New Territory.

As I begin to enter into another season of songwriting, I continue to hold a deep conviction within me to be someone who “adds” to the conversation creation is having about God, not someone who just regurgitates other artists’ creations (they probably did it better anyway). There are many incredible songs, and it can be so easy to just jump on the bandwagon and draft behind someone else’s momentum without ever seeking that intimate spark of inspiration for yourself. We can forever delve deeper and deeper into the being of God without fear of ever reaching bottom…yet often I settle for what I already know and what I have seen work in the past.

Settling for the mean, that which is safe and popular and acceptable and tested, is mediocre.  Scripture doesn’t speak highly of mediocrity. We need risk takers. We need explorers to go before us and call us into new territory.

Are we as artists and creatives forging fresh tracks or following a paved bike path? As you relentlessly pursue the heart of God, where is He taking YOU? How can YOU uniquely add to the conversation?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

  • Eddie Montoya

    We have to remember that what we do as artist has very little in the realm of creativity as the rest of the world would know and more about re analyzation of truth.  much like Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun artist must come to the conclusion that when we create all are really doing is rearranging that which has existed from the creator.  so where does this leave? are we to recreate the same emaciated pictures of a faith that loose their flavor over time.  For this we have to look back at what transpired with the reformation in Luther’s time.  The exfoliation of the christian faith from the humanism that has so deeply encrusted it for centuries give artists the freedom in which to express the newness of revival in their medium.  when we ask is this really Jesus of our cultures perception of a “Jesus” do we begin to remove our projected humanism from our faith and let our faith be just that…Faith.  We cannot express the trueness of Christ’s image because we don;t know what he looks like. and Frankly it really doesn;t matter. what matters, is the Christness of Christ.  His charity, his love, compassion, sacrifice, long suffering, judgement. all these things that at it’s very core express who Christ is.  for when we keep Christ int he center and forget all of our means to express him relativistically, we find the relevancy of the gospel and Jesus on the human level. Not on our superficial cultural level.  Christ is the same for the pygmy in the jungle as it is for the executive in New York.  When we really come face to face with the true, raw, and unadulterated faith that our predecessors passionatly spoke of we find not the idealism or optimism of Cultural Christianity, nor the apathetic and pessimistic view of humanism void of any reason.  but we find that suspended between the absolutes of reality halfway between heaven and hell the ecclesiastic force that moves among the people of reality.  and in that understanding we must acknowledge the the infinitely close yet infinitely separated distance between the two and in that harsh reality there we find the trueness of Christ. So where do we go from here?  Bring what we have created over the years as offering to movement in which God wishes to do.  Let it die and let it be buried to know that it is gone, but let the memory of is remain that the newer generation that sees our place in life complete more of the picture of faith then we could ever do ourselves. 

  • admin

    Great thoughts, Eddie. I agree that as Christ reveals himself, renews and recreates us, we can better reflect His essence and beauty. PS I love your usage of exfoliation!

    I could sit down and write a song about grace, but unless I have truly experienced Christ’s grace in my life, its just borrowed rhetoric. We have enough rhetoric. We need beauty and truth, which comes intimately knowing, seeking, and serving the One who is Beauty and Truth.

  • Klomax

    you are so horrible singing and writing the lyrics whatever your names and i cant remember because you are so horrible at everything you do .

  • Tlomax

    hey are you some butthaed because he rocks like crazy