Last night at my K-Cell (read "small group") had an exercise where we listened to southern gospel quartet sing a song called, "Gentle Shepherd, Lead Us". I'm not necessarily a fan of southern gospel quartet music, but the exercise provided us with time to pray & reflect on where god is leading our own lives as the words were sung:
...
"Gentle Shepherd, Come and lead us,
For we need you, To help us find our way,
Gentle Shepherd, Come and feed us,
For we need your strength from day to day,
There's no other, We can turn to,
Who can help us face another day,
Gentle Shepherd, Come and lead us,
For we need you to help us find our way."
"Gentle Shepherd, Come and lead us,
For we need you, To help us find our way,
Gentle Shepherd, Come and feed us,
For we need your strength from day to day,
There's no other, We can turn to,
Who can help us face another day,
Gentle Shepherd, Come and lead us,
For we need you to help us find our way."
...
As the quartet sang (presumably gathered around one dynamic mic with with a single piano recorded in a bath tub made of marble), my reflection turned to this blog; my ever-increasing endeavour to find God's purpose for my life, the Art vs. Ministry battle. I began to really flesh out what exactly it meant to be the Artists or be the Minister; I see "Art" as being a musician who is creating art with other Christians in hopes to reach & teach non-specific people about the love of Christ whereas "Ministry" is being a minister that also teaches and reaches but to a specific group of believers (and non) in a ministry or church position. That's a bit of Mickey Mouse, dumbed-down version of what I visualize as I realize both these things can be one-in-the-same but I believe there is a specific time and place that God wants me.
The following thoughts are just some of give or take, right or wrong, pro or con, this or that, and love or like factors that I had been going over in my head to help flesh out some of this in my own mind. So, these are just some musings of those things, but they also carry some deep meaning when trying to extrapolate the mind of the Creator of the Universe regarding me:
Art vs. Ministry:
play vs. work
love vs. learn
faith vs. faithfulness
wagon vs. tent
uncertainty vs. security
inspire vs. desire
crowd vs. congregation
sing with vs. sing to
electric vs. acoustic
prize vs. praise
the Church vs. a church
stage vs. pulpit
rock vs. Rock
translate vs. transform
perform vs. reform
belong vs. behave
affect vs. effect
create vs. imitate
commission vs. communion
musician vs. minister
Am I missing anything?
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3 comments:
your image is broken.
try {img src="link here"} (with the < and > brackets)
instead of bulletin board tags.
Funny how I look at your list, and some things on the left appeal to me, then others on the right look pretty good too. I know that probably wasn't your purpose. I just always feel torn between artist me and minister me.
Matt, that was exactly my point. items on teh left are related to ART while items on the right are related to MINISTRY. They're the things I'm constantly going back and forth with when trying to decypher my own desires with God's. You hit the nail on teh head there.
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