church as art: troy bronsink

Last night I introduced you to Pam Neumann, a missional thinker committing several years of her life to a traditional overseas missions model.

Tonight I'd like to introduce you to Troy Bronsink, someone I think of as a kindred soul: He is an artist, poet, musician, singer-songwriter, he's being ordained as a Presbyterian pastor - PC(USA) and he has a heart for marginalized people in the 'abandon spaces';  and he articulates the missional facets of the intersection of art and man and God with beauty and a wisdom beyond his years. He is doing something about the post-colonial shift from word-based culture to image-based culture, as companies are "moving from organization-centered to creativity-centered approaches" -- he understands that artists and their resultant artifacts are living gospels capable of "bear[ing] witness to God's kingdom within the symbols of culture" -- essentially the missional task.

When I met him back in April at WALP, he and I had some great conversations over food with Tim Samoff and Mike Crawford and Will Samson. I was really pleased he made it out to the Gathering.

His community's rule is metaphorically artistic, and i love it.-- a community commited to (a) Being God's Artwork (b) Being God's Artists, and (c) Being Curators of God's Artwork. This is explicated at his church as art website and you kinda need to go read it yourself (here). I wish I could get Troy to come talk to our missional community, because he puts into words that which I'm unable to, about the intersections of art and prophetic calling and lament and hospitality and monastic presence and music and ... argh. I come up short. But he's truly gifted. I think he'd do our community much more good than would a guest theologian.

Not that Troy's thoughts are not deeply theological. But they are deeply artistic, natively post-modern (in the best sense of the word), If you visit his website, be sure to read his "Case for a Church in Southwest Atlanta" -- you have to read a few grafs down to get to the really prime stuff.

Pray for his intentional community in Atlanta.

Comments

[pamela]

very cool. as someone with a poet's heart, i like thinking about life in God in metaphorical/narrative ways...it's refreshing. and i think it reaches so much deeper than simply affirming statements of propositional truth (even when i believe them!)

[nate]

Paul,

Not to be too much of a contraian, and since I was not able to find a comment section on Troy's site, I wanted to pose a question about this way of thinking.

First off, let me be very clear that I think the language of us as God's Art and as God's artists is wonderfully useful, and that I think it is something that needs to be used more in the church around us.

Ready for the but yet? One of the most important things for me in Bonhoffer's Life Together, is his concept of the Ministry of the Weak. For Bonhoffer the weak, in whatever metric you want to measure them, bring something deep to the life of a community because they provide a situation to be ministered too. In the inclusion of the weak in the community - instead of the community seeing its vision as strong to minister to the weak out there - humility, depth, real commitment to systematic change, and the deep blessings of living together are apreciated because as we so often find in Christian community, what we see and what God sees are very different.

Where in Troy's language is the listener, the viewer, the appreciator?

I almost think we should add a fourth role to this language:

The role of the community is to provide an supportive, nourishing, and receptive audiance for art.

If you are a person who does not identify themselves as artistic can you bring something valuable to a community described in Troy's language? Sure ... you can come and practice Bonhoffer's ministry of weakness. I understand that speaking this way may detract from your goal to get everyone to find a way to express themselves via art. But for me the damage done in being an exclusive community for artists is a greater risk.

Nate

[paul soupiset]

no apologies needed -- this is beautiful, actually. you're on to something. i wanna see if i can get troy to weigh in here...

Thanks, nate!

[troy]

I was looking for an article and found this post. Nate, we should talk I wouild love to hear more from you on this. I agree that Bonhoffer's, Jean Vanier's, and Henry Nouwen's leadership models from below hav emuch to offer here. I have directly addressed the subject of the church being for people regarless of their eye for the aesthetic. I wonder I think that the area of being artwork is an apophatic one of deep grace verses "productivity." Lets spin some on this. feel free to be in touch.

[troy]

even more so, i think that art can present weakness if it is not snobery, it can allow for the ambivolence and ambiguity that is as much the church's weakness in latemodern Christendom as are the presence of suffering sisters and brothers in our cities and congregations.

BTW The church cannot be for artists alone, no doubt.