In the next chapter of Glimpses of the New Creation, Taylor starts to dig in more specifically to the arts in worship. He explains how the arts are necessary for any human in how they engage the world. So, for the Christian, how much more important are the arts to those who are trying to form a Christian worldview. Taylor made really interesting cases for how the arts influence various aspects of life. He explained how the arts influence our physical bodies, how emotions, our spirits, and our minds.
One of the areas I found most compelling was the relationship between the arts and our emotions, and how that plays into worship. Often, I have been cautioned or warned to not let the arts manipulate people’s feelings in a worship service. However, what I learned from the reading, and what I have been learning over the years, is that it is not manipulation to lead people to Jesus through their emotions. In the same way leadership looks like paving a path for people to follow, we can do that as worship leaders for how people can emotionally relate to Jesus and the world and others. Because our emotions are going to affect our worldview and actions no matter what, it seems more helpful for the Body to have the worship service be a formational and teachable space of how to interact with your emotions. Obviously, we should not be so focused on emotions that it becomes toxic or an idol, but I believe there needs to be a healthy expectation of engaging with emotions and letting the arts facilitate that in worship.
There are many forms of art that facilitate this worldview formation. It is not just the music we sing that has emotional influence, but it is also the decoration we see, the arrangement of the room, the things we can touch, maybe even videos we see and hear. Art has so much variation and diversity, I wonder if that is necessary in a diverse Body. To aim for a diverse Body of believers but mainstreaming one art form, one worldview, almost seems counterintuitive or harmful to the Body. Similar to what Taylor said in this chapter, the arts feel necessary for the Church to be the fullest, most whole, most pure, most ready version of itself. Maybe the oil in the lamp that we store is an oil of artistic creativity, beauty, depth, and worship.
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