The arts are uniquely capable of moving people on an emotional level. I believe that in a worship service, we should allow the preaching and teaching to do what they do best, and employ the arts to focus where they are strongest. We come to church to learn about truth, but also to be inspired, to be lifted, and to be moved. And the arts move us! Our goal should be to prepare artistic elements that have the potential to become transcendent moments – moments which the Holy Spirit has unmistakably anointed and which can lead to life transformation.
So in what ways do the arts move us? There is a broad spectrum of possible emotions in worship. Not all of these emotions would be evident every week. Here’s at least a starter list of the ways the arts can move us:
- Toward beauty – lifting our spirits as we are inspired by creation;
- Toward celebration – freeing us to express joy and gratitude;
- Toward justice – stirring within us a righteous kind of anger to make things right in this broken world;
- Evoking sadness – sometimes the arts remind us of our pain and help us empathize with the pain and loss of others;
- Evoking laughter – what a wondrous experience to laugh from the gut in church;
- Inspiring hope – the arts point the way to God’s light in the midst of darkness;
- Igniting action – the arts can challenge and stretch us to align ourselves with the activity of God.
Whenever we design a worship experience, we should ask: If God works (as we pray and trust he will) and if we do our job as artists, how do we long for people to be moved? Let’s not settle for that which elicits only a yawn, or for arts that merely take up space and time in the service. Let’s send people out to their cars having deeply felt something.
