An Artist Needs An Audience.

Rachel and I shared a studio at Illinois Wesleyan University. I taught voice and she taught piano.

I was a typical theater type. Exhibitionist. Loved performing for people and validation.

Rachel seemed different. She didn’t seem to need attention.

I suspected she had what I wished I had: A love for making music that didn’t require an audience.

So I asked her, “Rachel, if you could get paid to play in a room by yourself all day with no one to hear it, would you want to?”

She looked like she was imagining heaven as she said, “Oh yeeaaaahh…”

I thought, “Weird. But I admire it.”

Why did I admire her?

Because I knew why I performed. By this point, I was no longer singing for a living. In fact, I was already a church planter and teaching to pay my bills.

This was difficult, because I had only just walked away from my opera career in obedience to God’s call to be a pastor instead. It was still hard.

It was hard to see my students going out there and doing what I was so driven to do just a year prior. I was like an alcoholic tending bar (Sam Malone, anyone?).

Still wanting that attention and hating myself for it.

Still struggling not to fall into the same trap behind the pulpit that I fell into on the stage. Still trying to have peace about my decision to lay down my “nets” and follow Jesus.

So I was in deep admiration of my studio mate, Rachel.

But now… I’m not 28. I’m 52.

And I think she was wrong.

It’s wrong to keep the music to yourself. A proper playing requires someone participating in the experience by listening.

Okay, I won’t go so far as to say Rachel was wrong.

Who knows what she actually meant?

Maybe she just meant that audiences make her anxious, or maybe she meant she plays for God (which would be noble, but I still think maybe not quite right, since why couldn’t you play for God and share your gift for the joy and enrichment of others?).

But I want to make a case that your art is meant for an audience.

It’s not quite complete until it’s experienced. And while we have our pride to deal with and all our insecurities and false motives for wanting applause or acceptance, we should deal with it so we can share what we were meant to share.

Here’s what I’ve learned now at (almost) 52:

1. Art Completes Its Purpose Only When Shared

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” — Psalm 19:1 ESV

I spent years thinking I would be spiritual if I didn’t need an audience. But consider that creation itself can’t shut up about God’s glory. The stars don’t shine in private. Birds don’t whisper their songs. These things need an audience, because they express the Creator. Our art expresses us, and we thereby express our Creator.

The stars and birds aren’t shy to perform.

“Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge” (Psalm 19:2). Creation doesn’t hoard its message. It pours it out. Daily. Nightly. Relentlessly.

God didn’t create the universe and then lock it in a vault. When you create something beautiful and keep it to yourself, you’re basically telling God, “Thanks for the gift, but I think I’ll just bury it in the backyard.”

Art isn’t complete until it’s experienced. A song exists to be heard. A painting exists to be seen. A book exists to be read.

2. Withholding Is a Form of Fear (Not Humility)

“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” — 2 Timothy 1:7 ESV

Can I confess something? When I admired Rachel’s contentment with playing alone, I was really admiring what looked like freedom from my own demons.

But here’s what I know now: Most of us who hide our art aren’t being humble. We’re being cowards. (I include myself in this.)

“Oh, it’s nothing special.” “I just do it for God.” “I wouldn’t want to bother anyone.”

You know what that is? Fear dressed up in religious clothes.

I’ve ghostwritten over 120 books. For years, I was perfectly content to let other people’s names go on the covers. If the book failed, not my name. If someone hated it, not my fault. I hid behind anonymity like it was some kind of noble service.

But a few years ago I began insisting my ghostwriting clients credit me. Partly it was to keep them from having to lie. But the bigger part was to teach me to take responsibility for my work when I would have rather stayed hidden.

It’s easier to stay invisible. No one can criticize what they don’t know you made.

Jesus said something that haunts me: “Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket” (Matthew 5:15 ESV). I was a professional basket-putter. Still fighting that tendency.

But perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18 ESV). And real love shares. It takes responsibility. It stands behind what it creates.

3. Shared Art Imitates the Incarnation

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” — John 1:14 ESV

God could have stayed abstract. A concept, an idea, a feeling. For many, that’s exactly what God is: abstract, distant, theoretical.

But He didn’t stay that way. He became concrete. Flesh. A baby who cried, a carpenter with splinters, a man who got tired and hungry. Jesus made the invisible God visible. He took the abstract and made it concrete; you could touch His hands, hear His voice, watch Him eat fish.

That’s what art does. It concretizes the abstract.

When I preach, I’m trying to take massive theological concepts, grace, redemption, sanctification, and make them concrete through stories, images, examples. My words could stay abstract in my journal where they’re safe. Instead, they become flesh, spoken aloud, recorded, criticized in the parking lot afterward.

When you paint loneliness, you make an invisible ache visible. When you write about hope, you give it shape and weight. When you sing of joy, you make it tangible. It vibrates into bodies.

Christ came “not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45 ESV). Your hidden art serves no one. It’s an unincarnate word.

True maybe, but not dwelling among us, not full of grace and truth that others can behold.

Rick Rubin talks about this: how the artist’s job is to translate the intangible into form, to be a conduit between the unseen and seen worlds.

We’re not creating from nothing; we’re making the invisible visible.

4. Art Awakens Dormant Souls

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” — Ephesians 5:14 ESV

Some people have forgotten how to feel. They’ve been numbed by trauma, by Netflix, by the brutal pace of modern life. They can’t access wonder or grief or awe anymore. They’re emotional zombies.

Your art can resurrect them.

I’ve seen it happen. A song unlocks tears someone has held for years. A painting restores wonder they thought they’d lost. A story helps them name what they couldn’t express.

When Ezekiel prophesied to the dry bones, he probably felt ridiculous. Speaking to a valley of death? But “the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet” (Ezekiel 37:10 ESV).

That song you’re not sharing? Someone needs it to remember they’re alive. That story you’re sitting on? It might be the thing that helps someone feel again. The transformational book you want to write to make sense of and then use your traumatic life story just might be the only thing that can reach someone.

5. Hidden Art Can Become Idolatry

“Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.” — 1 Corinthians 10:14 ESV

My biggest fear as a new Christian was that my art on display was an idol. Because it was!

But consider that it may be even more of an idol to hide your art.

I know artists who’ve been “perfecting” their work for years. Decades even. It’s become their precious. Their idol. They polish sentences that no one will ever read, perfect melodies no one will ever hear.

When I was singing opera, I had teachers who made us perform constantly. Not when we were ready…because we were never ready. But they knew that “perfect” becomes the enemy of “good enough to bless someone.”

Jesus told a story about a servant who buried his talent.

The master called him “wicked and slothful” (Matthew 25:26 ESV). Not “careful.” Not “perfectionist.” Wicked.

Yikes!

When we hide our art, we make it about us. Our standards, our control, our protection. Paul says spiritual gifts are given “for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7 ESV).

Your art isn’t yours. It’s a gift meant to be regifted.

6. Sharing Art Makes Joy Complete

“Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” — Philippians 2:2 ESV

Paul uses this phrase that gets me every time: “make my joy complete.”

Think about that. Paul has joy, but it’s not complete until it’s shared, until others are brought into it. John says the same thing: “We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete” (1 John 1:4 ESV).

Joy isn’t complete in isolation. It needs to be shared to be full.

The books I’ve written have changed lives. I know. I see the testimonies. Someone’s marriage was saved. Someone found their way back to faith. Someone finally understood grace. That shared joy, theirs, my client’s, and mine together. That is complete joy, made more complete by the joy of the Lord Who gave the gift and called the writer.

Paul writes that God “comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4 ESV). Your message changes lives, but only if you share it.

Someone right now is carrying the exact pain you’ve already walked through. Your story could be their proof that survival is possible. When they find hope through your art, your joy in creating it becomes complete.

7. Silence Lets Lies Win

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against... the spiritual forces of evil.” — Ephesians 6:12 ESV

I planted a church in a town where another church had spiritually abused people for decades. The victims were told to stay quiet. “Don’t gossip,” the leaders said. “Guard the reputation of the church.”

So they stayed silent. And the abuse continued. For decades.

Silence let the lie win.

We live in an age where despair is trendy, cynicism is sophisticated, and hope is considered naive. When we don’t share the beauty we’ve been given to create, we let the darkness feel inevitable.

Isaiah warns: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20 ESV). But what about those who have good to share and keep it hidden? Aren’t we complicit in the darkness?

Your painting of light might be the only light someone sees this year. Your song of hope might be the only hope someone hears. Paul tells us to think about “whatever is lovely” (Philippians 4:8 ESV). Your art may be how someone does just that.

8. Only What’s Given Away Endures

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” — John 12:24 ESV

Think about all the art that died with its creator. Songs never sung. Books never published. Paintings never shown.

Gone. Forever.

Jesus said whoever tries to save his life will lose it (Matthew 16:25 ESV). Same with art. The song you won’t release, the book you won’t publish, the painting you won’t show, it’s already dying.

But shared art? It outlives you.

The hymns we sing on Sunday? Someone shared those. The books that changed your life? Someone risked putting them out there. The paintings that move you? An artist decided to stop hiding.

“He has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 ESV). When you share your art, you’re planting something eternal in other hearts.

I sometimes wonder about Rachel now. Is she still playing piano in empty rooms? Did she find the peace she was looking for?

I found something different. Not peace. More like purpose. And joy, the complete kind that only comes from sharing.

At 28, I needed to learn that not everything requires applause. That was good medicine for an approval addict like me.

But at 52, I’ve learned the opposite danger: hiding your gift because you’ve “matured past needing attention.”

That’s not maturity. It’s fear wearing a spiritual costume.

The healthiest place for an artist isn’t on the stage or in the storage room. It’s in the community, creating and sharing not for validation, but for love. Not for fame, but for faithfulness. Not to impress, but to bless.

Peter says to use whatever gift you’ve received “to serve one another” (1 Peter 4:10 ESV). Not to perfect in private. Not to hoard in fear. To serve.

Your art is a gift, which means it’s meant to be given.

So make your art. Deal honestly with your motives. Yes, you want attention, we all do. So what? God can use even that. He used my exhibitionist tendencies to get me on stages where I could sing His glory.

Wrestle down your pride and your fear. Then share it anyway.

Someone needs what you’ve been given to create. The world is waiting for the beauty only you can bring.

Don’t make us wait too long.

And Rachel, if you’re out there, I hope you’re still playing. But I hope someone’s listening.

Jeff B. Miller is a pastor, publisher, ghostwriter, and recovering opera singer who teaches writing and believes everyone has a book in them that the world needs to read. He has a beautiful wife, five wonderful kids, and church family who blesses him.

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