If you haven't seen or read this recent letter by artist and creative Makoto Fujimara, you definitely should.
A Letter to North American Churches
This was delivered at the Eighth Letter Conference for the Epiphaneia group in Toronto. The presenters were asked to write a letter to the churches of North America in the style of the Revelation letters in the New Testament. The full version will be published in their anthology in 2011.
Dear Churches of North America
I speak to you as an artist.
An artist’s relationship with you has not been easy; we are often in the margins of your communities, being the misfits that we are. Artists often sit in the back, if they come to church at all, wear black and look menacing to you. But many of us, actually, sit in the front, we volunteer, and are first to be with the poor. You just don’t notice us. Some of us are even up in front preaching, and you call us pastors, but we consider ourselves really artists of the Word. Some of us are crusading against the wrongs of the world, and we can get attentions of the “Kings” of this world because our songs are so popular.