Religion vs Arts, Who Wins The Battle Of Orthodoxies!

Since the very beginning of the blog, I have been keeping an eye on the intersection of performing arts and religious communities. A recent NY Times article seems to include quite a number of places where this occurs.

It starts by describing a warehouse space that has the

“trappings of a revitalization project, including an art gallery, a yoga studio and a business incubator, sharing the building with a coffee shop and a performance space.

But it is, in fact, a church. ”

If you look at the website of this art gallery-cum-yoga studio-cum-etc-cum church, it might take a couple glances to realize it is a church.

You can say a lot about the importance of adhering to propriety and doctrine that should be part of sacred institutional practices and how the approach of many organizations isn’t invested with appropriate due seriousness.

But you can say the same thing about churches, too.

Oh wait, I mean arts organizations. Wait, which one was I talking about? This is so confusing.

You may be surprised to learn that not only has church attendance been falling lately, but there is a churn rate of about 40% annually.

Sounds a lot like the plight of arts organizations, eh?

Not only that, there is a real bias toward entrepreneurship

“For new leaders coming out of seminary, “the cool thing is church planting,” Mr. Bird said. “The uncool thing is to go into the established church. Why that has taken over may speak to the entrepreneurialism and innovation that today’s generation represents.”

Sounds a lot like the sentiments of performing arts kids coming right out of school that want to start their own company.

Like arts organizations, there is a push to connect with the communities in different ways, some going so far as to remove references to “church” and “services” in favor of “gatherings” and “communities.” One group has seen some success with centering their spiritual communities in coffee shops and is preparing to franchise their coffee concept.

As strange as a chain of spiritual coffee houses sounds, the trend seems to be away from the huge mega-churches, many of which have been foreclosed on, toward smaller multipurpose spaces that can be turned toward earning revenue rather than being empty six days a week.

In some respects having a church be the center of community center is a return to old practices. Chartres Cathedral was a bustle of commercial activity both inside and out.

One of the prime questions that emerges for me as I read this article is how religious/spiritual groups, which I believe stand to suffer much more from embracing the trappings of popular culture and entertainment than arts organizations do, seem to be a bit more nimble than the arts community at experimenting with new approaches?

I realize that many trends reported on by the NY Times are often not as widespread as the paper makes it appear, but as a person who rents a facility to religious services, I can attest that the article isn’t many degrees different from my experience.

It amuses me to think that the arts community self imposed idealism about selling out and becoming too commercial might actually represent a more inflexible orthodoxy than those embraced by religious communities possessing texts containing rules of behavior.

Though it isn’t as if the arts community isn’t having this same conversation. This is what Creative Placemaking is really all about. What these churches are doing may provide some interesting models and even potential collaborators in the pursuit of placemaking.

Arts, Feel The Burn. Love the Burn!

Andrew Taylor has the video of Diane Ragsdale’s address on Arts Alliance Illinois 2010 Members’ Meeting on his blog today. Her speech was titled, “Surviving the Culture Change” and she tackled the general idea that expectations are changing and the arts need to change too. My favorite moment was when she likened the experience of attending the arts for someone who has never really done so to going to the gym. “You have to go on a regular basis before going feels better than not going.”

During her talk she references the fact that large churches often make sure newcomers are greeted and are integrated into a small group that becomes something of a social network for them so they don’t feel like a small fish in a really big pond. I made a similar observation in just the last month.

She also talked about attending performances and then wanting the arts organization to have posted some sort of downloadable material the next day that she could share with her friends. Perhaps she acknowledged the problem and I missed it, but the biggest difficulty with that is arranging for all the intellectual property clearances to pull that off. Doing what she suggests will either take a major shift in how protective IP holders are with their material..or the rise to prominence of people who don’t care to have it tightly guarded. Something that may just happen if people flock to them because they enable audiences to share clips the next day.

Ragsdale speaks on a number of topics over 45 minutes and there is a lot that is likely to interest you, so watch it below. The last thing that grabbed my attention was when she talked about saying you don’t have time to be involved with the arts is just an easy default answer. She points out that people devoted to the slow food movement/sustainable agriculture invest a great deal of time and money hunting down organic ingredients, learning to prepare meals and then engaging in the time consuming cooking process. There is a sense of satisfaction they get from this activity. Part of the trick then is to provide an opportunity to acquire a similar sense of satisfaction in the arts.

N.B. – For a shorter version of Diane’s comments and the text of the prepared remarks, see the links in Scarlett Swerdlow’s comments below. Thanks for the tip, Scarlett!

Diane Ragsdale on Surviving the Culture Change (Full Remarks) from Arts Alliance Illinois on Vimeo.

Buildings That Say We Want You To Stay

A hat tip to the Stuff Christian Culture Likes blog for the link to the photostream of Jody Forehand, a regional director for Visioneering Studios which does a lot of church design. I don’t want to get into a discussion about the influence of mega-churchs or the morality of such conspicuous consumption in church buildings.

I just wanted to point out just how theatrical the settings are. Even excepting the toon town design of the children’s worship area of Central Christian Church, I am sure most of us would be envious of the design and technology of each of these gorgeous buildings. Then there is the staffing. There is a lot of work that goes into organizing and mobilizing the largely volunteer staffing for some of these buildings every week.

I know there is a sense of obligation which brings people to these churches and their satellite campuses that people don’t feel toward the arts. The notes on Elevation Church say it is the broadcast hub for three locations serving 7000 people at 10 services a weekend. But as I have often said on this blog, perhaps there is something to be learned from churches. This is a situation where people aren’t charged an admission fee, there is music, but much of the time is spent listening to a person reinterpret a classic text for today’s audience or talk about their experiences. While one of the speakers may have a lot of experience traveling around speaking on the same subject, much of what is said by the speakers has not been extensively workshopped or rehearsed over many weeks. And yet, there is enough investment in the church to construct multi-million dollar buildings.

Even if people aren’t there out of a sense of obligation, there are spiritual needs that are met at worship services, even if they are heavily theatricized, that a main stream play or musical can’t provide. For many it is preferable to hear a single person talk about the life of crime they lead than it is to watch a well rehearsed performance about a criminal that mended his ways. Honestly, I don’t think communities are well served by theatres that only do morally unambigious shows with happy endings. Though there is a price to be paid for that decision.

But one thing that is clear from looking at this buildings is that they were designed to serve the communities. Even though the main use of the facilities is in a large room with theater style seating for hundreds, there are large areas devoted to children and large lounge areas and lobbies to mingle and hang out in. Even though there are multiple services each day, the place isn’t designed to move one group out and bring another group in. They don’t care if people stick around, in fact they want people to stay because that provides an opportunity to get a person more invested in the organization.

That is something of an alien thought for most performing arts groups because their model is based on selling a seat to a different person each performance. If a person wants to buy a seat for the next show, that is great! But if they just want to stick around and take in the whole vibe and experience again, that can cut into the bottom line.

But maybe it is time to rethink this approach, especially with organizations that are focused on serving a specific community. Internet communities create value by having people stick around and interact–the longer the better. Granted, even with the largest internet companies, the question always arises as to how they end up making money providing these services for free. And it is relatively easier for an internet company to add more capacity by buying more server space vs. a performing arts organization trying to expand their physical space as more people decide to hang out and interact.

Finding a model that works for theatres will take some imagination and perhaps even some tact. I have been reading quite a few articles lately that talk about how coffee houses which had been offering free WiFi have started turning it off because people have been camping out at tables all day long while nursing a single cup of coffee. So it isn’t as if theatres would be out of touch idiots for recognizing the need to empty and refill seats in order to stay in business.

Really, when people are hanging around the churches, they probably aren’t returning to the seats in the worship center anyway. There are other areas for them interact with people and many of those people will ask if they are interested in increasing their involvement and commitment to the church. This might involve anything from volunteering in some capacity to joining an affinity group (young parents, young singles, female professionals, etc).

Implementing these sort of programs are within the abilities of many arts organizations. Much of it can be accomplished with the help of well directed volunteers. Though granted many are willing to invest more volunteer hours into their spiritual lives than into the local arts organization. Certainly many find spiritual fulfillment in the arts.