“We want to set out in simple terms what we mean by art. At the very least we want to say that the making of art is a creative activity that calls for skill and imagination. Art at its best always invites us to see things in fresh ways and is able to move us to the truth about things. It can also have great value in bringing order to the chaos of life and helping us understand our own humanity and the world around us. We want to affirm that art making is a gift which reflects in humanity something of the image of God, and, when done well, has a humanizing influence in the places in which it is practiced.”

-From the “Redeeming the Arts” paper,
2004 Lausanne Forum for World Evangelization

Welcome to the Lausanne page for the arts!

My name is Colin Harbinson and I am the Lausanne Senior Associate for the Arts, and the International Director of StoneWorks—a global arts initiative for cultural renewal, and the recovery of the arts and the imagination in the life and mission of the Church.

Since 2004, when I served as convener of the Lausanne Forum for World Evangelization’s Issue Group on the Arts, I have had the increasing sense that the recommendations of the Redeeming the Arts paper from that Forum needs urgent implementation on a global scale. If we are to effectively reach our world for Christ, the leadership of the global church must regain a biblically based understanding of the role of the arts and the imagination in the proclamation of truth and the discipleship of nations. This is a pivotal moment in history, and at Cape Town 2010, we will affirm this paradigm shift that is already underway.

World missions can no longer ignore the place of the arts and the imagination in God’s world and the central role they play in the shaping of ideas and worldviews, and in culture formation and transformation. Every people group is informed by a “grand story” or meta-narrative that contains its beliefs and values. This story is affirmed in the present and passed on to the next generation, through the arts—storytelling, drama, music, dance and visual arts. The artistic expressions of a given people group encode their worldview.

The neglect of the imagination in life and faith has impoverished the Body of Christ and hindered its missional endeavors. However, during the past few decades there has been a global renewal of interest in the arts and the imagination amongst believers. This is no accident. We are living, culturally speaking, in the age of the artist—with its image oriented and visually driven communication forms. The language of the arts and the imagination is increasingly the global default language of our world.

This understanding is not lost on a global arts and entertainment industry that is literally discipling nations by shaping cultures through music, film and television in particular. This is the increasingly urgent moment in which the church needs to recover the understanding that word and image must be reintegrated in the context of global mission. Our example is Christ who was the Word of the God and the Image of the invisible God.

This is a paradigm shifting moment. If we miss it, the cause of Christ in the nations will suffer a setback. This is not a call to recognize the importance of the arts over against other areas of ministry or mission endeavor. It is to say that creativity and the imagination are central to our understanding of the human condition and therefore crucial in our understanding of, and communication with, people in all cultures of the world.

If we need any further affirmation in this direction, the biblical pattern in expressing God’s love and redemptive purposes points the way. Scripture is approximately 75 percent story, 15 percent poetry, and 10 percent propositional and didactic in nature. Ninety percent appealed to the imagination! At a time when our world has become more visually and image driven, the Church has reversed this biblical pattern in the retelling of the same story! Today, only about 10 percent of the way in which we express the transforming narrative of the gospel is creative and imaginative.

There has probably never been a time in which a biblical understanding of the arts and the imagination is more needed by the Church than in our present visual and image-oriented postmodern culture. The 2004 Forum’s Lausanne Occasional Paper, Redeeming the Arts, spoke to this challenge. Cape Town 2010 now offers a global platform to speak on this issue to the whole church.

My prayer is that our time together in South Africa will be a strategic catalyst to change this reversal of the biblical approach to the communication of truth, modeled through the quality integration of the arts into the overall program, accompanied by clear biblical undergirding and vision casting.

Dr. Colin Harbinson, Lausanne Senior Associate for the Arts

International Director, StoneWorks Global Arts Initiative