I struggle knowing when to sacrifice my own interests in art for the greater good of Christendom. The struggle comes from acknowledging that my interests and talents in the arts are part of my created being, something that God gave to me for His glory.

It’s easy for me to be caught up in the arts, whether thinking about them or creating, in a way that isn’t overtly pious. My non-representational sculptures won’t immediately remind viewers of my faith. Probably fewer than half of my posts on this blog mention my faith, though I haven’t counted.

Of course, I may be making a comparison to the Fundamentalist lifestyle presented to me as a child, where little if any value seemed to be placed on anything outside of “the Lord’s work.” This point of view arises from the segregation of sacred and secular activities, a worldview that doesn’t believe in being a part of culture. In Biblical terms, this mindset not only avoids being “of” the world, it’s also not “in” the world. Hence the Christian “ghetto.”

It doesn’t bother me that my writing here doesn’t mention God in every post. I don’t feel guilty for not creating kitschy artwork that looks like its supposed to hang in church lobbies. The issues I tackle on The Aesthetic Elevator reflect my life “in” the world. Further, much of culture is amoral, not good or evil but just there, in essence. Even though we live in a fallen world, the rocks still sing praise to God. Creation is still “good;” Jesus affirmed this by His incarnation.

My faith is an integral part of who I am. It will always — consciously or subconsciously — inform how I think (and what I write here) and what I create, even if it isn’t obvious to other people. The struggle arises because I don’t know what it looks like to live as an artist of faith outside of my own experiences. I had no examples growing up in Western Nebraska. I had no one to look up to as a mentor while at the university in a city of 250,000 either, attending a church with a bonafide visual arts ministry. Yes, there were other artists of faith in school and at the church, but we were all stumbling around blindly to a large degree with respect to how our faith and visual gifts actually intermingled.

Should my life choices be more informed by my faith than the arts? Or should my life choices be more informed by the gifts God gave me than my faith? The obligatory answer is that faith is more important. And while I agree that a person’s faith is of utmost importance, I don’t believe said faith should be divorced from one’s natural talents and abilities — particularly when said person attributes all of their giftings to God.

These thoughts rattled around in my brain all weekend after conversing with missionary friends last Friday. Over dinner they asked if we ever considered serving overseas. This short answer to this inquiry is “yes.” Our friends then suggested we consider an artist residency program in their city, at their church. The opportunity, which I have very few details on at this point, is very appealing to me. From what I do know, this sounds like one of the few good examples of mixing missions and the tactile arts; of course, there are very few examples to draw from overall.

When I have more details I’ll give them if it looks like a good option that my wife and I might pursue.