by
Darren Michael Heater |
Isaiah 49:1-7
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29-42 A lot in my life is still very much a mystery to me. One thing, however, is coming into focus: my calling to create art and to serve and empower other artists. I have seen this calling grow since I was a 4-year-old, when I used to spend hours drawing pictures of space ships fighting evil mutants in intergalactic battles. Until recently, I dismissed my passion for the arts as simply a hobby and the call brewing in my heart as a silly fantasy, only to be pursued on Saturdays or for youth-group videos. But God has been slowly changing that perspective in the same way perhaps that God's servant, in Isaiah 49:1-7, was made to realize his true life's mission: to glorify his creator. I have come to learn that our God is a creative God and since we are made in God's image we are creative beings, with the power to express profound things. We worship a God of stories. Perhaps no other form relays God's involvement in our lives as powerfully as when artists tell that story through their art. Whether the story is sung in a song, projected in a movie, touched in a sculpture, displayed in a painting or told through a voice, the artist can be a powerful person, for good or for evil.
One of the biggest lies Satan is spreading in our culture today is that art is simply for entertainment. Many people in our society are convinced that those who create art are simply quirky, harmless people. Our society has consumed Satan's lies by the pound-full. I am now seeing more clearly than ever that artists are not solely entertainers; they are, at times, 'prophets' to our dying culture. We support Bible-translating missionaries whose job it is to go overseas and get to know some remote tribe's culture and language. Then after a few months or even years they slowly tell the story of the Bible to that community in a language that people can understand. That is the same thing artists do. What we need in our American society is to send and empower artists to take God's eternal story and tell it to our dying culture in a way that resonates with its soul. When Hollywood puts out a horrible movie that is damaging to God's eternal story, it is not enough to simply boycott it. We must rally around our prophet-like filmmakers and empower them to tell God's story in an excellent and powerful way. Jesus himself used creative stories to communicate much of his teaching to his disciples. The artists of our culture, both good and bad, are often the ones who live on the leading outside edge of our society. Besides the fact that they may wear funny clothes and do strange things, as John the Baptist did, like him, they often proclaim a powerful message of where society is headed. I realize more and more everyday that God desires for me to tell God's story through art. But more so, God is calling me to come alongside of those strange, space-ship-drawing artist-prophets like myself, and empower them to tell our creator's story to his beautiful creation, we that are made in God's image. Man, it's good to be alive. Darren Michael Heater is a freelance video producer and a member and former youth pastor at Mt. Oak UMC in Mitchellville. He has helped produce several recent, award-winning videos for the Baltimore-Washington Conference. | 
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