Artists as Shepherds in Communities of Faith
By Paul D Glavic |
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The biblical image of the shepherd has long been my primary means of understanding the role of a pastor. Rather than the depictions of executive or CEO, coordinator or whatever else, the pastor is a shepherd - serving in roles of observation, gathering, vision and direction, all of which is steered by discernment.
For a pastor, the role of observer could also be referred to as identifier or locator. A pastor steps back to see the big picture: Who is in this church? What are their stories? Where are they strong? Where do they struggle? In addition to questions about specific church members there are questions about potential church members - those on the periphery of the community. These are the people who brush shoulders with church members, or have visited the church here and there. These are the ones who are doing life with the church either indirectly or infrequently. Where are they in life? How can this community be good to them?
Discernment permeates the pastor’s observation as he/she asks the Spirit to guide and aid this process of locating “sheep,” particular and potential.
In the gathering element of shepherding, a pastor calls people together (not around an elevated pastoral figure, but around one other in community). While the pastor isn’t meant to gather the people around him/herself, he/she isn’t just another one of the sheep, either. Before he/she is the gatherer he/she is the observer, the person who steps back, sees the big picture, and considers every particular and potential “sheep.” (This is an area of pastoral ministry I see abused at times, as those who are predisposed to rallying do their gathering apart from a shepherd mentality, without first tending to the observer role. I think this leads to impersonal ministry.)
For a shepherding pastor, the role of visionary is not a solo gig. There needs to be more than one person dreaming and seeking God’s direction for the faith community. While the process of seeking and receiving God’s direction for the community is not a pastoral dictatorship, it’s not a leaderless process, either. Listening to the discernment of church members as well as his/her own discernment and that which he/she learned as observer, the visionary-shepherd organizes individual visions into a larger, collective vision for the community.
From here, the shepherd approaches the gathered flock with the collective vision transitions that into direction. In this role, things move from “This is where we see ourselves going” toward “Alright, let’s get our move on.” The shepherd begins to walk toward the destination, that place where the sheep desire to be.
While all of these pastoral roles come into play most sequentially as faith communities are formed, pastoral ministry is a constant, cyclical stream of these roles. “Who do we have?” “Let’s get together.” “God, what do you want us to be for each other and to the cities around us?” “Alright, everyone; let’s get moving.”
(One of the reasons I’m against the idea of pastor as CEO is that the pastor is then removed from the experience of observer while gathering and visioning. Ministry vision becomes a decree passed down to the people from on high, formed by a person who is, at best, a gatherer and director, a person who observes through demographics and statistics or second-hand accounts rather than observation that is first-hand, interpersonal, discerning and pastoral. When people look at the CEO pastor, they see someone who has talents in gathering and direction, but observes and discerns in a corner office. A person might say of this pastor, “I can see that he’s directing, but it doesn’t seem like he’s directing me.)
That entire explanation of the shepherd was simply a preface to what I actually want to approach: the creation of pastoral, shepherding art in communities of faith. Whether it’s songs for musical worship, written prayers for a time of corporate reflection, visual art for a gathering space, logo and branding, website layout, or anything else, I think that it’s best for the ministry when the artist functions as pastorally as he/she can while constructing the artistic contribution.
So I come back to the elements of the pastor-as-shepherd (remember that this is all just one person’s take on things, and it’s overly-categorical for the sake of clarity): observation, gathering, vision and direction (and discernment throughout the process). How can a songwriter, web-designer, photographer or videographer be all of these things in order to create pastoral art?
The place to begin is getting to know the members of the faith community. (This is true whether you’re a member of the church or if you’ve been brought in from outside the church to design something, though I’m especially excited when churches find people from within the community who are legitimately gifted to do the work of the community). Even if it’s a place where you’ve been for awhile, step back, evaluate as best you can, and ask for Godly discernment in the process. Try to acquire fresh eyes as you observe the strengths and struggles of the community.
Interview people. This could have a formal or informal vibe, depending on your relationship with the community. In doing so, you’re giving volume to the observation process: what do other people see as the strengths and struggles of the communities? How do these align with your observations? These interviews serve you as an observer/locator. Ask people where they think the church will be in six weeks, four months, and five years from now. Let people speculate. Hear their vision and vision with them, discerning all the while.
Now pray it out. Obviously the length of your conversations and prayer is going to depend on the seriousness and longevity of what you’re working on. I don’t want to over-dramatize this process. Even if it’s brief, inviting God into the creative process is a priority.
“God, please give me the wisdom and compassion to see the story of this church and each person in it. Accentuate the things they’ve told me. Show me the things they might not have mentioned or weren’t able to see.”
Good art almost always comes from listening well. Ask people for their perspective and ask God for wisdom. In all of it, sit back and listen.
Approaching art pastorally allows you to create things which direct the church toward the collective vision for the community. If we’re talking about web design, it means creating a site that isn’t fraudulent or deceiving. (We’ve seen those sites that look more hip than life itself, but the church clearly doesn’t share their web designer’s interest in contemporary relevance.) At the same time, the shepherd-artist (web, music, other) doesn’t create text art in Times New Roman or play four-chord songs on a Fender Squire - even if there are plenty of Times New Roman church communities in this world.
No serious church has a Times New Roman vision or Fender Squire aspirations. Most churches are not getting together and saying that the five-year plan is to cultivate deeper isolation among members, become more expendable to the surrounding community and garner a stronger disinterest in artistic integrity. So as shepherd-artist you look at the church and reconcile what is with what could be. This is where you have the opportunity to direct, using your art to point people toward the collective vision of the community. Art and community vision come together in this: there is no room for mediocrity.
It’s not that a new website or a fresh song for musical worship is going to suddenly reinvent the life of the church. It’s not like people will see your latest graphic design and decide that it’s time to pursue holiness. But your work could seriously be a piece, a means, toward that end. The beautiful thing about collective vision is that people rally around it. Your goal as shepherd-artist is to assemble art that embodies the collective vision and provides people with a tangible expression of their own story - the story of God’s work in that community.
As shepherd-artist, you’ve given the community more than a product or an aesthetic gift. By taking on the role of shepherd, you’ve made the creative process more involved, but it’s allowed you to design things that deeply resonate with the recipient, a valuable embodiment of who they are and who they wish to be.
 Paul Glavic is a newlywed, musician, seminarian and espresso-dependent thinker. Many of his thoughts appear at paulglavic.wordpress.com. |
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