As an organization, it is the goal of Arts for Relief and Missions that contemporary arts and music ministries become a viable channel of missions work. We believe that the norm should be people using their giftedness to reach the lost and edify the church for the glory of God.

Because of this mandate on our mission, one of our primary areas of calling has been discipleship. As an organization we have been committed to expository teaching of the Bible that would also give people practical ways of applying biblical principles to their own lives. For that reason we avoid books dealing in popular psychology at the expense of teaching people to find their answers from the Word, where one may be counseled of God.

In our discipleship, our primary area of focus has been on those called in music and arts ministries, varying from those called to minister to the secular public to others whose primary calling is in worship, often based out of the ministry of a local church. Because of the itinerant nature of some of those ministries, it has become increasingly apparent to us that there are special needs facing those in ministry who often find themselves on a public platform.

The initial CAMMA Council was born in 1999 when we received a devastating letter from a well-known worship leader who stepped down from ministry over a situation involving life-dominating sin that had been ongoing for a period of years. This letter was devastating to us not because we can't understand why such things happen. We know there is no good that dwells in our flesh, and it is by the grace of God that any of us stand. The moment we think ourselves to be immune, the Word counsels us to "let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall."

Our desire was to approach this issue from humility as deep as our sadness, while trying to understand how it is such sin can be hidden for so long, and resolve to do something about what we found. How has it become that we as the Church are able to send out people with such problems and remain continually unaware of the signs, which must surely have been there? Assuming that much is true, what are those signs? What is the responsibility of the sending agencies (the local churches) to those whom they have sent? Is it possible to set up structures of accountability that might prevent such blatant misuse of ministry gifts while issues are small and ministers are still being trained?

We are painfully aware that the recording companies and publishers have profitability at the core of their operations, therefore none of us should expect that music marketers or publishers should ever be gauges of the spiritual temperature of their artists. They are there to sell products.

We began to analyze such agencies as the Evangelical Council of Financial Accountability, which sets standards of financial conduct for its member organizations. Over the years it has become a blessing for donors to know that an organization voluntarily adheres to the particular set of financial guidelines established by the ECFA. For the organizations themselves it is helpful to have those guidelines in place in order to understand what is considered responsible conduct and function therein. Having said that, we realize that it is far less complicated to review numbers in black and white by an auditor than it is to assess the moral and spiritual conditions of our leaders and ministers. The situation that caused us to explore the formation of a Council reflects one among many situations of people who have stepped down from highly visible public ministry in open scandal. Therefore as a missions agency in this field of service, we were compelled to examine further what can be done.

After 3 years of initial planning, we have formally launched the Council and Association of Ministers of Music and the Arts, with the overview guidelines to which Associate CAMMA Members would voluntarily adhere. These Associate Member Guidelines form the core basis of our continued work in the development of curriculum for discipleship and establishing guidelines that may be observed by ministers of art and music and the churches and leaders that send them.

The CAMMA Executive Council

For further information or comments, email camma@arminc.org.