Growing up, when people talked about missionaries I typically pictured a mixture of Indiana Jones, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, and Ned Flanders.

I have since met enough missionaries to know that this picture isn’t entirely true. Often times, they are being called to live a rugged life, to meet the medical and physical needs of those they are serving, and live with a higher standard of morality because of the culture surrounding them. But that doesn’t mean they are Indiana/Quinn/Flanders hybrids that could only function in some remote tribe in Africa. The only normative thing I have observed in the missionaries I’ve met is an overwhelming passion to make the gospel of Jesus known in a place that needs Him. This takes on multiple forms, from medical missions, to education, from business as missions, to indigenous leadership training and church planting and it requires all different types of people and temperaments.

As I’ve grown in my understanding of being a worship pastor over the last year, the scope of what it means to be a missionary has also expanded. In its most basic definition, a missionary is someone who goes somewhere to make disciples. Although we generally mean they are people who go to foreign countries or at least to a place radically different from what they are accustomed to, this is not the only way to see a missionary. In fact, it might not mean going anywhere new at all, but rather re-engaging the place you already are with a new gospel intentionality. Not at all to diminish the “Go Forth” missionary call, but there may be an equally pressing need for the “Stay Put” missionary call.

And this is where the overlap of worship pastor and missionary gets exciting. Whereas the preaching pastor seeks to glorify God by drawing God’s people into his redemptive history through the power of oratory, the worship pastor’s job is to do the same thing through art. This puts worship pastors in a unique position to dwell within the world of art and aesthetics.

This should be obvious, but the world of art and aesthetics is a dark world that is only getting darker. And it is a world from which the church has retreated. Instead of engaging and leading the artistic world, as it did for centuries, the church has completely disassociated with art culture and instead created a parallel culture of lesser quality, integrity, depth, and beauty. Because of our unique position as Christians living in the art world, we as worship pastors need to re-engage as missionaries to the hopeless world of aesthetic culture and act with gospel intentionality.

So how do worship pastors engage as missionaries in the art community? Here are a few suggestions:

• Have artistic integrity - The first step is doing what you do well. Make and write good music. Create beautiful art. Be excellent in film making and be exceptional poets in the world of words. If a person was going to India as a missionary, they would learn the language, the history, and the current events and be savvy enough in the cultural values so as to garner the respect of the Indian people. Being a missionary to the artistic community is no different. We need to know what is going in music, in film, in visual media and we need to have an appreciation for its history. Ultimately, we need to be good at what we do if we want to earn a hearing with the culture we are hoping to reach.
• Participate in local artistic community - It doesn’t matter whether you live in a booming metropolis or in a small rural community, there are artistic things happening around you. Participate. Go to festivals and concerts. Get to know other local artists and build relationships. Music and art is great common ground for relationships so use that to build friendships.
• Reject dissociative tendencies - Because of the prevalence of disengaging and instead creating a “safe” parallel Christian artistic community, we need to be actively working against our tendency towards this. It might seem like a good thing to re-create safer versions of bands, literature, and movies for us and our kids, but its not. Don’t try to find a Christian band that sounds like Wilco; listen to Wilco. Don’t read Christian versions of Harry Potter; read Harry Potter. Show discernment with regards to age appropriate material in movies, but be intentional about seeing controversial and possibly contrary movies with your kids or friends so you can engage in the dialogue.