President's Blog

I have worshipped God while visiting the Louvre in Paris, the Tate in London, and the AGO in Toronto. Let me explain.

God is a Creator God and He loves to create. After each day of creation, God paused, stepped back, and mentioned it was “good”.

Art does that for us. It can point out the “good”. Art has the capacity to make us pause. In art museums around the world I have spent countless hours pausing, often catching myself worshipping. Not a piece of art like a physical idol, but it points me to the wonder of our Creator God. It elicits in me wonder and awe over God’s creation. I have given praise to God in the McMichael Gallery and Musée d’Orsay. If you gave it half a chance, you would too.

Why I Create

Some of you know I’m an artist. A novice at best. But I love to paint. Why? Art speaks an aesthetic language that says things that words struggle to say. My hope is my art reflects (poorly) the beauty God has created. The creating and appreciating of art can do many things. Here are a few.

Art can elicit hope:

When I see something beautiful, I get hopeful. In a sense, the ontological argument for God’s existence is an argument for perfection and beauty that points to an original perfection. God is that perfection and everything else in creation is contrasted in degrees of beauty to that perfect Being.

All beauty points to God in my opinion. That is partly why I’ve chosen to be a landscape artist. God’s canvas is nature. I fail miserably to capture that beauty, but occasionally I see a glimpse of what I’m looking for in my work. It’s exciting when that happens.

The 18th century art critique, John Ruskin, believed all art should communicate an understanding and appreciation of nature. Art should communicate truth above all things. I agree with Ruskin.

If art can elicit hope, and our beautiful world is but a glimpse into the landscape of Heaven, then my hope is my art dimly mirrors the hope of Heaven.

A few years back I met with a graphic designer who loves the Lord. His graphic design firm was helping us to redesign our website and national magazine rebranded as “Thrive”. I talked with this wonderful artistic businessman about the look and feel of our magazine. What identity did we want to reflect? I finally said, “I want our magazine to be beautiful”. He smiled and our animated talk stopped immediately. He understood. I don’t think he ever heard a client say that before. Beauty points to what God said was “good”.

Further Thoughts on Art in my Next Blog

Next week I’d like to share a few more personal thoughts on the importance of art that helps us to:

• Challenge prevalent ideas
• Convey personal experiences
• Heal
• Transform

Ultimately, my hope is that our churches will release our artists: visual, musical, dance, multimedia, poets, playwrights, craft, sculptors, and others to show us how to more fully worship our Creator God.

Listen carefully to N.T. Wright:

“In my experience the Christian painter or poet, sculptor or dancer, is regularly regarded as something of a curiosity to be tolerated, humoured even, maybe even allowed to put on a show once in a while. But the idea that they are, or could be, anything more than that — that they have a vocation to re-imagine and re-express the beauty of God, lift our sights and change our vision of reality, is not even considered.”

God has given us a calling. I believe my artistry is a calling with which I am to glorify God with. My hope is our churches might make a home for believers that believe God’s call on their life is to be an artist. “Let my people go — let our artists free!”