Have you noticed that in both Testaments, prophets spoke, sang, danced, acted, and used very broad and, certainly at times, startling methods in order to communicate their message? Methods of communication are varied. Yet creative communicators are always appreciated by some, while in danger of being tarred and feathered by others? Why?

The easy answer is that people enjoy and relate to the delivery (the method and imaginative dissemination—the “art”) of the message, or perhaps the content, or both. Of course, some will also dislike the delivery, the information they perceive the communicator is offering, or both. Everything from simple arguments to all-out wars have resulted from such things.

In my own life, I have found that study (research by listening and reading and watching others) is extremely important to the process of both my chosen methods of communication as well as the actual messages I wish to convey.

A.W. Tozer made a powerful call to the church years ago. He did it on a vast number of levels, but one comment of his bears very much on what I would like to consider here. He said we need people who can come into a “sanctified imagination.” As much as I have read Tozer and about Tozer, I have never found him to directly elaborate on that powerful statement. But I have pondered the phrase for a long time.

Sanctification happens through God’s gracious gift, by our obedience to His Word. As we respect the qualities of purity and holiness in others we realize those qualities in the fabric of our own character.

I love to communicate in word and music and gesture, and I burn in my heart with various messages that I truly believe God has put there for me to share. Yet not everything I think about needs be communicated! I am well aware that I often think aloud when I need to be quiet. I am excited and passionate about things and blab on and on redundantly. In a writing mode, what people like me need (and argue with incessantly) is an editor.

Though most of us appreciate truly sound criticism, most of us bristle to our own defense the moment anybody bothers to offer it. How, you may ask, might I know any of this?!! How indeed! Ha.

I live in a community with several hundred adults and children, senior citizens and many very little babies. We cover the gamut of race, ethnicity, education, near insanity, honor, honesty, and of course have some deeply needy people. We are, in fact, a microcosm of the Church.

For my profit as well as yours, I’ve been criticized fairly often over the past twenty-five years by others living in community with me. I have other friends outside of the community and, yes, detractors who have also spoken out. Naturally, I most appreciate those who will do so in love, biblically, and to my face. But . . . hear this well, young artists, musicians, pastors, and anyone else in the churches . . . I have never ceased to profit on some level from critique.

If you prayerfully consider even the possibility of truthfulness in criticism, take it to God and godly people you’re accountable to and discover biblical and practical truth for your life in it, give thanks! Of course, we must consider something before we swallow it whole, but we must not automatically reject it because we don’t like to be “judged.” If it turns out to be total rubbish and sinful judgmentalism, you have still been edified by the prayer time, Bible study, and opportunity to check your attitudes, and by forgiving those who have offended you.

None of us chooses this sort of “blessing,” but the fact is all things do work for the benefit, the actual good, of “those who love God and are called according to His purpose.” All of this directly relates to the editing of song ideas, writing, sermons, teachings, and every other area of life.

Many times my father had a one-word caution for his creative son: Think! We have all heard the words, “Think before you speak.” Amen. Critique is profitable when it moves you to think, drop to your knees in prayer as you seek God’s guidance on the matter. And if you will build and maintain friendships with godly people, you will learn to habitually hear the sort of balance and correction they can offer you. Without these sort of friends, friendship would be shallow indeed.

Before you write, speak, communicate in any mode, by all means think about what you are setting out to do:

1. Think about the possible effects of both delivery and content. Is it skillful? True? Is it appropriate to the particular group you are addressing?

2. Pray about your attitude as well as communication method and content. Pray for those who will be influenced by your offering!

3. Establish and maintain accountable relationships of love and trust. Invite godly, knowledgeable Christians to “edit” your communications and creative output prior to it being put on public display.

4. Choose your editors on the basis of truth and skill, not emotion. It is sheer folly to heap up “groupies” who have neither the love nor the guts to tell us the truth about our flaws.

Those who will not walk in humility over time often become embittered towards those who critique their work and/or content. Because creative, expressive people rarely become any less passionate about their life and work, despair finally reigns in such a person’s life.

I have known and observed countless Christians put stumbling blocks in their own way in such circumstances time and again. They refuse to seek and respect those most likely to help them on the path that perhaps God Himself has led them. Yet these same artists expect people to respectfully beat a path to their door to receive what they offer. But what are they really offering?

The ability to communicate imaginatively and skillfully is a wonderful gift! But hear this bit of wisdom from Joseph Joubert: “He who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet.” The communicator needs both. The wings of imagination need feet in order to be grounded. Grounded feet need wings above that are free to fly in wondrous creativity. To publicly move in an expressive gift with little or no thought about the veracity, the biblical truthfulness of the content is like pouring sand and gravel out of what may be an exquisite vase. On the other hand, if one refuses to consider the skillful and artistic quality of the message, many may judge it as the selling of raw and perhaps suspect propaganda.

I am far more at ease using the expository method of truth-telling than the parabolic method. This is why if I have a tendency to lack, it’s on the “high art” side. There are those whose apprehension and passion for the content of the message is slack, and they will typically focus on and many times produce better art, perhaps even lyrics in terms of the art of lyricism. In the midst of their artistic beauty, what they are actually saying may be quite hollow.

We need Christians around us who will honestly critique us as we pursue both quality and truth in art. Do a Bible study on two words: skill and its synonyms, truth and its related words. There you have it.

Accountability is not only scriptural but essential with regard to the eternal fruitfulness of our communications. I am convinced that not only the spiritual, but in some cases mental and emotional health of Christian communicators is in large part assured only to the extent that they risk friendship and close involvement with godly, honest— as well as gifted—editors, producers, leaders, and the like. Why?

No one is discipled or mentored by God alone. No one.

History and my own personal experience call to mind the lives of countless people, and those who followed them, who refused to surrender to the wisdom of godly and objective critics. Those who learned the art of dying to self and growing in grace through this process are arguably considered the greatest heroes of the Christian Church. They left behind legacies of love, truth, compassion, and honor in a world sorely lacking such virtues.