeably absent in the expressions of our churches.  Even a most basic aesthetic of beauty is being stripped from our sanctuaries, as we adopt a utilitarian approach to architecture and stagecraft.

The bigger issue may be how the arts are understood.  There are a lot of artistically hip churches out there these days—with worship concerts, theatrical lighting, and moving abstract backgrounds on wide screens.  But I suspect that many of these churches are driven by style, not driven from a Scripturally-based theology of the arts.  The immediate danger of this is that we become flavor-of-the-month churches, grasping at the latest fashion or fad.  The larger danger is that the arts become simply relegated to be a medium for a message, not primarily an expression of the Christ-following artist.  In a crass sense, art becomes part of the show, not a reflection of the bride of Christ.

So.  Can you resonate with any of this?  If you are an artist, do you find that there is a place for you in your church to express yourself?  Is the only venue for artistic expression the Sunday morning service—and you don't fit into it?   How does that make you feel?  What can be done to change it?  And what is the role of the church in unleashing the arts—and artists—in the church, to the world, and before God?

I have met a lot of frustrated artists lately, as well as with those whose job would be to lead them.  I'd like to dialogue over these issues over the next few blogs, so I invite your comments.  I want us to share our thoughts together, think through some theology, and maybe talk about some practical ways that the evangelical churches among us can begin to better unleash and uphold the Christ-following artist. 

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America's most popular reality show, "American Idol,” begins Season 9 this week.  One more season of judge in-fighting, audition train wrecks, pop divas, contestant theatrics, and some authentically talented vocalists.  And I couldn't care less.

Before you start writing your rebuttal response, let me say:  I don’t really hate American Idol.  It’s just that AI exposes some things about our society that run in both subtle and flagrant opposition to things I feel very strongly about—things like faith, art, personal expression, and even basic human principles like decency and the golden rule.  Besides, “hate” is a strong and vulgar word to me, one that I use sparingly.  So I guess when I say “hate” American Idol, I really mean to say something more akin to “cringe with embarrassment and aversion.

One of the Christmastime traditions my wife and I established with our children when they were young was looking at the Christmas lights around our community. Bundled up under blankets in our minivan (the twenty-first century version of the horse-drawn sleigh), the entire family would drive down one street and up another, seeing all the decorated houses in our neighborhood.

And people would go all out. Life-sized reindeer. Nativity scenes. Santas coming down chimneys. Snowmen with top hats and pipes. Candy canes lining people’s driveways. And lights. Lots and lots of lights. The more the lights, the more we’d “ooh” and “aah.”  Then we’d drive back to our house and have hot cocoa.

It was in their third Christmas that my twins, Rachel and Paige, were old enough to really appreciate the event. And that they did. Through their little three year old eyes, our neighborhood was a magical and amazing place. Every house glowed like fresh baked gingerbread. Trees glistened like the moonlight on fresh-fallen snow. And everywhere there were lights, Rachel and Paige announced excitedly, “Ommagosh, it’s bootiful.”

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I recently participated in the Christian Musicians Summit at Overlake (Seattle area).  During this two-day conference, I shared concepts on the arts and faith from my book to scores of artists—musicians, painters, actors, dancers, and technical artists.  It was a blast.

One of the things I look forward to as I speak more in this context is watching the imaginary light bulbs that start to turn on over people’s heads.  This time, there was a definite corporate “aah!” moment as I shared the idea that we don’t have to be message-oriented in our art.  Christian evangelicals in particular operate under the paradigm that the arts are to be used as a vehicle for a message, and of course, the message is “the Gospel,” however you may define it.  (Note: I originally derived this concept from Francis Schaeffer in his seminal book, Art and the Bible.)

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"Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth."    Psalm 96:1

Recently, Worship Leader Magazine asked me (among others) to respond to two questions that they will be focusing on in an upcoming issue.  The questions they posed were quite thought-provoking and, upon further reflection, essential for the worship leader.  I look forward to the January 2010 issue and what others have to say.  Meanwhile, here are their questions and my extended response to them.

WL:  What is New Song?

Before I came to Christ, there were three kinds of songs I typically wrote: “I love you” songs, “You left me” songs, and “You can leave now” songs.  (I think I wrote a song about the circus once too.

My church is going to celebrate our 25th anniversary this week.  As you can imagine, we’ve gone through a lot in that time.  We’ve had our celebrations, births, weddings, funerals, baptisms, Christmases and Easters, retreats and advances.  We've met at a storefront, a high school, afternoons at another church, portable buildings, and finally our own performing arts facility built largely with volunteer staff.  There are hundreds of people to whom I have given my heart—in ministry and in life—for a season and for eternity. 

There are decades of memories wrapped up in this celebration, from special private moments with one or two people to countless moments in public congregational intimacy through worship and other artistic expressions.  There have been large numbers of people (numbers known only to God) who have committed their lives to Christ.  I’ve had the privilege of being able to share the creative process with hundreds—maybe thousands—of actors, dancers, musicians, producers, technical artists, poets, painters, graphic artists, recording engineers, writers, photographers, vocalists, artisans, visionaries.  And I have laughed so hard and so long, that I’ve gone to bed with a sore belly.

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Last Sunday, I once again had the privilege of bringing another person onto our worship team.  He is the 21 year old son of a long time member of the team, who picked up the electric guitar a number of years ago.  Last Sunday was his first time playing on the worship band.  I think he did great.  

This is one of the thrills of being a worship pastor.  To see people grow not only in their faith but in their artistry as well, and to see those gifts being used for God.  Yup.  It's a cool gig.

Between services, he remarked to me that he was initially having to think about every little thing he was doing, but as he settled in, it became easier to play and worship.  I explained to him that being on the worship team is like driving.  When you first learn to drive, you have to think about every act of driving—signaling, stepping on the accelerator, pointing the car in the right direction.  But eventually, you get to the point of never having to think about driving at all.  You only think about where you are going.

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