07.14.09
art, imagination, and the future
“We will need to open ourselves up to scripture, but in particular, to the role of the artist.
“In the 21st century the artists will lead us. They are the ones who dream. Dreams and pragmatism are always in tension. Unless we learn how to make this tension more creative we will never be able to see the future for our region. We will always be buying it from someone else. And this is the greatest tragedy of the local church in Canada; when we sing a new song, we have bought it from someone else. When we dream a new dream, we have bought it from another church in another country. God is always doing a new work. Even in Canada. The artists help us to see it.”
Donald Goertz, Tyndale Seminary, Toronto, quoted in Missional Voice
“The function of apostolic leaders is to hear the voices of the poet and prophet and set about to make what God is saying through them a reality. Apostolic leaders like Nehemiah emerged in the
exile with new vision to make God’s plan a reality. The apostolic function is to lead God’s people into the missio dei - the “mission of God.†“Apostles stand at the doorway between an old world that has died and the transition world that lies ahead and call people to action.†Roxburgh, The Sky is Falling, 171-72)
NextReformation » the table said,
November 25, 2009 at 9:18 pm
[...] There seems to be a resurgence of interest in the meaning of gathering around tables. Perhaps the waning of our collective memory and a new interest in images and symbols is an opportunity to discover these things afresh. We will need to make this journey, because symbols and images reach us at a different level than merely the mind — and if we don’t find a way beyond this dualism we’ll wage a losing battle against the forming pressures of market culture. (Another reason we need artists). * * * [...]