Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Not by faith alone

Last evening, I ran into one of my neighbors, Bry who was sweeping up the sidewalks and the gutters. Bry and his wife are great neighborhood assets. The bought their troublesome (water problems like you would not believe) house after years of renting. They had come from Chicago, where they lived between the territories of a Latin gang and a Black gang, oh and they're white. As a way of dealing with the gangs, Bry would sweep up the trash and pray for the dealers... quite audibly. Anyway, he still sweeps up trash, usually on the weekends, but he said the weather was so nice, why not that evening?
Bry besides his pay the mortgage job of non-profit faith based grant something or another, is an artist. And we got on the topic of Christians and art and I was so relieved to find another soul who despises bad liturgical dance as I do. Sadly, I've only witnessed one example of good lit dance, most of it, as Bry said, are girls waving their arms going 'look at me, look at me.' As an artist, Bry finds that sort of thing offensive. We talked about how important it is to be skilled and programs to train Christians to actually be good at something and be in the secular world. The purpose not being to aggressively push the gospel, as agnostics and atheists might interpret the activity. But rather, to be a presence and minister when the opportunities present themselves.
So I leave you with this:
Say no to bad Christian Art
Say no to bad christian music
Say no to bad christian dance
Say no to bad christian movies
Say no to bad christian novels
And avoid the Left Behind Series like the plague.

No comments: