Artist Skills Are Leader Skills
Essential Capacities Artists Bring to the Church
By Mandy Smith
Four years ago, I was commissioned to lead a work of regeneration in a struggling congregation. When I first arrived, we had twelve faithful (but weary and discouraged) folks and none of us had much idea how new life might be possible here. Now, four years later, we are delighted to see a new thing stirring, not only numeric growth and much greater diversity, but young people coming to Jesus for the first time and an entirely new atmosphere.
In a denomination in steep decline, I’m often asked, “What did you do?” All of us tend to rely on our intellect and strategy when situations are really desperate. And I indeed needed to draw deeply on those things—biblical exegesis skills from seminary, practical capacities from many ministry workshops, all kinds of paradigms and programs gleaned from many books. But reflecting now, I see how many artistic capabilities came to play in my leadership as well. During a desperate season, as scary as it was, I leaned into the many skills I’d learned from art-making and found that God could use these as tools to accomplish his purposes for those I led. Here’s what I mean:
Dogged Imagination
Art-making has taught me a kind of dogged imagination, learning to believe in things I can’t yet see, when it almost feels impossible anything could come from this. As artists, we learn a kind of stoic perseverance when nothing seems to be working, holding onto a sense of possibilities hidden beyond sight. Although there are many times when our work seems pointless, that stubborn imaginative vision inspires us to push through until something emerges. Through this entire process with the church, I found myself saying (to myself as much as to anyone else), “We have to be willing to be in what is if we ever want it to become what it can be.” There were many days when I couldn’t see what we were making but hard-won imagination made me press on.
Careful Pruning
At the same time, the creative process requires us to know when something needs to just be set aside. Although, as artists, we want to say yes to every possible idea, we learn that editing—even though it means removing things—is an essential part of creating. Even good things sometimes just aren’t right for this time or this project. Likewise, it’s painful in a church to prune things, especially things that have been beloved for many years, but it’s an essential part of making both art and Christian community.
Making Surprising New Combinations
Collage-making has taught me how to gather scraps, to watch and wait to see how they might come together, looking for themes and making new connections. Instead of starting with a blank canvas that could become anything, collage requires a listening and a joining. It’s a process of gathering images from various places and asking, “How could these be arranged in an interesting way to make new meaning?” In the same way, in a congregation, we rarely have a fresh start. Instead, we watch to see what people, gifts, opportunities, resources God gathers and we wait for new possibilities to emerge.
Partnering with Mystery
Painting has shown me not all mess is mayhem. I know that while I have agency in moving the paint around, choosing colors and brushes, some of the best things come from the way paint leaks, drips, bleeds. Like painting, leading a congregation is messy and all the more marvelous for it. Art-making has taught me that much of my role as a leader is a kind of curation, making space for human lives to intersect with one another and with God. I work to create environments which nurture those holy intersections and step back to see the power of God among us.
Patience to Learn as We Go
Sketching always reminds me that I have to make a lot of lines before I figure out the right one. And although we’d like to erase all the “wrong” lines, sometimes it’s helpful to see what it took to figure things out. In the same way, in ministry, the first line is rarely perfect, but it gives us a start. In leadership, we have to let ourselves start somewhere before we quite know what it will become, even if the things we try “fail.” Maybe the places we finally land wouldn’t be possible without those rough sketch beginnings.
Seeing Possibilities in Broken Things
Making found object art teaches me to look for possibilities in discarded, broken things. It’s given me the capacity to see the potential for beauty in brokenness, not in spite of the brokenness but because of it. This kind of art-making feels especially redemptive and especially related to the work of ministry, joining God in his creative work of making all things new. We lead a Church broken by many ways we’ve strayed from the gospel, at a time when many are fleeing faith. We lead congregations filled with ordinary, limited, and wounded humans. And somehow, God is in our midst. Our imagination might be flagging, finding it hard to hope for a future for this movement. But God invites us to join him still in his hopeful, generative mission, drawing all creation into his redemptive work of re-making.
Attention to Human Frailty
The power of art to speak to human beings often comes from the fact that it’s made by humans who are painfully aware of their smallness. They have found something remarkable in the smallness and dare to share it with the world, giving us all permission to be small. In this art-making and sharing together we see smallness no longer as shameful but as surprisingly powerful. Although it’s not been modelled as much by Christian leaders in recent years, this capacity to bear witness to God’s power in our weakness is as old as the Psalms and as real as Paul’s clinging to God’s promise of sufficient grace. It’s a leadership skill the church and the world desperately need.
Appreciation for Preciousness
I have a collection of papers I can’t throw away, drop-sheets that have recorded what happens under and around the work of art in progress. The serendipity of the marks left, the accidental spatters, are holy to me and I’ve been known to sit and stare at them for some time before tucking them into a folder with all the other preciousness. As a Christian leader this tender appreciation for preciousness is also with me at bedsides and baptisms, on walks with the broken-hearted and on phone calls with the suicidal.
So what a strange possibility, when the state of the Western church seems desperate, that God is providing guidance through unlikely people like us! How can we, as artists, take the risk to lead from these creative capacities? In a church often looking for quick answers and measurable outcomes, will we risk leading from our seemingly slow, mysterious artist-gifts that, in a management culture, just seem like a waste of time? And how can we recognize these creative skills in emerging leaders, broadening our ideas of what a leader looks like?
Ultimately, our future hope depends on the dogged imagination of our Creator God. But how can we let him draw out the quiet, careful ways we know in our studios to empower our leadership in the marketplace and church? How, for the sake of the church and the world, can we lead from our artistic capacities to dream new things into existence?
Mandy Smith is the pastor of St Lucia Uniting Church in Brisbane, Australia, a DMin cohort leader at The Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination, and an artist. She is the author of Confessions of an Amateur Saint: The Christian Leader's Journey from Self-Sufficiency to Reliance on God, The Vulnerable Pastor: How Human Limitations Empower Our Ministry, and Unfettered: Imagining a Childlike Faith Beyond the Baggage of Western Culture. Mandy and her husband, Jamie, a New Testament professor, live in their parsonage where the teapot is always warm. See some of Mandy’s work at www.TheWayIsTheWay.org.
Collage provided by Mandy Smith