Dear Reader,

As Thanksgiving approaches, our thoughts turn to praise and gratitude. I set out to write for you a simple essay on the connection between the arts and giving thanks. But in the process of revisiting Harold Best's astute insight in Unceasing Worship, I realized I needed to reframe my definitions of both art and worship in order to do both better. I hope you will be pleasantly surprised and challenged by the result.

In this issue: Giving God Praise
What does praise mean for the artist, and how does our worship inform our art? Look at how art creates space to breathe in Art As Breath, and explore how God’s glory informs our art in Art to the Glory of God.

I hope you will find some time during this busy season to sit a moment and contemplate how you worship and how you find breath. This month, we’ve also provided additional resources to help you find gratitude even when you are far from home.

We are deeply thankful for you and the joy of walking with you on your creative journey.

Art as Breath

by Kelli Sallman

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! (Ps 150:6)

One Monday morning when I was fourteen, I learned that a fellow classmate’s lung had collapsed over the weekend and he had died. He had apparently complained of not feeling well at a Friday football practice, and lot of the other athletes had teased him about his frequent asthmatic complaints, blowing him off. None of us fellow students, whether we were the ones bullying him or not, had recognized our true vulnerability to constricted breath before then—or the many serious conditions that could cause it.

Many of us went to his funeral. I had been to a funeral before, but never open casket and never of someone so young. I have now forgotten many of my large class of high school graduates, but I have never forgotten the waxen face of this young man, nor the heavy emptiness of a body that can no longer draw breath.

When I think about the necessity of art for the church, I think about that student. We are all at risk, spiritually speaking, whether we know it or not, of losing the ability to draw in air. So many aspects of our culture, our environment, and our families compress our lungs until we shut down and turn to wax, heavily empty. But whether from pain or joy or an astonishment at beauty, the surprise we find through art can jolt our hearts awake again to the reality of God, if we are God-seeking. And when the heart restarts its pumping, we gasp anew for his life-giving breath.

Art to the Glory of God

by Callie Johnson

John Piper, a famous pastor and theologian, wrote a book titled Let the Nations Be Glad. He grounded his premise in the doxology of God, declaring, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t” (Piper 2010, 35). But his message spreads across mediums, infiltrating work, art, and all facets of living. His perspective starts with the purpose of God. Taking a cue from the Westminster Catechism, Piper says, “The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy himself forever” (Piper 2010, 40). If righteousness means properly valuing what is valuable and not what is not valuable, then God’s perfect righteousness is to perfectly value himself. To do otherwise would be unrighteous. For any persons to glorify themselves as supremely valuable would be transgression, but for God to glorify anything but himself would essentially be idolatry, a worshiping of the created rather than the Creator.

According to Piper, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him” (Piper 2010, 50). The inherent question, then, is “Are you satisfied in God?” The satisfaction Piper speaks of is not an emotion, but a reflection of the contentment Paul calls us to in Philippians 4. It is a choice, not a feeling. Piper prods us to ask, “Do I choose satisfaction in God?” To delight in the presence of someone is to honor them, thus, humanity’s satisfaction in God is an act of worship declaring his sufficiency. This satisfaction can be found only through a knowledge of God.