The Importance of Arts Education?

What is the importance of arts education?  Imagine a world without music, without color and form, without passion and joy.  No literature.  No dance.  A world where a child’s creative gifts are not valued.  A world in which adults labor in a colorless, joyless scene, the silence broken only by jarring noise.  There are places like this in the world.  None of us wants to live there.  

The real issue is the importance of creativity.  It’s who we are, an aspect of our humanity that we share with our Creator.  It’s the part of us that can see past a problem to a solution, that can take a barrier and build a bridge, that can capture a thought and generate a reality, and can see potential.  Of course, it’s important—to all of us!

We know from Scripture that God gave some children an extra gifting in the arts.  He made them artists (Exodus 35:30 ff).  Can you imagine the damage when those gifts are not valued and developed?  It’s who they are, their purpose for existence.  It is devastating to them as people and the loss to our culture is immeasurable.  

For the Christian, charged with the responsibility of taking the message of God’s salvation to a lost and dark world, why abandon such vibrant and powerful means of communicating the beauty of the Lord and his sacrificial love on our behalf?  Why would we limit ourselves in this way?  The arts are part of God’s gift to us.  They belong to him and to us, but the enemy has horribly corrupted them.  We have a responsibility to reclaim this territory.  Biblically based arts education is essential in this battle.  

For those of you who think more on a practical level, many studies have demonstrated brain development benefits from music; SAT scores increase in students who participate in the arts; intelligence increases; the immune system is boosted; the arts comprise 6% of our GNP; and 30% of the jobs out there are arts related.  

I am convinced the artists lead our culture because they reflect what we worship.  The first thing God did after giving the Israelites his Word, was to put the artists to work creating a work that reflected all that He is.  Read Exodus 35:30 through the next several chapters.  This was very important to God and he attended to the smallest details.  Throughout history, every civilization has expressed worship through the arts.  We are no different.  

Please consider this.  If God blessed your family with a creative child, it was not a mistake.  Your child will not outgrow it.  It is who they are.  Some way, somehow, they will find a way to express it.  They need training so their gifting brings honor and glory to their God and Savior, Jesus Christ—wherever they go.  

Chris Brock, & Connie Hendon Directors

Southern ArtWorks