Josh, as Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls

This is Josh.

Got a story about your own misjudgement? Know a decidedly “unartistic” artist? Share…

Love.  Love.  Love.

Theatrical productions are rife with opportunities to collaborate… It is the single most compelling reason, in my thinking, to do full-scale theatre in the context of arts ministry: It gives purpose, context and accountability to collaborations.

Purpose…

I did a gallery wall at LVC last year as a prelude to launching our arts ministry… It was… nice…

But it lacked any sort of real purpose. The submission ranged from photographic art to pencil drawing to graphic design to painting… It looked diverse and aesthetically pleasing, but floundered thematically in the realm of “inspirational art,” lacking any kind of cohesion.

Our Godspell production, on the other hand, has a great deal of thematic cohesion… While focused largely on Jesus, Himself, it is also filled with themes and images of community and those themes are filling every creative aspect of the production.

Context…

I’ve observed that artists produce best in the context of a larger project. We’ve seen it in our Night In Bethlehem programs that we do with the LVC kids’ ministry… Activating about 70% of the adults and students in our church is a daunting task, but the larger scope and context of the project is part of the allure to volunteers… They can see that they are participating in something much bigger than themselves… There’s a sort of transcendence in it that keeps us coming back to it year-after-year.

A theatrical project gives the same opportunity to use our gifts and talents within a larger context.

I’m not a dancer. So, when it comes time to do a musical, I need a choreographer. Watching her work with the cast and watching that aspect of the show come together is a huge thrill for me. Even when my contribution is limited to operating the iPod…

Accountability…

If space-aliens were to break into my house and judge the whole of humanity by what they found, they’d conclude that earthlings have a strong aversion to finishing projects. Most of the creatives that I know personally have a similar struggle…

Projects with deadlines are either going to make us or break us…

That is, of course, the risk that is inherent in allowing artists to lead artists… I’m pretty sure that our pastor at the LVC has spent a considerable amount of time in prayer about Godspell… specifically regarding it timely completion… He has graciously declined to say so… out loud… but I know that it worries him.

Fortunately, I have the collaborative effort of a stage manager, an assistant director and a production assistant… to keep us on track and on schedule…

We haven’t missed a single deadline… Which reminds me:

Be sure to bring in a few left-brains when you start a big project.

Finally, remember what the Bible has to say about getting together:

Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
- Ecclesiastes 4: 9, 10, 12

Jason Tockey is an amateur photographer who’s gorgeous sunsets first caught my eye back in the spring. I’ll be talking with Jason about his art and a vision he has to connect artists in an online community… August 23.

Mary Freeman is a mixed-medium artist who created striking collage work for visual journaling. She also does seminars to teach her techniques to other artists and hobbyists in her community… September 6.

Troy Rowe is a professional portrait and event photographer who is using his considerable gifts to serve children at a local foster-care home. I’ll be talking with Troy about this unique ministry and other ways he uses his gifts… September 20.

Hannah Krohn is a dancer and dance teacher. I’ve worked with Hannah in some of my own projects at LVC. She has a great gift and heart and we’ll be talking together about unique ministry and missions opportunities that dance has opened up for her… October 4.

Jim Holt is sketching his way through the Bible… I found his pen and ink sketches on Tumbler.com. I’ll be talking with Jim about this project and his insightful visual blog… October 18.

Philip Davis is a graphic artist and photographer. We’ll be talking about an interesting project that he’s working on as he designs through the book of Psalms… November 1.

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When I started blogging, I used Vox.com and I really enjoyed the social media aspect of the site… The problem was that there were fairly strict limitations on formating, sidebar content, etc… And as I developed WOP, it became apparent that I would need to find a more flexible platform…

So, I switched to WordPress…

Anon comes Tumblr.com… which is a kind of what would happen if Vox married Twitter and had a baby…

It seems like a good fit for WOP to have a mini-blog over at Tumblr… If you follow over there, you’ll get truncated posts from the RSS feed and will be able to link back here for complete posts…

If you use Tumblr, feel free to add a link to your Tumblr bog in the comments…

Now, for the  record, I think that ALL personality assessments are unscientific… So, this one has the benefit of taking about 10 seconds, as opposed to the Meyers-Briggs that takes half a day…

Pick the 2 most appealing shapes from the following:

The most appealing shape is your primary type… the second most appealing is your secondary type…

You have now completed the assessment.

Squares, Rectangles and Triangles are convergent personalities. In other words, they tend  to move in the direction of their goals.  They are generally systematic, logical and like specific and finite activities.

Rectangles are task oriented and relational.  They like to work in groups to solve problems, complete projects and accomplish tasks.  Squares are task oriented but not relational and prefer to work alone.  Triangles like to take charge, set goals and make sure that the goals are achieved.

Circles and Squiggles are much more interesting to creatives… since we tend to fall into one of these categories and find the convergent types rather boring.

Circles and Squiggles are divergent personalities… our tendency is to move outward from the current paradigm or structure.  Finite goals are uninteresting to Circles and Squiggles, who would much rather spend their mental energy trying to get OUT of the square, rectangular or triangular box that our bosses want to squash us into…

By the way, you might as well come to terms with the fact that Circles and Squiggles tend to be employed by Squares, Rectangles or Triangles…

Circles and Squiggles are also extroverted, creative and intuitive… and tend to be asystematic and undependable…

Circles are relational.  They are social and communicative.  Give a Circle a task to complete and he will talk about it.  I once worked with a pastor who would talk a project to death.  After one particularly long meeting, our administrative assistant looked at the two of us, shook her head and informed us that “talking is not the same as working.”  She was a Rectangle.

Circles also like for everyone to get along… Harmony is essential to their work environment… They don’t generally recognize structure as essential to harmony, but are not averse to the idea of adding structure as long as it doesn’t cut into their Facebook time…

In case you didn’t see this coming, a Squiggle is an off-the-wall creative.  Give him structure and he will invent creative work-arounds so that he can do things his own way.  Squiggles are people that get described with metaphors about “different drummers” and are often complaining about how boring their jobs are.

If you give a task to a Squiggle, he will generally come back to you with a counter-proposal. The current paradigm is ALWAYS too restrictive…

There is certainly more to be said about these types, but that’s it in a nutshell… So, what shape are you?

All good leaders have 2 ways they like to lead…

The first is collaborative… Get the team together, brainstorm, find the best solutions.  After all, maturity teaches me that I don’t have ALL of the good ideas…

The second is authoritative… Get the team together, give them instructions and send them off to do their part… After all, I am the leader because I know what I’m doing…

The trick is knowing when to be collaborative and when to be authoritative…

Because I’m a creative and because I generally work with creatives, I tend to lean towards the collaborative style… but sometimes, I have a clear vision and I don’t want to be forced into a creative compromise…

Because sometimes I believe that compromise undermines the objectives and goals of the project…

And (honestly) because sometimes I like to be in charge…

And since creative ventures are intrinsically subjective, there’s almost never a conclusive right or wrong way to implement them…

With a few (occasionally significant) exceptions, I know my team.  I know their strengths and weaknesses. I have come to anticipate the kinds of suggestions and ideas they have…

So sometimes I don’t ask for ideas…

Maybe that’s bad, but sometimes the old adage is true:

Too many chefs DO ruin the soup…

I used to work for a guy that had a blended approach… but it was all wrong… He liked to have “brainstorming” sessions where he flagrantly discarded every idea that didn’t align with his own… At one retreat, the entire staff seemed to have ideas that ran afoul of his… That was particularly frustrating for everybody…

He would have been better off making authoritarian decisions and selling the outcomes rather than asking for our opinions… We might have hated his decisions, but instead we grew to hate him personally…

If we had been volunteers, we would have abandoned that ship at the first opportunity… Some of us did anyway…

If you work with creatives, you’ll already recognize that they like to be heard… They like their ideas to count…

One of our great artists at church approached me with an idea for a project… I like the idea at face value but I have some concerns about the impression that it might leave with a particular group of people that our church is trying to reach. It’s not poorly conceived or poorly motivated, it’s just poorly timed…

But I hate to put people off… I don’t know a single creative that likes to hear the word “wait”…

This is a great opportunity for collaborative leadership: Can we work together to find an outlet for this idea?

Here are the talking points I like to use in a decision about whether to collaborate:

1. Can I do it better by myself? I have a pretty broad artistic capacity, but I wouldn’t claim to be “the best” at much of anything. In many cases, though, my efforts are good enough. When I really want a project to be outstanding, I need collaboration.

2. Will collaboration negatively impact the goals of the project? When I’m putting together a program, I often have a vision for the emotive impact that I want the program to have. When people want to add elements that don’t contribute to that emotive  impact (or worse, distract from it), I want to take a more authoritarian position.

What are your touchpoints for collaboration? What sorts of situations make you want to “take charge”?

Painter, Moyra Blayney sells her landscape work through a coffeehouse that donates their consignment fees to charities…

Gloria Mendez teaches craft and beadwork classes at her church and works with a local nun to help her become self-supporting…

John Prichard, a student-filmmaker, produced a short film to promote the new work of a foreign missionary…

Mixed-media artist, Kathie Luther, mixes artistic expression with prophetic and end-times images to express provocative ideas about the Christian life…

Stagecraft-trained writer, Tim Jones, uses his gifts to produce dramatic presentations for church outreach…

What kind of service/ministry are you doing with your gifts?  Share thoughts and ideas here…

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What this means for WOP…

First, it means that we can include syndicated content from other top thinkers in the field of arts in ministry… There are thousands of bloggers that only blog about art or worship occasionally in their personal blogs… WOP will give those bloggers a platform to promote these aspects of their writing to our focused interest-group… by simply adding a tag…

Second, it means that friends, fans and readers can contribute to the conversation at WOP in a meaningful way… Let’s face it, sometimes you have more to say about a post than a limited comment… So, blog it, tag it and create a forum for discussion…

Finally, it allows us to have the benefits of an online community without the hassle of joining another social networking site… Because, how long has it been since you logged into anything besides Twitter or Facebook anyway?  And that’s how you’ll login to contribute to WOP: with an account at either of the 2 most popular social networking sites on the web…

What the “private beta” means for you…

Right now, contributor participation is by invitation only… Mostly because the host site is in beta which means there are bugs sometimes… We don’t want our content to suffer because we’re trying to manage bug-feedback from an unlimited number users…

So, if you want to become one of our beta testers, you have to request an invitation… Just use our contact form and say, “I want to contribute content.”  We’ll send you more specific instructions along with an invite…

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Untitled by Moyra Blayney

I’ve been chatting with Moyra Blayney, our Featured Artist, about her work and her recent reboot.  She had been inactive with her art for 15 years before opening a small show earlier this year at a coffeehouse in Belfast. Since I have also had a reboot in my writing and theatre in the last year, I thought that it might be encouraging to share a few thoughts…

It’s easy to get stuck in the routine of your “real life” but I think that artists (and this is probably especially true of Christian artists) abandon real living when they trade a day job for their artistic passion. For me, it was selling sprockets (not joking) that totally consumed my productive hours and kept me wishing I could do something artistic rather than doing it.

Dreaming takes a lot less effort than actually putting paint on a canvas or words on a page. Guitar Hero is easier to master than guitar. Watching TV is easier than appearing in a play… you get the idea.

I hadn’t given a lot of thought to my own reboot until I started talking to Moyra… but her story and mine share some of the same elements… Elements that might actually form some foundational principles for rebooting… I wanted to share them.

1. FEED YOUR INNER-ARTIST… It struck me that Moyra stayed interested in reading about art and art technique even when she was inactive. For me, attending plays and reading classic literature kept my imagination active even when I was too busy to write.

Passion is something that needs fuel. This is true in art, in relationships, in faith. If you’ve stopped fueling your imagination, pick up a book…

2. FIND A MUSE… For Moyra, it’s the Irish countryside… For me, it’s the Colorado foothills… But everyone has a place, an activity or a person who ignites our imagination…

For the Christian artist, there is a wealth of inspiration to be had in our relationship with God. I’ve found that the more I seek Him, the more inspired my writing becomes. Every good gift comes from God, after all, and our artistic talents are no exception… Ask Him to bring inspiration and He will.

3. TALK ABOUT YOUR DESIRE… Nothing fuels desire like speaking it out loud… And I can’t think of many things that are harder to talk about. It’s kinda scary to talk about a reboot. Our fear of failure kicks in and we freeze up.

Find a trustworthy friend and start talking about your reboot… For me, I started saying things like, “I’m writing that novella I’ve been thinking about.” My friends were very supportive… Moyra’s friend actually set up her first show… If your friends aren’t supportive, get some new ones.

4. SET UP A PLACE AND TIME TO WORK… Moyra had a deadline for her first show and not a single, completed canvas… She set up a studio in her home and set aside time to work… There’s nothing like a deadline to motivate you to work.

I did something similar with my novella, publishing the drafts of each chapter every Monday in my blog… Pointing my desk out the window and at the mountains gave me even more of a reason to sit down and write…

If you have a “day job” it is especially necessary to set aside a certain time (maybe the hour right after dinner) to work, otherwise, you will get derailed by business.

5. JUST DO IT… Talking and planning are great motivators, but eventually you have to pick up the brush, dust off the piano or fill the balloons with paint… You don’t have to write the Great American Novel or create a masterpiece with your first effort, but if you’re ever going to do something noteworthy, you must start somewhere…

Remember that the journey of 1000 miles begins with the first step…

Want to add something or tell us about your own reboot? Comments are always welcome!

Read more about Moyra’s art here.

Read Tim’s novella, The Warrior, or check out his new live nativity script, bethlehemEXPERIENCE.