We must steward the talents bestowed and assigned to us with wisdom, to be sure, but we must also leverage what we’re entrusted with for the growth of the Gospel’s roots in our lives and communities. We must disciple people into affection for and allegiance to Jesus, anchored in the sure hope of His soon return.

Nearly every artist and creative is driven by a sincere, legitimate desire to make people “feel something.” But you cannot take to someone that which you do now know yourself. How do we mine mysteries, avoid millstones, and grow into maturity? How do we help our friends, families, and nations do the same?

We are living in-between the Cross and the Crown, in a window of mercy opened for the fullness of the Gentiles to enter into the Kingdom of the Son of His love. This is the moment in eternity with the declaration of the Son of Man, “Maranatha,” sweeps across the nations of the earth that, truly, all might be blessed through the promises made to Abraham. And these days, as any, are numbered. This window of mercy will close—because He has promises to keep to Jerusalem, and when the new song reaches her city of origin again, this “present evil age” will finally end.

"It does not matter who writes your laws; it matters who writes your songs." History, science, and Scripture all verify these words—but they bear unique weight on the days we live in now, and the days we're heading into.

I wonder if we Artists & Creatives have lost our place in our own story; if we think part of the Body of Jesus is for the prophetic, apostolic, evangelistic, pastoral, or educating members, and the other part is for the dancers, painters, and guitar-wielding hippies. This unspoken partition disproportionately divides the labor to the former group and communicates a sense of exemption to the latter—but Scripture favors none, and lets no one off the hook.

So. A Romans-15:20-creative-access ministry with an unconventional media production arm releases a cryptic dirge illustrated through a lyric video filled with fire, empty alcohol bottles, and puddled wounds of prop blood. In the words of the King James, “What meanest thou this?”

Let’s talk about “costly,” the third and final single of its title EP, out on all platforms today.

Hinges of history are remembered with nostalgia, but they usually inflict whiplash when they’re happening. If you bear the Image & Name of the LORD, you are “obliged” to bear the Message of the LORD—and I believe the Creator of all has “appointed by name” Artists & Creatives to bear beautiful witness to the “blessed hope” that is the return and reign of the Man Christ Jesus, the Better Beautiful.