Praying for The Entertainment Industry and Arts and Sports Celebration Sphere

Posted on March 5, 2018 by Bill Hutchison

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Thank you for joining us this month as we take up “The Invitation” and join together with thousands of YWAMers from around the world as we pray for The Entertainment Industry and Arts and Sports Celebration Sphere.

From left to right: Lu’au – Lion Dance; Dance performance in Asia; Photo credits: YWAM Island Breeze, YWAM Hong Kong.

The arena of arts and entertainment has long set a precedent for culture. And where culture goes, so society goes. Art and entertainment have power to influence and shape not only people’s perspectives, but a nation’s worldview.

Around the world we can clearly see an attack of the enemy on the sphere of celebration (arts, entertainment and sports). The media and entertainment all around us display violence, false pleasures, selfishness, and lies about who we are and who God is. The enemy’s agenda is fully displayed through videos, movies, music, and art and many lives are being deceived through this.

Art has tremendous power to shape culture and touch the human heart. Its artifacts embody the ideas and desires of the coming generation. This means that what is happening in the arts today is prophetic of what will happen in our culture tomorrow. It also means that when Christians abandon the artistic community, we lose a significant opportunity to communicate Christ to our culture.

Philip Graham Ryken

Yet, God is not silent and He has raised up His people around the globe to make a holy stand for this sphere! There are Christians around the world and within YWAM that have taken their calling as artists who will display God’s character and values to the world through the work they create and their platform in art, entertainment and sports.

YWAM has 106 locations in 49 different countries around the world with ministries and schools that focus on training up artists, musicians, and athletes to influence this sphere. These YWAM workers include dancers, filmmakers, fashion designers, actors, culinary artists, fine artists, street artists, musicians, and athletes from multiple sports.

Please join with YWAM’s global prayer day, called The Invitation, during the month of March to pray for God’s movement in the entertainment industry and the sphere of celebration. You are particularly invited to pray during our prayer day, March 8. If you only have a few moments to pray we would ask you to pray for artists and entertainers to reflect the character of God and for YWAM workers to have more open doors to share God’s message.

Swim Meet, Photo credit: YWAM Pichilemu, Chile.

Prepare to Pray:

As you prepare to pray about God’s purposes for the arts, entertainment and sports, consider the following exercise as a way to help you and your group enter into prayer. The imagery uses an artistic and creative approach to provide a way for God to lead.

If you are praying in a group, you may choose to project this image so that everyone can see it.

Photo credit: YWAM.

Take a few moments to gaze at the image. Quietly, as individuals, consider the beauty of the waterfall, the power of the water, the precipitous rocks. Now ask yourself these questions, taking more time with whichever ones resonate most with you:

Consider the life of God as this flowing and powerful water, and your life with Him.

As you reflect on your life currently, where do you see yourself in this image?

  • in what way are you paused at the top of the falls, fearful of plunging into the unknown?
  • in what way are you carried with the force of the water? To what extent does this feel exuberant and full of energy? To what extent do you feel battered by the rocks along the way?
  • in what ways have you, like the rock, been formed and shaped by the life of God, even in those places in your life that were hard and apparently unyielding?
  • in what way might you see yourself off to the side, observing the power of the water but not actually touched by it?
  • in what ways do you experience yourself as being in the pool beneath the falls, enjoying the rush of the waters, yet with a sense of safety and well-being?
  • in what ways are you aware of the beauty of the promises of God concerning your life and the situations and people you care about?

When everyone has taken a few minutes to reflect on the question or questions that most draw their attention, take time to share what you noticed with one or two other people.

To close, consider how God used an image, together with your imagination and your awakened spirit, to bring you to a place of greater awareness of Him and His work in your life. Hold this in mind as you move into the time of prayer about the sphere of arts and entertainment.

Pray for Artists and Entertainers:

  • Pray for artists and entertainers to reflect the character of God (godly, humble, willing to serve, full of integrity) and have the fear of the Lord.
  • Pray that artists and athletes would see themselves as missionaries and potential world changers.
  • Pray for the Holy Spirit to fill artists with skill, intelligence and knowledge in their craft and area of expertise:

Then Moses said to the people of Israel, “See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft. And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Oholiab the son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan.

Exodus 35:30-34 (ESV)

  • Pray for God’s inspiration and creativity, with the artist as a co-creator with God.
  • Pray for more people with a heart for arts to step up and take their place!
  • Pray for the Christians in entertainment to have a strong Christian community that will encourage them and keep them accountable.
  • Pray for YWAM ministries and individuals that are focused on reaching this sphere, for God’s protection and provision and greater influence in their area.

Dance and Fine Art, Photo credit: YWAM Lakeside Montana

Pray for the Work Being Created:

  • Praise God for the growth in YWAM’s University of the Nations College of Arts and Sports.
  • Pray for deeper revelation for YWAM as to God’s purposes through art and sport in the future. Pray that new YWAM expressions would emerge and that existing locations would make room for these new ministerial approaches.
  • Pray for more YWAMers to gain a vision for how the Kingdom of God can grow through art and sports, especially that YWAM’s Discipleship Training School students entering our family would be exposed to fresh visionary language as to how they can use their gifting in this way to glorify the Lord, communicate truth and see transformation in this sphere of influence.
  • Pray that the YWAM global network for arts and sports would grow closer together, growing in friendship, learning communities and collaborative partnerships.
  • Pray that our arts and sports networks would expand into non-YWAM and non-Christian networks.
  • Pray that YWAM would adapt and innovate in the area of arts and sports. Pray for growth in wisdom regarding how to preach truth to a generation that views truth as something that is relative.
  • Pray for art and entertainment to reflect godly values.
  • Pray for relevant and creative ways to communicate God’s message.
  • Pray for art content to point the audience to God and to express truth with the power of the Holy Spirit.
  • Pray for excellence in the work for Christian artists and entertainers that will be a testimony of God’s excellence and creativity.

What makes art Christian art? Is it simply Christian artists painting biblical subjects like Jeremiah? Or, by attaching a halo, does that suddenly make something Christian art? Must the artist’s subject be religious to be Christian? I don’t think so. There is a certain sense in which art is its own justification. If art is good art, if it is true art, if it is beautiful art, then it is bearing witness to the Author of the good, the true, and the beautiful”

R. C. Sproul

Pray for Influence:

  • Pray for more open doors for artists to share God’s message
  • Pray for new doors to be opened in media: movies, TV, internet, advertising, videos, music, etc.
  • Pray for more art made by Christians to be recognized for its excellence and brought to a wider audience

One Voice, YWAM Together 2016

Take Action:

  • If you are an artist or have giftings or passion in the sphere of celebration, consider taking a second-level school in YWAM that will develop you to be more effective as an artist in missions: http://www.uofn.edu/
  • If you would like to do a YWAM Discipleship Training School that focuses on arts, entertainment or sports, go to ywam.org and search for an opportunity. YWAM offers many DTS programs around the world that emphasize this kind of ministry.
  • Read books that will give you a clearer perspective of what it means to be a Christian artist:
    • “Art and the Bible” by Francis A. Schaeffer
    • “Imagine” by Steve Turner
    • “Art for God’s Sake” by Philip Graham Ryken
    • “Addicted to Mediocrity” by Franky Schaeffer
    • “Art & Soul” by Brand & Chaplin
    • “The Creative Call” by Janice Elsheimer
  • Seek one artist/entertainer/athlete around you and encourage and support them
  • Pray regularly for a specific artist/entertainer/athlete.
  • Subscribe to the University of the Nation’s College of Arts and Sports Dean’s Corner to receive regular updates on how God is using the arts and sports in YWAM by emailing cas@uofn.edu.
  • See what YWAM is doing in this sphere:

Contemporary dance. Photo credit: YWAM Hong Kong – Tuen Mun.

How We Prayed

February 2018 – Community Development

  • YWAM Blantyre, Malawi prayed and reported that, at a minimum, they pray on Fridays and Tuesdays, sometimes focusing on global prayer and sometimes on local prayer.
  • YWAM Tegucigalpa and YWAM Campus Ministry in Madagascar prayed.
  • People prayed from the following countries: Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Sweden, USA, Australia, Germany, Kenya, India, Honduras, and Nigeria.
  • Create Thailand prayed for hope and steadfast love and a few particular ministries that are doing community development in YWAM Chiang Mai.
  • YWAM Minneapolis used the Invitation during their weekly intercession times. They prayed for bridge building, unity of communities and the seven spheres of society related to growing communities.
  • The International House of Prayer in Kansas City prayed for community development. Each month they produce a calendar with daily YWAM topics and monthly focus so that people throughout their organization can pray. In January, their monthly focus was on YWAM’s foundational values #1 – 3.

Future Topics:

  • April 12, 2018 YWAM Foundational Values 4 – 6 (Practice Worship and Intercessory Prayer, Be Visionary, Champion Young People)
  • May 10, 2018 Refugees Update/30 Days

Don’t Miss The Invitation:

  • Sign up for prayer updates. Go to ywam.org, find the “Stay Connected” box on the home page, put in your email address and click “Sign Up.”
  • Download prayer updates in a specific language. Go to ywam.org/theinvitation. (Currently available in Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Korean or request other languages.)
  •  Join the conversation about how God is leading in these prayer times. Comment on the Facebook page on the second Thursday at facebook.com/youthwithamission or on Twitter @ywam, hashtag #praywithywam. You can also post a photo on Instagram and use the same hashtag, #praywithywam.
  • You can now listen to The Invitation as a podcast. To sign up or listen to past episodes, go to: ywampodcast.net/prayer.
  • If you sense God giving you a word or a direction for YWAM’s prayer, please contact us: prayer@ywam.org.

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