Os Guinness, questions, honesty and more creative freedom.

Early last week I went to hear Os Guinness speak at a church in Brentwood. There were two sessions and I attended both of them...I almost didn't go because I was tired from traveling the day before but I ended up being there and I am so glad that I did!

The first session addressed the need for a "Third Mission to the West" arguing that we are currently facing a crisis of truth and identity in both the United States and Europe with the solution being a focused christian effort to regain influence in the culture by engaging all areas of public and private life with the Gospel of Jesus. This however does not mean we vote republican and blindly accept the same old leadership tactics (Robertson, Family Research Council and other leaders in the christian right) but rather we must engage intellectually and without fear which means we need to vacate the subculture and get into the real world.

There were lots of people there...friends from music industry circles (artists and label people mostly) and a good number of folks in other fields...like talk-radio financial guru Dave Ramsey. I wondered what he was thinking as Os was speaking.

The second session was mainly for artists/songwriters and the topic was on the lost art of persuasion and how artists use it as a tool to communicate truth in their work. It was especially interesting to me since I am in the middle of writing and recording the new record and have been thinking about the same ideas. The main thrust of his point was to ask questions rather than make statements. He used examples from the gospels where Jesus answers questions by asking better questions. This approach is more effective because it instantly engages the other person and stirs them to respond and creates a real dialogue.

This is something I've really been wrestling with over the last year...how best to honor the audience....how to serve them most effectively.

I think the answer is honesty. Honesty like the Psalms. A willingness to wrestle with doubt and ugliness just as much as joy and beauty. Hearing Os expound on these ideas was inspiring and I left with a couple pages of notes.

There was a question/answer period at the end and my friend Katy Bowser said something wonderful that has reverberated in my head over and over again. She said that asking questions in her art instead of making blanket faith statements all the time gives her true creative freedom. Os agreed whole-heartedly.

So on my drive home heading up I-65, I figured Os Guinness, a great brother in the Gospel and famed cultural analyst and author has given us explicit permission to create honest art out of the awareness of our total freedom in Jesus.

sidenote: I love listening to older wise men speak. Most of my heroes are older guys. Eugene Peterson, Frederick Buechner...and Os Guinness. I had read a couple of his books before hearing him speak last week and I'm not ashamed to say that he's kind of a rock star to me. Cason and I went up and talked to him for a bit afterwards and we were both slightly nervous. We tried to impress him by quoting Chesterton! Pretty funny looking at it now. I'm 30 and sometimes still feel like an awkward teenager around people I think are the stuff...ah well.

Have a great day.