In the past couple weeks I’ve had the opportunity to make two meaningful but unusual donations. I first contributed to a campaign for one of my favorite books to become a film. Days later I wrote a small check to help production costs of my favorite artist’s next album.

It’s upside down. My whole life marketing firms, movie studios and record labels have spent billions of dollars to convince me to go to their movies, buy their DVDs and CDs, go to their concerts. They have told me what to see and who to listen to. Yes, I apply my own filter to decide what I’m actually interested in, and yes, most of my favorite movies and artists came to me as a result of this corporate process. But sometimes the line is blurry. What do I genuinely connect with, and what I have been talked into?

There has been a shift now, and I am giving money to the projects I want produced. With these small donations or investments I have joined thousands of others in stating “This is what is important!” This story needs to be filmed; this music needs to be recorded. These mediums have substance that will change the world.

In the past the Christian entertainment industry has used the same model as the secular industry and put a Christian label in front of it. I can’t help but think that Jesus would prefer the crowd sourcing method; that it pleases him when people come together to support each others art; it pleases him when people cease to play by the rules of the this world; it pleases him when energy goes to produce meaning instead of profit. This is art in the upside down Kingdom of God.