The creative arts are a great way to connect with people and share the gospel. Hosting an artistic event yourself allows greater control of the agenda and more gospel content to be shared.
One church held a week of concentrated outreach into their city. In order to engage creative people, they held a photography competition. They used the gently Christian theme ‘images of the cross in everyday life’ which they cheekily entitled “Rood Awakenings”. They advertised the event around photographic clubs, and enticed people through significant prizes to submit entries in categories such as ‘local images’, ‘phone cameras’, and ‘young photographers’. It led to a great evening, connecting with lots of non-church people, many for the first time.
Running a good exhibition and awards evening at church or a neutral venue, is a really important part of doing this well. Consider the following:
- Pray!
- Curate the images well, make viewing them either in print or digitally a really positive experience. Don’t just display the winners, but include all the entries on a rolling PowerPoint.
- Offer refreshments, background music and friendly conversation.
- Make the prize-giving really enjoyable. Experience shows that you might get entries from children taking their first images, and from semi-professionals creating powerful art. So be generous, as well as honouring excellence.
- Use the evening to engage photographers.
Get a really good photographer to give out the prizes, and do a short talk on an aspect of photography. - Use the evening to present the gospel.
If your photographer isn’t able to do that, ask a church leader, or invite a Solas speaker The ‘argument from beauty’, forms a very natural bridge from art to the gospel, as you can see here and here. - Make sure there is some follow-up in place for guests who want to find out more. Make sure invitations to Alpha, Christianity Explored (or whatever your church uses to help newcomers explore the faith) are given to everyone. The church that ran the photography competition also established a monthly “Coffee and Cameras” club to continue to get alongside local photographers.
- Other art-forms are available, use your congregation’s interests, skills and talents!
Pray: Lord, give me the courage to be creative in sharing the gospel, the courage to give this a try and the words to share your message, Amen.
Previously: Launchpad #47 Take A Stand
Next: Launchpad #49 Will be published soon!
