There’s a sweet little cafe in Pawtuxet Village close to where we live. It’s a good place to go when I can’t concentrate at home. I spent some time there today thinking about what to write this week. A local free magazine called Motif caught my eye, so I decided to give it a flip-through. I noticed some familiar names of artists and musicians that I interacted with in the early days of planting Ren Church (2003-2007).
When we started the church, our primary demographic was artists. Being someone who loves the arts myself, I had a huge heart for creative types. Artists can certainly be a strange breed. They tend to think differently. They don’t fit in neatly to mainstream organizations—especially churches. We were intent on creating something uniquely for them.
Context
Many of you reading these mission letters aren’t local so I want to give some context about the city of Providence that we serve in. Not too many years ago, our city was deemed by the reputable Barna group to be “the least Bible-minded city in America.” It has an edgy vibe. The local arts scene is largely anti-organized religion and antagonistic toward Christian ethics.
What we quickly realized was that even if we had the most arts-friendly church on the planet—artists were the least likely people to step foot in the church. Some did come, of course. But the average Providence creative type was—and still is—extremely skeptical of organized religion. We splattered posters all over the city inviting people to Ren Church. We distributed tens of thousands of invites all over. Only a small handful came. And those who came usually had a church background. Reaching unchurched artists who were not raised Christian would be a lot tougher than I thought.
My credentials
I also want to say that there was a lot of time spent praying for local artists who lived on the westside of the city where we planted. Our church services were pretty vibrant. I’m not the best preacher in the world, but I labored hard to preach biblical messages using metaphors and illustrations that would resonate with artists. We had excellent musicians, and we employed all kinds of artistic expressions to teach the message of the Bible. We met at the gorgeous old Columbus Theatre—a space known and loved by local artists—on a main street (Broadway) in the west end. Almost everyone in our church did something creative; there were visual artists, musicians, filmmakers, spoken word artists, designers, writers, and so on. It was a community artists could feel at home in.
I was young but not that young. I had served in a young adult ministry in NYC, earned a B.A. in biblical studies, did campus ministry in Boston for several years and was an assistant pastor in a local church for about four years. I was in my 30s, married, with two beautiful little daughters. While I was new at church planting, I had a fair amount of ministry experience.
I was also someone artists could relate to as I’ve been involved in some kind of art since I was a child—sand sculpting, illustrating, playing guitar, fort architecture, and go-cart designing. I was even involved in a dance club when I was about seven—and have pictures of me dressed all in white, covered with sequins, to prove it! Art was my favorite class in grade school, and my secular college focus was art and music. Despite all these positives, it became very clear that reaching local artists would take more than all this.
Surprising strategy
When missionaries exert lots of effort with little to show for it, it drives them to prayer. I cried to the Lord for wisdom, and ideas started to emerge. I’ll be honest, I was tempted to abandon the effort of trying to reach artists. It would have been much easier to reach nice suburban sinners, lapsed Protestants and Catholics, or down-and-outers. I was tempted to focus on what we call “low hanging fruit.” The thought, however, haunted me that we couldn’t just let certain subcultures go to hell because they are so difficult to reach. Yes, maybe they are antagonistic, maybe they curse, maybe they fornicate, maybe they use drugs, maybe they mock Christians, maybe they seem like the least likely people to follow Jesus—it doesn’t matter. Somebody has to reach them!
I began to get a clear strategy from God in those early days. Usually, in Christian ministry, we design some kind of event whereby we control the content from start to finish. We create a concert, for example, with Christian music and a short gospel message toward the end. This method of creating a Christian event to proclaim the Gospel has been done in a variety of ways—and has worked to reach countless people. But the Lord was putting on my heart something different, something almost upside down from that traditional model.
westsideARTS
What we created was a ministry of listening. It’s pretty obvious that the strongest need artists have is to be heard. Artists long for people who have a genuine interest in what they are creating. What was born was something we called “westsideARTS.” It took a variety of shapes: art gallery, music venue, film discussions, art classes, and fundraisers.
The first event, a performing arts festival, was held at the Columbus Theatre. It was a seven hour extravaganza. The talent was spectacular and as eclectic as anything you can imagine. There was Fred, a young homeless guy, who did what almost seemed like a Native American dance. There was an older Christian puppet lady. There was a woman in her 80s in full costume who did some kind of belly dance. There was a young spoken word artist who did a piece promoting paganism. Some of the language of the musicians was spicey, to say the least. It was a messy ordeal that offended some of the saints and confused some of the sinners.
I learned a lot that day.
The first thing I learned was this: don’t invite Christians from other churches to perform. They were too preachy and didn’t understand what we were doing. Secondly, don’t promote the event on Christian radio. One man was so angry and offended that he wanted his admission money back. After this learning experience, we carefully curated what we did. Our aim was not to be heard, but to listen. We were determined to create vibrant art shows and music showcases to allow unchurched people to be heard. Our aim was to serve and listen.
Explosion
The westsideARTS events happened all over the city. Some were at the Columbus Theatre, others were in renovated storefronts; we did outdoor open-mics at the West Broadway Neighborhood Association, and we had massive concerts at an old armory building on historic Benefit Street that attracted many students from RISD. A local newspaper called us “the friendliest venue in town.”
Artists flooded in.
At one point, we were doing weekly concerts with multiple artists performing. We were even getting musicians from New York and Boston. We had different visual artists showing their work each month. We had CD release parties (as they were called back then) for local musicians. It is not an exaggeration to say that thousands of unchurched people came through our doors during about a five year span. I have so many stories of things that happened and times I shared Christ with people!
Measuring fruit
The most significant thing that westsideARTS accomplished was that it changed the way many artists thought about the Christian faith. They assumed the Christian faith was boring, stuffy, and without relevance. They figured Christians would not be interested in their art or music. They imagined that Christians were people they would never want to be friends with. What we gave them was an up close view of what artists who love Jesus look like. To their shock, they discovered something beautiful.
I can’t say that thousands of artists came to Jesus and were baptized and became devoted members of our church. No. The work was hard to measure. What I do know is that God caused many artists who were uninterested in the Christian faith to become curious. I remember one young artist that we had hosted several times and had lots of interesting conversations with. I was helping her set up the stage for a concert when she stopped for a moment and came up close to me and stared into my eyes as if to detect if I was lying. She asked me about my Jesus conversion. I told her my story with deep conviction, and I know that she knew I was telling her the truth. She knew me. She trusted me.
The cost
The great question when thinking of ways to reach certain sub cultures is this: how far is too far? When we were doing westsideARTS and drawing hundreds of very unchurched and sometimes unsavory artists—not all Christians were applauding. Some thought we went too far. Others thought that what we did was offensive to God. I had pastors rebuke me, telling me that I should always preach the gospel at every event. We had several people leave our church. But what drove me to continue was the passion of Christ to reach those who were least likely to come to a church service. The Christians who opposed what we were doing reminded me of the way the religious teachers criticized Jesus for eating and drinking with sinners and prostitutes.
It’s not just artists who won’t come to typical church events where the Bible is proclaimed and Christ is worshipped. I think about Muslims, for example. What about prostitutes? What about addicts who are looking strung out? I think about atheists. Or, what about those who were sexually abused by religious leaders as children? What about those who identify as gay? What about those who live lifestyles of overt sin? Do we think that someone who deals drugs, uses pornography or is involved in organized crime would come to our special church event to learn about Jesus? The fact is there are many subcultures that want nothing to do with any kind of event overtly promoting Christianity. What should we do? Should we just let them go to hell?
Tolerance
In order to build relationships with people who don’t believe or behave like Christians, we must be tolerant. I don’t mean that we should approve sinful lifestyles—no, no, no! But when someone curses, when someone talks about their unbiblical sexuality, when they express their love affair with drugs and alcohol, when they say vulgar things—let them. Love them unconditionally. Don’t scold them. Don’t shoot them down with Scripture. Don’t even crinkle your brow. Just be with them, and let them taste the love of Christ in you. Remember that, at one time, you were dead in sin and darkened in your thinking.
In order to reach those furthest from God, we may need to do things that appear scandalous to many Christians. May our love for lost people be exceedingly greater than our desire to be approved by church people. In the end, what matters most is not what Christians think of us but what the Father in heaven thinks. Don’t be afraid to go against the grain to reach those who aren’t being reached.
— Scott A