I was completely entertained and enthralled yesterday as I was driving home from work. NPR had a story about a guy who hangs his paintings up in art galleries. The curators would have nothing to do with his art because he is a street artist, but he feels that his art is gallery worthy. So he goes and hangs them up himself when the gallery is open. It's crazy. It's illegal, but how illegal is it to hang up a painting? It's ingenious.
Here's a quote from him:
"These Galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires. The
public never has any real say in what art they see. Its good to screw with
the selection process sometimes. 'Comfort the disturbed, and disturb the
comfortable' as Eleanor Roosevelt once said."
Sometimes I think the church has become to Christ and his life what the art galleries have become to art. We have become a sterile place that is more for the heirarchy of leadership than it is for the public. It needs to be infiltrated and the glory of God needs to be shown whether or not those in charge want it to be shown. People come looking for God. Oftentimes, they leave finding programs, an entertaining sermon, and exciting music.
But the church shouldn't just be a place where the people come looking for God. We should be a place that takes on the attitude of God and go looking for the people. We need to bring God to the masses.
I'm struggling with how to effectively bring the love of God to people and a church without being in the leadership. I've been in church leadership almost my whole Christian life until my recent church experience, never never having to taste what it is like to be a layman. Now I wonder, how is a layman supposed to act. I would say it would be in a similar way as to this artist. We need to be part of the church and show people God's love whether or not it is approved by the leadership. God's love is greater than any earthly leadership.
Just like the art musuems were designed to be more than a trophy cabinet for the artist of millionaires, the church is designed to be much more than it currently is. Love on.
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Good links for the artist mentioned above:
The Yahoo new story on it.
The NPR story on it.
Wooster Collective - a site that has a lot of various news stories on it.
A post on Wooster Collective that shows him hanging up the paintings and the actual paintings.
The artists' own website.
Watch out for the potholes.
