Michael answers an international mailbag full of great questions to close out 2025 on the Renew the Arts podcast, including discussions of how Christians should approach non-family-friendly biblical content, what makes art good, baking and cooking as an art, the Holy Spirit’s role in improvisational art as a prayer offering, and much more. Stay tuned at the end for “Spirit Move,” by Civilized Creature, featuring Isaac Wheadon, from the 2024 album Whose House.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Michael collects together the top five things he thinks churches should communicate to their artists, based on his decades of work in the Christian arts space. One thing you might realize after listening to this episode: these five things should be communicated to pretty much every member of a church. Nonetheless, Michael discusses why artists typically don’t hear or feel these things communicated in most churches.
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Michael explains the popular dismissal of fiction and the imagination, and explores the edifying uses of fiction for overcoming the limitations of one’s own lived experience and to bypass our natural resistance to the truth.
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“Are Sermons Enough to Preach the Whole Counsel of God?” (Part 1 and Part 2)
Michael compares and contrasts the great way that seeks first worldly prominence with the little way of the cross, defending and explaining the priority that Renew the Arts has placed on the little things that actually accord with obedience to God.
Stay tuned at the end to hear “Love Everybody,” a track from Be Alive, the just-released new record from Porchlight artist Brother James.
Michael goes solo to talk about exploited art in its four forms: propaganda, pornography, pomp, and product. He discusses why subjecting art to an agenda undermines the powerful purpose of art, and why the church should be the place artists feel most free and empowered to pursue their callings with integrity.
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Why Are So Many Christian Artists at Odds with the Church? (article and podcast)