Home Worship & Creative Leaders Articles for Worship & Creative Why Christians Should Paint, Dance, Quilt, Act, Compose Music, Write Stories, Decorate...

Why Christians Should Paint, Dance, Quilt, Act, Compose Music, Write Stories, Decorate Cookies and Participate in the Arts

Ever since I was a kid I’ve loved art and music.

When I was little, my aunt said she loved how I sang all the time. In grade school, my teachers let me spend extra time in the library drawing. My parents got me my first oil painting lesson when I was 12. And when I was 14, the Beatles invaded America and I had to get a guitar and get in a band. In college, I majored in art ed and got a Masters in painting.

But when Jesus saved me in my early 20s, I began to wonder if art was a waste of time. I could be evangelizing or praying or doing something spiritual instead of dabbing oil paint on a canvas. And besides that, everything is going to burn up anyway at the end, so what’s the use of creating things? Or if I do paint a painting, does it have to be a Christian theme? Does it have to have a cross in it or be a scene from the Gospels?

Here are a few reasons why Christians should play banjo and decorate cakes, knit sweaters and make movies, do photography and write poems:

Because God has commanded us to take dominion over the earth. In other words, take the raw materials of the world and make stuff out of them.

Because when we create, we act as those the Creator made in his own image. God could have made the world in black and white. He could have created one kind of food. Instead he made luna moths and mimosa trees and jungles and deserts and garden spiders and red-winged blackbirds and ring-necked snakes. God didn’t make a strictly utilitarian world. He decorated it with weeping willows and tiger lilies.

Because the arts are a way to bless others. A way to serve others and bring joy to others. A beautiful wall hanging in someone’s living room can bring them joy over and over again and again.

Because the arts bring joy to us. When God created the earth, at the end of each day he looked on what he had made and saw that it was good. God enjoyed what he created. And he wants us to get joy from what we create.