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May 2012

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Exit Stage Left: Are You an Artist?

by Todd Elliot

For years, the term artist usually defined other people, not me.  I was just the guy in production who supported and served the real artists: dancers, musicians, actors and singers. It never dawned on me to consider myself an artist of any kind.

For the first 10 years of my production life, this perspective translated into all kinds of dysfunctions. “I am here to serve” repeated in my mind. “Any needs that I have are not valid. Suck it up and push forward. I have all these artists on stage waiting for me to deliver. Don’t question, just respond; get it done.” In very passive/aggressive ways, it affected the way I interacted with people on stage and the way I led my volunteer teams.  As time passed, I became bitter and soon I was unable to serve anybody well. I was not functioning the way God intended the body of Christ to work.

Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence in the production ministry of most churches.  I have met too many people who have been in similar situations. Yet after years of feeling totally defeated and overworked, God began to change how I viewed myself and the role I filled.

Production, if it is done well, is an art form. This means those who practice the art of production are artists, not glorified janitors. Not a group subservient to another. Artists. I was an artist creating alongside other artists: musicians, lighting designers, dancers, video directors, singers, audio engineers. I was bringing something unique to the table that no one else could bring. Did living out my art still mean that I turned a few knobs? Yes. Did being a production artist still mean that I also served the needs of other artists? Yes. Did it also still mean that I was still most likely to be the first one in the building and the last out? Yes.

This shift in thinking began to renew the person God had designed me to be. Once I viewed myself differently, I communicated in new and better terms what our ministry was about to our team of production volunteers, my boss, other ministries and church leadership and God was able to use me to help establish a more significant production ministry. Ultimately, I noticed that when production was done well and people saw the difference between unprepared production and production being a part of the creative process, we developed a voice to bring the best of production to the table.

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Todd Elliot is the Technical Arts Director at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. A graduate of Auburn University, he worked in technical ministry at Kensington Community Church based in Troy, Mich. for eleven years. He enjoys teaching and writing about the role of the technical artist in the church, and lives on the edge of a cornfield with his wife Bissy and their three kids.