Monthly arts column

I live next door to L'Abri Fellowship, the work founded by Francis and Edith Schaeffer in Switzerland and now active throughout the world; a number of L'Abri staff have contributed to the pages of Evangelicals Now over the years. Recently, L'Abri invited a professional artist, Janice Harding, to be artist-in-residence for most of a year.

For L'Abri, which has for decades been a place where the arts and the whole of modern culture have always been brought within the ambit of Christian experience and biblical apologetics, it was a logical extension of its ministry. And of course the presence of a real live artist on the premises led to a variety of teaching and discussion opportunities, and also the opportunity for visitors to L'Abri to get some hands-on acquaintance with art.

But the value of having an artist-in-residence proved to be much more extensive than that, as people who had come to L'Abri with all sorts of spiritual needs and problems found that art was a means of being ministered to. You can sometimes think through problems more deeply when you have a paintbrush in your hands than you can when you have a volume of systematic theology in them.

Created

I found myself thinking of Janice's time at L'Abri recently as I looked at a Christmas present that my wife had given me. Tricia, besides being a freelance photographer, is also for part of the week a community arts worker with people from disadvantaged backgrounds and with learning difficulties. What I found in my stocking on Christmas morning was a painting of a leopard, done on silk. It captured perfectly the characteristic stance of a proud cat - caught in mid-snarl, its body coiled ready to leap away. I loved it immediately. In our home, where bookcases tend to commandeer every available inch of wall space, it will have a place of prominence.

It was made by a participant in an arts workshop for people with learning disabilities; a person who had almost certainly been written off by most who knew her as somebody who would never be able to achieve much in life and certainly not be the kind of person whose paintings ended up in exhibitions. Like many who attend Tricia's photographic workshops, she had been enabled to express something of who she was and what she had been created to be, with no allowance necessary at all for her disability.

Human

I'm reminded also of a conference organised by the late, much-missed Lesslie Newbigin and his colleagues in the Gospel & Our Culture project, where several hundred distinguished theologians and specialists in other disciplines met for what was by any standards a pretty cerebral conference (but also a warmly human one, as shown for example by Dr. Newbigin's habit of not retiring to bed before saying a friendly 'Good night' to every delegate he could find).

The organisers had enlisted two artists in residence who set up a studio at the conference centre. Most delegates found their way there during the conference. Again, doing some practical creative work proved a wonderful sub-text to the more academic activities of the week and played a visible and almost pastoral part in the proceedings. You can't be intimidated by a bishop who's got paint on his nose!

Empowering

Maybe we talk too much about art, and don't do enough of it. Are there talented people in your church who could devise ways of using art and creativity to minister to members of the Christian family who can sometimes be neglected? It could be a wonderful way of drawing in the shy, the nervous, the difficult-to-get-alongside; and if your church family includes brothers and sisters with physical or mental disabilities, there are few better ways of empowering them to fully join in - and even minister to - the church family as a whole.

Exactly how this might be done will vary from church to church. Identifying those with the skills and calling to put it into practice might be a lengthy and even costly process. But it could be a very worthwhile initiative to pursue in the coming year.

Postscript

While yielding to no one in my appreciation for Mayor Ken Livingstone's support for the arts in London, the choice of a Livingstone election campaign poster to illustrate last month's column was unintended. Some readers will know that I am actively involved with the Christian Peoples Alliance, whose leader Ram Gidoomal has announced his candidacy in the 2004 London Mayoral elections - and whose manifesto, as a Christian approach to the governance of London, is worth a browse even if your vote is committed elsewhere.

Family creativity

Created

Human

Empowering

Postscript

David Porter

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