In one of the most imaginative works of Christian fiction that I’ve picked up in ten years, Matt Mikalatos brings his own search for the “real Jesus” to life… in a weird, out-of-body kind of way.

The story opens in a communist coffee house, somewhere in Portland… Matt narrates in first-person, occasionally speaking directly to the Imaginary Jesus that has joined him for latte and vegan chili. The tranquility is broken when a large, hairy brute (who later identifies himself as the Apostle Peter) enters the room and punches Imaginary Jesus in the face…

As Imaginary Jesus flees the confrontation and Mikalatos pursues him, we encounter an ex-prostitute, a talking donkey, an atheist Bible study group, George Barna (eating a vegan taco salad at the same communist cafe) and a host of other imaginary Jesuses…

The razor wit with which Mikalatos vivisects our tendency to create Jesus in our own image is both entertaining and poignant… Nobody’s Jesus is off-limits: Business-suit Jesus tells us that everyone creates a convenient version of Jesus to believe in, only to discard him when he becomes irrelevant. Men’s Retreat Jesus speaks in barely intelligible sentences, cries like an 8-year-old girl and is so easily manipulated that he follows the principal characters around for several chapters like a lost puppy. Social Justice Jesus has hands but no mouth… Legalist Jesus has a loud voice and no arms…

Wherever you land theologically, you’ll laugh at the Jesuses that you don’t like and fume when he slices to bits the Jesus that you do…

And when he finally encounters the real Jesus (ironically, hanging out in a prayer labyrinth) it will touch you to the core…

This book has been around a while and is actually being reissued under the title My Imaginary Jesus, which includes an interview with the author and a discussion guide…

Definitely worth a read.

You can purchase the Kindle edition here… or if you’re more old school, the paperback is here.

Here are a few images from the rehearsals…

Ian Prichard as Scrooge...

A tavernmaid tries to wish Scrooge an 'appy 'oliday...

Scrooge converses with The Ghost of Christmas Past...

Londoners in a tavern enjoying the holiday spirits...

The show goes up on December 1 for five performances… If you are in the Denver area, come check it out.  Admission is free with a food donation to Open Arms Food Bank and registration is open at www.freehumbug.com…

Take responsibility for creating a collaborative atmosphere for your team...

I don’t particularly enjoy collaborating within an authoritarian leadership structure… And that is largely the structure we encounter in church: Leaders who feel it is their responsibility (or even their “divine right”) to make the final decisions.

I am fortunate to work with a pastor who trusts me to make good choices…

Several years back, however, I worked with a different pastor who was quite the authoritarian… He was the person who introduced me to the pitfalls of collaborating in this context…

In authoritarian settings, I have found my creativity squashed by the realization that, ultimately, the guy in charge was going make a decision… That his opinions were (by default) more weighty than mine, regardless of his level of understanding in the medium…

Frustrating.

Don’t frustrate the creatives under your leadership.  Frustrated creatives do not produce the best results… Often, they give up and go away before the produce any results at all…

Here are a few “do-unto-others” rules for leading collaborative efforts with creatives:

1. Start with a clear vision of purpose. A vision of purpose will allow creatives to flow in their creative gifts, not just in their artistic skill.  A few years ago, I worked with a graphic artists to put together artwork for our Holy Week activities. I told her the theme, asked for a clean, modern look and let he go to work. She came back with several great ideas. We used all but one of them.

In the end, it was satisfying for the artist and I was rewarded with an end-product that far exceeded what I was capable of even envisioning by myself.

2. Start with a clear vision of outcome. This is different than a clear vision of purpose. A clear vision of outcome requires little or no collaboration, only instruction. If you are looking for a specific outcome, don’t ask for creativity, just tell the artist what you want the end result to look like in very specific terms.

Most artists are accustomed to working under specific expectations. The basis of most commercial art is commission… Someone with resources hires an artist to create something specific.

3. Be a team player. This sounds obvious, but you would be surprised at how many leaders see themselves as apart from, or even above, the rest of the team. When you enter into a collaboration, you have to allow that some of your ideas will be trumped or even cast aside…

4. Remember that being the leader does not make your ideas better. This requires a cultivated humility… a choice to view others as more important and their needs before our own.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  (The Bible, Philippians 2:3)

When I direct a show, I have a few key moments that I want to play out just as I envision them. I lay these out clearly to the actors, musicians or technical artists… I will have other occasions, in the same show, when I specifically request collaboration. In these cases, I layout the theme or message that I want to convey and let the team run with it…

I also allow myself the artistic and human freedom to be wrong. Sometimes, the blocking or technical aspect doesn’t work the way I thought it would… Since the team is accustomed to having the freedom to collaborate, they can help fix it.

If your team does not get the opportunity to routinely question and critique your ideas, then you may not get the input you need to make your collaboration maximize it’s potential awesomeness.

As a leader, take responsibility for creating a collaborative atmosphere for your team… Then sit back and watch the magic happen…

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

I've alway struggled with the image of Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild, chasing the moneychangers out of the Temple with the power of his perfectly-groomed beard...

“Who do you say that I am?”

I wonder if Peter ever wondered how he seemed to always end up in these situations: on the receiving-end of some hard question or seemingly impossible command…

From the outside, it’s pretty obvious: Peter couldn’t contain his enthusiasm. He volunteered for most of the hard questions… He volunteered to step out of the boat…

Sometimes, I’m like Peter: my enthusiasm puts me out here on the limb, answering hard questions and fending off critics… And today, the Master is asking me that same hard question that He asked Peter…

“What about you, Tim. Who do you say that I am?”

You are the Messiah… The Only Son of the Most High God…

“So, how do you think that Superman shirt looks on me?”

I confess, I’ve never really understood the controversy of the Superman shirt in Godspell… It is Jesus’ traditional costume in the show… It sets him apart from the rest of the players.

So, I had someone spell out the argument for me… It goes like this:

Jesus was the Humble King… He was always Clark Kent and never Superman. He described Himself as “meek and lowly” and he never set Himself up as the Hero. The people in that time were looking for a Hero to overthrow the Romans, but that was never Jesus’ intent. His humility was His defining virtue and He never put on any show of strength…

You get the idea… and for my part, I see that Jesus was all of those things, BUT He also did some things that set Him apart as the Hero:

Jesus questioned the Pharisees… Moreover, He refused to answer their questions and even rebuked them publicly. Normal Jewish people in the first century didn’t ever do that…

Jesus threw the money-changers out of the Temple… He went to worship and found people selling sub-standard sacrificial animals in the Temple court. He picked up a whip and went to work, turning over tables and chasing the scoundrels out into the street…

Of course, anyone with enough zeal and cheek could have done these things… It wouldn’t take Superman…

But then He healed the sick, brought sight to the blind, made the lame walk… He even demonstrated that He was empowered to forgive sins…

Then there was that whole scene of raising Lazarus from the dead…

Sounding more and more “super” to me all the time…

He also said some incredible things about Himself:

“If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen God.”

“I am the Vine, you’re my branches.”

“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to God except through me.”

And as if just for dramatic effect, Jesus took 3 of His followers up the mountain and revealed Himself in His radiant glory…

My concern is that the Superman shirt is too weak as a metaphor… It never crossed my mind that the comparison might be too strong.

I think that it is an over-simplification to say the Jesus was always Clark Kent… Jesus is and was fully God and fully man… A complete representation of Jesus will show Him to be both human and divine:

Jesus humanity is more apparent in Godspell than His divinity… It’s not that His divinity is denied – it’s established at the very beginning of the show… But the theme of Godspell is the community that Jesus built around Himself and His teaching, so it’s His humanity that is emphasized.

A small, visual reminder of the power He is containing seems appropriate to me.

So, what do you guys think about the Superman shirt? Does it represent Jesus?

NEXT UP: The Chief Clown… Why dress Jesus up like a clown? Is there a point to it?

There have been some questions about the show from friends, from production leaders that I have recruited and from my pastor…

Valid questions and concerns along with non-issues that grow out of a misunderstanding of the show’s actual content… some of the misunderstandings are centered around the 1973 film version of the show and some of them grow out of rumor and innuendo that has little ground in fact but has, nonetheless, persisted in evangelical and traditional Christian circles for nearly 40 years.

About a month ago, I jotted down a few thoughts in the form of a single post with the title, Defending the Godspell, but as the questions have piled up, I decided that it needs a bit more treatment than my typical 500-word format will allow… The single post has grown into a fairly protracted discussion that I have moved from the GodspellColorado website to this one for a number of reasons…

First, this is primarily a discussion between Christ-followers and the GodspellColorado site is primarily used to promote the show to non-believers… We Christians have a reputation in the world at-large for being argumentative and some of the issues with Godspell are polarizing among believers… I would rather have the “family” disagreement apart from the scrutiny of people who would not understand or care about the outcome of the discussion.

Secondly, I want to welcome the input of the community that has grown up around WorshipOnPurpose… The majority of the questions are going to come from a more theological worldview and I’d like to hear the thoughts of other artists and Christian leaders…

So, the first discussion is coming in a day or two… Prepare ye…

NEXT UP:  Jesus in a Superman shirt… The controversy that I still don’t understand.

So, when I first saw Hannah dancing in the back of our church during our Sunday worship time, I was thrilled and awed… This is one of the roots of our worship: one of the oldest practices of worship in the Bible… And it is also a foundational art form, found in the most primitive cultures and honed into one of the most challenging modern performing arts…

Hannah just flat-out rocks it.

She and I have worked together to add dance to our Night in Bethlehem event at LVC… By “worked together” I mean she does the choreography, recruiting, costuming and leads rehearsals… and I put it in the program. It is, by far, my most favorite moment in the evening… The energy, mood and emotion that the dance adds is amazing. And unlike the drama, which is scripted, or the costumes and sets, which are contrived, the dance draws from ancient forms and ancient music to present one of the most authentic moments as well.

But Hannah’s involvement at NiB is just the tip of the iceberg… Her primary outlet for dance as worship is at the Celebration Ministry of the Arts (CMA) a dance school and performing group here in the Denver-metro area. Hannah teaches preschoolers and participates in the organization’s performing company, both locally and abroad.

Of particular interest to me is the group’s numerous trips to perform and minister in Japan… Hannah tells me:

“Dance is a good fit for ministry in Japan. The culture there has a very high respect for the arts… They also like Americans, which makes it easier too.”

But Japanese culture is also very intolerant of individuals who defect from traditional beliefs… Christian converts are often disowned by their families. This makes sharing the Gospel a particular challenge. The troupe travels through the country, performing at churches and occasionally in public venues…

They dance and they talk about Jesus…

“I only know of one occasion where there were actual conversions, mostly we just ‘sow seeds’ by sharing personal stories of what God has done in our lives…”

I mention to Hannah that many of the artists that I’ve talked are largely unactivated in their church… We’ve worked together at LVC, but only on the one project… She is sympathetic:

“I’m working on a dance workshop at the church that I’m attending now… It’s the first opportunity I’ve had to do that and it’s very exciting. But CMA was actually started by dancers who wanted to worship through dance but had no outlet for that in their churches…”

I can’t help but be disappointed that Hannah isn’t doing her workshop at LVC… I think that it’s also interesting to add that CMA has almost 500 dancers in four locations around Colorado…

As a parent, I’m curious about CMA and why parents would choose a “christian” dance school over the many that are scattered around… I sometimes have observed a disparity between the quality of arts inside and outside the church… And I wonder:

Can the “christian” alternative be as good?

So, I visit the CMA website and watch the videos… and I came across this little nugget about their performing troupe:

Our performing company consists of women who are technically trained in classical dance, but most importantly, have the hearts of passionate worshipers.

And I think that says it…

Because as artists who are christians, we ought to pursue training and practice to hone our technique… It is in our hearts, focused on God, committed to Jesus and full of passion, that we worship… No matter what our medium….

For more information about Celebration Ministry of the Arts, click here…

I’ll be posting some video of Hannah, performing with CMA later this week…

"I want to tell you a story about Joe. He's the little boy on the left... the one looking at the camera... can you see him?"

Bring a missionary with a compelling story into my church for a presentation and I am almost instantly reduced to a blubbering wad of tears and snot… It doesn’t matter if they have slides or media or authentic costumes… I am drawn into the stories.

I am the exception… not the rule.

Most people, especially in the US, are over-stimulated by media.  So, if the presentation is dull or too long or not visually engaging, they check out about 45 seconds into it.  And we’ve all seen that mission trip picture: underexposed foreground that makes the 4 African children playing in the street 100 feet away look like tiny, black specks.

Take a quick look and go back to text-messaging your girlfriend… and totally miss the amazing story of Joe (third speck from the left) and how he came in dying from malnutrition and malaria three years ago…

Great stories + lousy media = boring presentation.

So, in the minds of church-goers there are basically 2 types of missionaries: interesting and boring.  The interesting ones raise lots of money and the boring ones struggle to get the support they need to make ends meet.

Ironically, the interesting ones often get the support of a couple of rock bands who end up raising money for them so that they can keep doing the work of their ministry… But the boring ones tend to spend a third of their time going from church to church asking for support which comes in the form of pathetic, little love-offerings.

The sad thing is that the boring ones almost always have a great story to tell.  They just need a little help in telling it.

And that’s where we come in…

We’re artists:  photographers, graphic artists, media designers, filmmakers, songwriters, indie bands… The visual and emotional flash that these missionaries need to engage their audiences, hold their attention and get help for Joe and other kids like him… it’s just a “doodle” for us.  Seriously, a day of pro-bono work from you could make the difference for a ministry that provides food for street children in India or an orphanage in Uganda.

THURSDAY: Why artists should make the first move…

Thanks to BillMcCarroll for submitting this great image of St John of Damascus Orthodox Church to the Flickr group. You can browse Bill’s entire photostream here.

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