Roger W. Lowther's Blog, page 3

53. GCAMM 3 – A Conversation with Jill Ford and Nancy Nethercott

Welcome back to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast, and I’m your host Roger Lowther. This really has been fun for me, sharing conversations in the past two episodes recorded at the GCAMM Conference, the Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions, as it helps me remember what I learned and also the people I befriended there. In this third and last episode, let’s do this just one more time, and continue to travel from table to table during lunch time and see who else we can meet.

Attendee

Hey, Roger. My name is Rob Still. I’m a worship leader based out of Nashville, Tennessee. I lead worship in the Nashville area, most Sundays somewhere. In the last 20 years, I’ve been doing a lot of short-term missions trips where I’ll go and either lead worship or I will teach on songwriting and Biblical foundations of worship. I taught for over 10 years at a school of worship in Romania, teaching basic Biblical foundations and songwriting. Next month, I’ll go to Greece. I’ll lead worship for a missions organization called SIM for their global leadership development track, and then I’ll go to Romania after that.

Roger

Awesome. What brings you to GCAMM this week?

Attendee

I’m so glad you asked. I just finished my doctorate with the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies because I just wanted to become more well-informed about what I was learning and speaking about in terms of Biblical foundations of worship and that kind of thing. Some friends told me about GCAMM, and I feel like I’ve found my tribe. I didn’t even know this kind of thing existed. From a distance, I knew something about maybe ethnodoxology or ethnomusicology, but not at this level. It’s amazing. It’s inspiring to be here.

Roger

Awesome. It’s great to meet you.

Attendee

Okay.

Roger

Who are you?

Attendee

Hi, my name is Mike. Originally, I’m from South Korea. I’ve been involved in ministry for Afghanistan for last 20 years.

Roger

Wow. What do you do now?

Attendee

Me and my wife, we produce Afghan worship TV content for the Afghan Church. Afghan Church is a real thing. It exists and keeps evolving, especially in their refugee settings. They have freedom of religion, like in Turkey or other places. So, the Afghan Church is growing right now. As an ethnodoxologist, we support those churches in our capacity.

Roger

That’s awesome. Thank you so much.

Attendee

Thank you.

Roger

And who are you?

Attendee

I am Hoiling Poon from Hong Kong.

Roger

And what do you do there?

Attendee

I teach in a Bible seminary in Intercultural Studies, and I’m an ethnodoxologist.

Roger

Okay, and so what does that mean?

Attendee

That means I’m a catalyst and encourager to encourage people and churches, Christians, to discover creativity in their life, and also encourage them to use their heart languages to know God and worship him.

Roger

And are you an artist yourself?

Attendee

I’m a singer, and I’m a worship artist. I’m open to all kinds of arts.

Roger

Oh, great. Thank you.

And so who are you?

Attendee

My name is Janice.

Roger

And where do you live? What do you do?

Attendee

I live in Thailand as a missionary, and I’m doing arts ministry in Thailand.

Roger

What kind of arts ministry?

Attendee

Normally, I will teach the kids art. And also, I will host some art workshops in the church, like art meditation workshops for the church members.

Roger

Are you an artist yourself?

Attendee

Before that, no.

Roger

Okay. Yeah, that’s great.

Attendee

I don’t have artist background, but during the COVID time God gave me to see that I have that kinds of talents and can use it to my ministry.

Roger

That’s great. It’s great to meet you.

Attendee

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Roger

So please tell me what you do.

Attendee

I am a world arts advocate, ethnodoxologist. Currently, I’m in a PhD program in world arts.

Roger

Awesome. Can you tell me where you were working before?

Attendee

I have worked in North Africa. And then also in the Middle East.

Roger

Awesome. Thank you.

So, tell me about yourself.

Attendee

My name is Chris Gasler. I’m an ethnodoxologist and used to work in Cameroon with SIL. Now I’m covering all of Africa area and doing that from the United States, which makes no sense.

Roger

Wow. What did you do in Cameroon?

Attendee

I did a lot of songwriting workshops and various arts advocacy things, but songwriting workshops is the biggest thing that I did, the most common thing.

Roger

Awesome. Are you a singer yourself?

Attendee

I am not a singer. I have a strange musical background. I used to be a trombonist.

Roger

Okay, so you are a musician.

Attendee

I am a musician.

Roger

Great to meet you. Thank you.

Attendee

Thanks.

Roger

And how would you introduce yourself?

Attendee

My name is Mary Hendershott, and I’m here in the Dallas area as well at Dallas International University and with SIL.

Roger

And where were you before doing what?

Attendee

I worked in Burkina Faso for about 26 years in surrounding countries.

Roger

Okay. And what did you do there?

Attendee

I was there as an ethnomusicologist and an ethnodoxologist.

Roger

Which means what? You were helping people get worship music in their own language?

Attendee

In their own language, using scripture as a base, and did songwriting workshops, and also did seminars for different arts.

Roger

Great. Thank you.

Hello. So it’s very good to meet you. What is your name and where are you from?

Attendee

My name is Mani.

Attendee

I’m from Hong Kong.

Roger

And what do you do in Hong Kong?

Attendee

I’m a worship pastor in a church and in a university, and I have a ministry about emotion, mental wellness care.

Roger

Okay. And why are you here at GCAMM?

Attendee

I want to explore more about arts and music in mission.

Roger

Awesome. Well, this is definitely the place for that.

Attendee

Yeah.

Roger

Good to meet you.

Attendee

I love that.

Roger

Hello.

Attendee

Hello. How are you?

Roger

So what is your name?

Attendee

My name is Stanley Amukwa.

Roger

And what do you do?

Attendee

I’m a pastor with an organization known as Christ is the Answer Ministries, CITAM, way back in Nairobi, Kenya.

Roger

So you came all the way from Kenya for this event?

Attendee

Yes, I came all the way from the way Kenya.

Roger

Why would you come all this way for GCAMM?

Attendee

In 2018, GCAMM was held in Kenya at Brackenhurst, and I was able to participate. And in participating, I was greatly blessed and also enriched. And so with that in mind, I had no choice but to come again for the same.

Roger

And so what is your involvement in the arts?

Attendee

I’m a pastor, as I’ve said, I’m a pastor of a congregation of about 2,000 people. And one of the things that I believe in is that in the service, there are two things that people come for. People come for a worship, WOW worship, and a WOW word. So the two go hand-in-hand, worship and the ministry of the word. And when I attended GCAMM in 2018, Ron Man’s lecture really impacted me. I actually borrowed the lecture notes, and I’ve been using them to train my worship team, my worship leaders. And so with that in mind, that’s how I’m involved. I’m not a worship pastor yet, but I’m the senior pastor and being the senior pastor, I oversee the ministry. And of course, with the preaching schedule, I preach every Sunday, I need the worship team to complement what I do in the pulpit ministry.

Roger

That’s amazing. For you to have that commitment as a senior pastor, a huge church with all these responsibilities, and you come all the way here to learn more about how to encourage the artists in your church. I love it. Thank you.

Attendee

Thanks.

Roger

Well, I think we’d better stop there. There’s so many more cool people to talk to, but I can’t get over that last conversation. Isn’t that amazing? A pastor of a large church, with so many responsibilities, was willing to fly halfway around the world, literally, to care for the artists in his church. I’d love to see more and more pastors attend events like these.

Well, there’s two people that I had a longer conversation with that I would love to share with you. First, I would like to introduce you to Jill Ford.

Well, I’m sitting down here with Jill Ford, who is working with All Nations Christian College in the UK. Thank you so much for sitting down with me.

Jill

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Roger

Yes. So, I have heard through GCAMM conferences over the past, many times, people talk about All Nations, and this glow comes in their eyes like, “Oh, All Nations.” Can you tell our listeners what is All Nations?

Jill

Oh, I’m glad there’s a glow. Yes, so All Nations is a cross-cultural mission training college based in the UK. We train and equip men and women for effective participation in God’s mission to his multicultural world. And we love to train people for all areas of mission, particularly in the area of integral mission, helping people to be rounded and grounded as they move into missions in whatever sphere that might be.

Roger

Awesome. Now, where exactly are you located in the UK?

Jill

Yeah, we’re actually located in the county of Hartfordshire, but we say to people, North London, because we are actually only 45 minutes from central London.

Roger

That’s easy to get to.

Jill

Yeah, and close to three airports. Heathrow, Luton, and Stanstead in particular, so very easy to get to.

Roger

Okay. And do students at the college come from England only or are they broader?

Jill

We’re international, inter-denominational, and intercultural. We have people coming from all over and from different cultures and different denominations, which is really exciting. Our current student body is probably more predominantly UK and Europe-focused due to the many challenges of Brexit and international visas and those kinds of things. But we do have quite a proportion of capacity for international students, and we do always encourage those as well. But there are more and more challenges coming about for some of our international students to actually come in person to all nations. But we do have opportunities now online for people to access our curriculum.

Roger

Well, I know that you are turning out a lot of missionaries because some of them are coming through Japan. I mean, just recently there was a couple that came through, and they were thinking about missions, and they were not from the UK. So, I know it’s international. Tell me more about what you mean by this holistic approach. Why would an artist want to come to All Nations and be trained in missions?

Jill

Okay. Yeah. What All Nations is really good at training people in is a head, heart, and hands approach. Our curriculum is really focused on making sure that you have the head knowledge of theology, you have the heart of engaging with personal and spiritual formation, and then you have opportunities in practice-based ministry, whether that’s with local church, community projects, or personal research projects that you may want to have a practice focus. So, there are opportunities throughout our curriculum that enable that roundedness for every person who attends All Nations. However, there is also opportunity to develop areas of interest. So whether that’s an area of interest in the world like Japan, or whether you have a certain skill set that you come to All Nations with. So you may come as a doctor, a nurse, a community development worker, and then you can carry that learning on within the particular context of mission. So you can do leadership, you can do development, community transformation. And of course, if you’re creatively minded, then we have a range of arts modules, and so people can begin to engage a number of different arts disciplines. If they come with some skill already, they can grow in that further. If they come with some skill that’s untapped, one of the things that we love at All Nations is we’re opening up opportunities for people through the curriculum. And we have found a number of students who have actually found their creative voice once they’ve come to All Nations. And seeing then, again, as an opportunity to go, I’ve always thought I was an artist. Let me have a go. I always thought I was a playwright. I always thought I was a musician. Now I can see how that gifting that has been dormant or untapped can be used in the context of mission.

Roger

Yeah. What I think I’ve heard from a lot of people is there’s this image too that, okay, if you’re going to be an artist and a missionary, that means, like in a concert, that you have to play really well and then give your testimony. Or you have to paint pictures of a cross or something like that. But when people talk about All Nations like, no, no, no, no, no…there’s so many ways we can work creatively, artistically to share the gospel. And that holistic approach that you’re talking about is, I think a lot of people need training in that.

Jill

Yeah. I mean, I can give you an example of the modules that we offer, and that offer obviously that holistic approach. For instance, you can train in the area of performing arts. And so, one module you could perhaps do to understand how to devise educational theater for a range of different contexts or communities that you might be working in, and how to engage some of the more difficult issues with people through community-based drama. Another performing arts module we do is actually creating and designing workshops both in the community and the church context. And so, again, these are means of creative engagement with others, but they’re completely missional because it’s also helping people to take, for instance, scripture and scripture engagement ideas into both church and community settings, where they can explore that and expose people to the gospel for the first time just through a creative arts workshop. We also run…

Roger

Is that also tied in with the Arts for a Better Future training?

Jill

There’s some overlap, yeah. Obviously, Arts for a Better Future, which is a partnership course that we run with the Global Ethnodoxology Network. We’ve been running that since 2011, but that’s a partnership course with a…that was a designed course outside of the All Nations curriculum, but we’ve embedded it in, we’ve had it accredited as part of our curriculum now. Yes, that has its own seven-stage model and is taught quite intensively, and anyone can come and do that. That’s the other thing about our modules. You don’t have to be a full-time student at All Nations. You can come and access a lot of our curriculum as a one-off module. Some are online, some are—you have to be here in person doing it intensively.

Roger

I didn’t know that you all did that. I need to learn more about that.

Jill

Yeah. We are looking to make our training as accessible as possible for people at the moment, and really wanting to mobilize local church too. For instance, this fall I’ve got two ladies. Having seen a student run a workshop in the church that they attend, have now got interested in doing arts and community module with me this term. They’re coming in from the local church, because they see that this has engaged both their church community and the wider community in a way that has allowed for dialog, it’s allowed for creativity, it’s allowed for relationship building. It’s really exciting. And those things are all aspects of mission.

Roger

Oh, definitely. I mean, that’s the key word I would say there is a lot of artists just don’t know, How does what I make build community? How does that build relationships? They need to see that modeled for them. They need to learn about what is possible. That’s not really taught in the art schools or the conservatories.

Jill

Yes, that’s right. I know people are very focused literally on their arts discipline and perfecting their craft. But actually, yeah, this is probably, I use my words carefully, but it’s a healthy approach because you see your art form and your places and your gifting within the context of others, within the context of God’s family, within the context of the wider community and mission.

Roger

Very well said. Okay, so what are the challenges for people coming out of All Nations? What trends do you see happening now in the world today?

Jill

Well, obviously, the challenge of making our training as accessible as possible, we’re managing that with offering both residential and online. But obviously you’ll understand in terms of the arts, it’s not always so easy to be offering all aspects of the arts online, because so much is participatory, so much requires that interface and engagement. That’s one of the challenges, particularly in the arts sphere. I think another couple of challenges is the movement of people’s accessibility and affordability. So, we’re trying to make our curriculum accessible through allowing people to zoom into our global classroom. The affordable bit is still a challenge for some of our brothers and sisters in different parts of the world. And obviously, they would love to have the face-to-face training. So what we’re trying to think about is how can our nations be further on the move? How can we have our training as movable? And how can we think about partnering with others? Really also affirming and standing with people who are currently doing some great things in local context, but need some further affirmation. Maybe they need accreditation. Maybe they just need ongoing connection with a place like All Nations to encourage them in what they’re doing already. We’ve got collaboration, we’ve got partnership, we’ve got online versus residential. We’re looking at just different hybrid forms of delivery. And these are both opportunities and challenges. I think just at the moment we’re in this shift. There’s a shift going on in global mission, a shift from north to south and Northern Hemisphere to Southern Hemisphere. And then there’s this shift in terms of the center of missions. And so how do we steward our resources and steward our training as well as possible to benefit as many as possible.

Roger

For this changing landscape. But do you see a trend? Are there more artists wanting to go into missions? I mean, obviously after COVID, I’m guessing that it’s probably been harder to recruit people.

Jill

Yeah, it has and still is. I think people are tentative at the moment. And what we’re finding is that short courses lead to longer courses. So, a lot of our, for instance, our arts offerings are on the short side. You can come and do four days, or you can do a days training, and that often opens up the world of both missions and the arts to people. They go, “Oh, this is what it’s about. These people are doing it. I could do that. Okay, now I can begin to take a step.” But I think there is this tentative nervousness in a lot of people. And, of course, I think the sector, the educational sector at higher education has been impacted by COVID. So universities and colleges, particularly in my context, UK, they’re seeing a problem with recruitment at the moment and also Bible colleges as well. So this is not just…

Roger

Yeah, that’s universal.

Jill

It’s universal, and we’re all dealing with this. How do we mobilize and motivate others and bring them in? Of course, I think we’ve got a responsibility to make things accessible, but also help people to see what’s possible. Something like GCAMM, where we’re here now, is that place where people come and see and taste and go, “Okay, this is great. I want to engage.”

Roger

Awesome. Thank you so much. God bless everything that you’re doing there.

Jill

Thank you, Roger.

Roger

And I’ll keep telling people about what you’re doing.

Jill

Thank you so much. It’s been a blessing to be with you.

Roger

Thank you.

Jill

Take care.

Roger

Now there’s one more person I’d to introduce you to, Nancy Nethercott. I’ve known Nancy a really long time, since my very first year in language school. She used to live in Japan and has been a huge encouragement to me over the years. More recently, she led a worship workshop for us, which was really well attended, just over 100 people were there, and we got excellent feedback about her time with them. Now she travels all over the world as a speaker, trainer, encourager, and pastor.

Let me just tell a quick story about Nancy. I remember one time we were riding in a taxi after an event, and I was dead tired. I was not in the mood to talk to another single person, and yet in that moment, Nancy shined. She engaged the taxi driver in conversation, in her perfect Japanese, encouraging the driver and everyone else who was in the car. She just really is a natural and such a kind person. Anyway, I’m delighted to have this opportunity to share her with all of you.

Okay, I’m sitting here with Nancy Nethercott at the GCAMM Conference in Fort Worth, Texas. I want to take a little bit more time with you, Nancy, because I think you have a really interesting story to share.

Nancy

Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to be able to share.

Roger

So, yeah, first of all, let me ask you what your background is. Where did you serve?

Nancy

Yeah. I was a missionary in Japan for almost 30 years with The Evangelical Alliance Mission, mostly involved in church planting.

Roger

Otherwise known as TEAM.

Nancy

Yes, TEAM. I was involved in church planting, pretty classic church planting for the first 15 years, and then moved into working with artists and created a group called CAN, Christians in the Arts Network. I had a lot of interactions with artists. During that time, I received my Doctorate of Worship Studies from the Robert Webber Institute for Worship Studies, and was also working with pastors and worship leaders in churches.

Roger

You’re helping plant churches, you’re working in the arts, you’re loving artists. How did that lead to… Well, first of all, why are you here at GCAMM?

Nancy

Yeah, I found my people in a group of artists who love to use their arts in missions, their creativity in missions. I’m here at GCAMM to learn and to grow and to network to be better at what I already do.

Roger

Well, that’s why I’m here, too. I love the community here, the people that I get to meet. This is really life-changing in so many ways.

Nancy

Conversations are rich. And they help form us. We form each other by the things that we share.

Roger

Because we all get so drawn into our specific context. But to be able to see the bigger picture of what God’s doing around the globe through artists and missionaries is amazing to me.

Nancy

Yeah, even this morning, I heard stories that I thought I have never heard a story told that way. We were all in awe.

Roger

Very cool. Okay, so what do you… I want to ask you specifically. I know you do many kinds of ministries. Actually, okay, tell me, what kinds of ministries are you doing now?

Nancy

Yeah, so when I teach globally, I teach in the area of worship formation, worship renewal, why do we do what we do kinds of things. Then others invite me to speak in the area of spiritual formation, which I have training in. I’m a spiritual director. I’m an Anglican priest. So, what am I involved in? I’m involved in those things. I’m also the chaplain at the Webber Institute for Worship Studies. Ministry has changed a bit since leaving Japan in 2015, but I’m still very much involved in global ministries and thoroughly enjoy that.

Roger

I want to ask you specifically about this ministry you have of, I guess, it’s a songwriting workshop? Is that right?

Nancy

Yeah. So came into that. The first one was in the Philippines and then in Japan, actually, in 2016. Well, maybe Japan was the first one. Some people that I knew, some ethnomusicologists wanted to do a songwriting retreat in Japan. And since I knew Japan and knew people, knew artists, they asked if I would bring people together and facilitate it. That was my first step into that. But since then, I’ve gone with other ethnomusicologists on trips to Kosovo and Nepal, in particular, Albania, and done songwriting and multi-arts workshops, actually.

Roger

Okay, so tell me more about that. That sounds very interesting.

Nancy

Yeah, it’s really fun, actually. Started off with songwriting workshops. My role, when I work with somebody like Operation Mobilization or YWAM, the ones that I’ve done these workshops with, my role is what they call the Biblical worship trainer, which sounds really interesting. I don’t really feel like I may be a Biblical worship trainer, but what it means is that in these workshops, the local people, the on-the-ground people, they know what the needs are of their community. And so, I reach out to them ahead of time and say, What are the songs that your church needs? What are the songs that your community needs? What are the arts? As we’ve done multi-arts retreat this last spring in Kosovo. What are the arts that your people, what are the themes that need to be represented to meet the needs of your community? It’s asking what their needs are, what they want.

Roger

Right. Okay. When writing songs, usually the image that comes to mind for most people is like, Okay, yes, we need songs in other languages. That makes sense. Okay, we’ll maybe be using different instruments or slightly different styles. But you’re talking about something even deeper, like changing actual themes of what the songs are about. Maybe there are songs that don’t express what that culture wants to express in worship.

Nancy

That’s right. We had one church, one group in Kosovo, and they didn’t have songs of lament. They didn’t have songs for communion. They had gathering songs. So if you think about a four-fold structure of worship, you have your gathering, you have Word, you have response and sending as the big components. And response then would be communion. And they had no songs for communion, and they didn’t have sending songs. And so, when I structured the retreat and the devotional, so I listen to what their needs are, then I sit with the Lord and with the Bible, and I say, What is it? What is it that you want to say to these people that then the Holy Spirit can use to prompt them to create songs and to create art that will express these themes? So themes of hope, themes of identity in Christ, that we’re children of God, that we’re agents of reconciliation, just all these kinds of themes that have been given to me over the last few years. And then I sit with those, then we go to the workshop, I share a short devotional. And if it’s interpreted, then I get about 20 minutes, so about a 10-minute devotional on my part, and they go off and create. And so, yes, working with an ethnomusicologist, that person then is, after I share a devotional, then they help them to create in their own styles, in their own voice, musical voice, using their own instruments. That’s not my part.

Roger

Do they sometimes have trouble knowing what themes? If you ask them that question, what is missing? What is it that you would want to worship through in song? Do you get any like, “Oh, I’ve never been asked that question before. Let me think about that.”

Nancy

Kazakhstan, that was a new question for them. But they came up with hope and unity. Thinking about their culture and what do the people need to sing about. Eventually, they said, give us time. Let us think about that. But then they did. They came back with lovely things.

Roger

Yeah. I would assume that part of it, too, is just giving them permission to do that. They’re like, Our pastors have not said that we can do this, maybe, or just they’ve never heard that message before, that it’s okay for them to be writing songs. Is that true?

Nancy

By the time I get an invitation, it’s like we want a songwriting retreat or a workshop. By the time I get the invitation, they’ve already worked through that.

Roger

Now, what I’ve seen in Japan is there are people writing songs here and there, but then there is no way to then spread those songs to other people. There’s no worship conferences in Japan. There’s no way to get that to disseminate these songs. Is that something that you’ve had to try to address as well?

Nancy

Yeah. So the people that I worked with in Japan, they didn’t have that avenue at the time since then. So that was 2016. Since then, I have connected or people have gotten connected with another missionary and a Japanese who have a studio. And so, they’re actually recording some of the songs and getting them out to some of the local churches. But there is no great way to disseminate the songs. Kosovo and Albania was a different situation because the missionaries that I was working with, they actually had a studio, they have a brand, they have a name, and they also have some well-known, like a well-known rapper, Albanian rapper that works with them. They have somebody who has a name. When they created the songs in Albanian, both from Kosovo and from Albania, we worked in both countries. We came up with about, I don’t know, I think 19 songs total. They were able to do a basic recording on the spot and then get it back to the studio, because the missionaries on the ground had created the studio. And then they could bring in singers and perfect it, and bring in instruments, and then they put them out. It’s YouTube, basically, or their website. But the churches are singing the songs. And then they also have… They work with a youth arts camp that they do every year, and those songs are being sung there. They did another workshop I wasn’t a part of that was creating children’s songs. That was in 2019. And when I was just back there this past spring 2023, the kids I was with were singing the songs. So, they are getting them out there into the churches. Of course, it’s smaller.

Roger

But that’s awesome. I mean, 19 songs in one songwriting workshop. How long was the workshop?

Nancy

Well, it was three days in Kosovo, in Pristina, or outside of Pristina and Peja. Then it was another three-day workshop in Tehrana, Albania. But because they’re both writing in Albanian, although a little dialect in Kosovo, but then they cleaned it up into Albanian. They created these songs. They had people who were musicians, and were already some of them writing songs, and then they had people who had never written a song in their life, but got really excited about this. And because I think that was where we had the path of the four-fold structure, and they were specifically writing songs for the four parts of the worship service. And then I was giving them scriptures, like lots of scriptures for gathering and then dividing them into groups. Each group had like two or three scriptures. They would read those scriptures, pray over those scriptures, and then just start talking, listening to each other, and creating these songs. They came up with amazing songs. The Sending, when we celebrated, we have a celebration time at the end. They were all dancing with the Sending songs. It was absolutely phenomenal.

Roger

That’s awesome. Yeah, I can just imagine. People who don’t write songs may not be able to imagine this, but I’ve been in situations where when you do a songwriting workshop, just the energy of bringing people together, okay, this is what we’re focusing on right now, putting everything else aside, that kind of concentration and energy and collaboration is really important with songwriting.

Nancy

Yeah, and I think like a retreat then you’ve pulled away from everyday life. It’s not like, Oh, every Thursday night, we’re going to write a song or something, but you’re actually getting to know each other. Collaboration is huge. I led one songwriting retreat. It was here in the US. and had a guy come, a worship leader, and he was writing his own songs, and we forced them to collaborate and write with others. And it just blew it out of the water for him because he realized he needed other people, and his songs were better working with other people. But yeah, that time of pulling away and being present with each other and with the Lord, yeah, and working together on creating, like even arts, like this in Kosovo, this last spring, when they had this huge arts room with every kind of art you could think of, even sculpting different things they were doing down there, and anybody could go down. If you got tired of songwriting, you didn’t have to do that as your creative expression after one of my devotional, you could go down to the art room and create. And so then they were collaborating with each other. Another retreat I led was multi-arts, and we had visual arts and creative writing and then songwriting. One woman who was up writing poetry brought her poetry down to the songwriters, and they started writing songs together. It was absolutely beautiful.

Roger

Yeah, I love hearing your stories. I get your newsletters, and I’m always following along what you’re doing around the world. I’m just amazed. God bless you as you continue doing these things.

Nancy

Thank you so much. I’m thankful for the Lord’s continued blessing on the things that he’s invited me into. Thanks.

Roger

In closing, I’d like to introduce you to one final song performed by Izibongo, one of the featured worship bands at the conference. You can download this song and their whole album on Amazon at the link I listed on the show notes for this episode.

[Music Plays – “Ameen Ta’ala” (“Amen, Come”)]

Thank you so much for listening. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

The post 53. GCAMM 3 – A Conversation with Jill Ford and Nancy Nethercott appeared first on Roger W. Lowther.

52. GCAMM Conversations 2

Welcome back to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast. I’m your host Roger Lowther, and I’m excited to continue our discussion from the last episode, giving a little peek into some of the conversations and relationships that were happening at the GCAMM Conference this past September in Ft. Worth, Texas, the Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions.

Let’s pick up where I left off last time and continue to mosey on through the cafeteria with mic in hand while everyone is eating their lunch and just see who else we can meet.

Roger

Well, we’re here in the lunchroom of the GCAMM Conference, and I am standing here with Robin Harris. Robin, please tell me, what you do.

Attendee

One of the roles I have is co-founder and president of the Global Ethnodoxology Network, or GEN, which is how people connect together between conferences like this to be encouraged, to find resources and training, and networking in between conferences for people who love arts and mission. That’s what the Global Ethnodoxology Network is.

Roger

Great. So let me emphasize that point. GCAMM is an event, but GEN is a network. It’s about relationships, right?

Attendee

Right. That’s right.

Roger

Okay. So what is GEN? Where is it going? What are you hoping for in the future?

Attendee

We’re celebrating our 20th anniversary this year. So we were founded at GCoMM in 2003. And so we’re celebrating 20 years, and we started as mostly, I would say North American missionaries who had a vision for doing arts and mission in a culturally appropriate, culturally sensitive way. Where we are going is now totally global. Many of our members, maybe even up to a third of them, are from the Global South. They’re members from all over the world doing arts and mission in their own contexts, and so we’re not where we started. It’s very exciting. We have a very globally diverse board right now, and in addition to that, we have a consortium of about 15 or 16 people that we call our Global Advisory Council. And many of them are here at GCAMM. They’re from a bunch of regions around the world. They’re actively doing ethnodoxology in their context, and they are leaders, and they own this movement. It is great to see what our global leaders are doing.

Roger

Okay, so this is awesome. Who would you recommend join GEN in the future if they don’t belong to it yet?

Attendee

People would enjoy GEN if they want to do arts in their context in culturally appropriate ways. So maybe you’re in a multicultural church and you’re having challenges actually including everybody. Maybe you love artists and you’re in a context where artists are marginalized, or you want to reach cross-culturally to other cultures in your context. GEN can help you do that in a really great way. We have trainings. We have networking. We have forums where people can ask questions. And so the best way to connect with us is through our free newsletter. You can go on to the site, worldofworship.org, or you can do worldofworship.org/newsletter, and that’ll take you right to the newsletter. It’s free. It comes out once a month or every six weeks.

Roger

This is great. What I’ve been hearing people saying in conversations around this conference is that it really is changing. I think before Global Ethnodoxology Network, that movement seemed a little narrow, like it was only for ethnomusicologists in very rural parts of this world. But now it’s much bigger than that, right?

Attendee

Exactly. That’s also reflected in our core values. We recently did a whole set of…wrote up the core values that have really emerged from the movement over the last 20 years. We realized as we were writing out those core values that it’s definitely not just music. Oh, my. No, it’s not just music. It’s all the arts. In fact, those are emphasized more in GEN than in a lot of places, to be very honest. It’s not just rural contexts. We deal a lot in training people how to do these kinds of things in urban contexts as well. Thank you for mentioning that because it really is more than just rural, cross-cultural missions. That’s a strength of ours. We’re really good at that, and we have a lot of specialists in that. But the world now is multicultural, and it’s urban, and we need to know how to address cultural issues in the arts for those contexts as well

Roger

Thank you, Robin. Thank you for starting this organization. I’m so excited to be part of it. It’s meant so much to me, but we really appreciate all the work you do.

Attendee

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Roger

Yeah, so tell me, who are you?

Attendee

I’m Debra Kim from South Korea, and I’m the director of Arts in Mission Korea, which is a mission organization that mobilizes and trains Korean Christian artists to encourage them to use their artistic talents for God’s kingdom in cross-cultural missions.

Roger

And how many people are in this network?

Attendee

You know what? So Arts in Mission Korea was started in 2013, which means it’s been 10 years, but it’s still very new to Korean people. You know, it’s not easy to spread the word, but now a few people notice that art is important and the arts can be used in the mission field. Because you know what? God is beautiful, and the gospel is beautiful. And so as Christians, we need to spread the word and we need to glorify God beautifully. And art is a language of worship. Art is a great instrument for worship and evangelism.

Roger

Thank you very much.

Attendee

Thank you.

Roger

And what is your name?

Attendee

My name is Joy Kim.

Roger

And what are you doing here?

Attendee

I work with Proskuneo Ministries, and now I’m attending GCAMM.

Roger

What is Proskuneo Ministries?

Attendee

Proskuneo Ministries is based in Atlanta, Georgia. We’ve been developing resources and gathering people to worship together, gathering different peoples from different cultures and languages to worship together. And we have a multicultural worshiping community in our town.

Roger

I happen to know that you also do a lot of traveling with Proskuneo so that other churches can be exposed to multicultural worship.

Attendee

Yes.

Roger

Why is that important?

Attendee

In a nutshell, I think that the churches have been worshiping in their own ways, but in multicultural context, where we actually do life together and we worship together, but then we are struggling, especially the churches in the US, are struggling to find what is our own expression of worship made up of a lot of different cultures and languages, and what is an honoring way to bring all these different expressions into one space of worship for a community. We’ve been experimenting with different stuff, but we believe that not just the context of ourselves, like multicultural context, calls for new expressions, but also we want to honor different come-froms of our people in our worshiping community to be able to express themselves in worship. So we’ve experimented with different creative elements of arts, and we learned songs from one another and wrote songs together, and are still on a journey to find what would be the songs and arts that bring us together to worship together in unity and diversity. I see that a lot of neighborhoods are becoming multicultural, so we like to share what we are learning from our own journey of building worshiping community.

Roger

Well, that’s awesome. I have certainly benefited from seeing your worship in unity and diversity. So, thank you so much for what you do.

Attendee

Okay.

Roger

There were so many cool people there, and I hope that you the listener get to meet some of these people in person. Maybe you can come to the next GCAMM event whenever and wherever it is. I have many more conversations to share with you, but I want to stop there for a moment and sit down for a longer conversation with one person, Héber Negrão, who is an ethnodoxologist from Brazil. And he is a member of the board of GEN, the Global Ethnodoxology Network. And he really has some interesting insights into what it means to be a missionary and an artist in the world today. So, let’s have a listen.

Okay, I’m sitting here with Héber Negrão, an ethnodoxologist in Brazil. And can you tell us more about who you are?

Héber

Yes. I’ve been working with ethnoarts ministries in Brazil since 2006, 17 years now. I am a member of EMLA (Evangelical Missionary Linguistic Association), which is the Wycliffe organization in Brazil. I am the arts coordinator of EMLA. Currently, I am taking my PhD studies at Dallas International University, a PhD candidate there in World Arts. I’m part of GEN. I’m a member of the board.

Roger

Okay. Now I have two questions. First, what is your art in particular?

Héber

I’m a musician. I studied violin since I was seven. I did the whole degree, but not the college one, just the mid-second level.

Roger

Do you sing as well?

Héber

I can sing. I’m not particularly great at it, but I don’t lose the pitch, at least.

Roger

Okay. All right. You are a board member of GEN. What’s GEN?

Héber

GEN is the Global Ethnodoxology Network. It’s a group of more than 300 members that use local arts in the context of worship. They use arts of people from different parts of the world to engage with God, to worship him, and engage with the world. Basically, that’s what GEN is about. It’s a group of people that like and encourage the use of local arts to engage with God.

Roger

Okay. What does that look like in your context in Brazil?

Héber

Yeah. In Brazil, we have a lot of indigenous people. We have around 344 different people groups in Brazil, and their culture is completely different than the Brazilian majority culture. The language is different, and the arts are also different.

Roger

Yeah, it’s a big country.

Héber

It’s huge, yes. In my ministry, I encourage local leaders, church leaders, from those indigenous people to use their arts to worship God.

Roger

I’ve met some of the leaders here, too, I guess, who are helping you in that or who are working in various parts of Brazil?

Héber

Yes, they work in Central Brazil, and I’m located in the northern part of Brazil. But I’ve been doing ministry in Brazil in very different places, so not only one.

Roger

I see.

Héber

Yeah.

Roger

All right. What trend do you see? A lot of people talk about the Global South, how Christianity is moving into the Global South. Can you talk about that?

Héber

Oh, yes, of course. The Global South is a phenomenon that is happening where the gravity center of Christianity is switching to the south. Today, there are more Christians in Latin America, Africa, and Asia than in North America and Europe. By that, because of this phase of Christianity is changing, it also affects how church is engaged in missions. So before, you had “From the West to the rest.” Now, with the center of Christianity being more the Global South, there is a tendency or trend to understand that mission is now from the south to the north. Many missiologists says that now the Christians in the south are re-evangelizing Europe, for instance.

Roger

And Japan as well, by the way. There are a lot of Brazilian missionaries in Japan.

Héber

Yeah, I know one of them. So that’s the major concept based on this change in the Christianity center.

Roger

What do you think about that? Is all the responsibility now put on the Global South?

Héber

There is an issue with the pendulum effect. The pendulum effect is when someone takes the pendulum to one part of the range, and you lose that pendulum, it doesn’t balance. It’s just goes all the way to the other side. In this case, the pendulum effect is people on the Global South saying things like, Okay, now the time of missions in North America and Europe is done. Now it’s our turn. That’s our responsibility to go and reach the world for God and stuff like that. But that’s not how it is.

Roger

It sounds exciting, though.

Héber

It is. It is for some people, but that’s not how God wants to do it because the mission is not for the church in the northern part of the planet or the southern part of the hemisphere. It’s for the global church. So ideally, because we have a huge representativity of Christianity in the South, it can be done “From everywhere to everywhere.” Not anymore “From the West to the rest,” but “From everywhere to everywhere.” Us from the Global South, the church from the Global South can collaborate, can be partners with the Global North—Americans or European missionaries and churches—to accomplish the task. Some people tend to give this huge emphasis on the church and the Global South saying, “Okay, don’t bother. We got it. We got this. Now it’s our turn.” There’s no such a thing in God’s mission. The mission is God’s, but he invites his church to be part of the mission, not his global church. His church, period.

Roger

Yeah, I agree. All right, so what trends do we see then in ethnodoxology? Would you say the Global South is taking on this…is it known what that word is, “ethnodoxology”? Is it a concept that is recognized?

Héber

It’s growing. It’s growing the awareness of using the local expressions of arts and different people groups in the South. It’s growing because it’s a new concept. You see, the Global Ethnodoxology Network was founded 20 years ago, and it’s still a new concept. So many people and mission agencies and churches may be practicing ethnodoxology without knowing, but because the discipline or the field was starting to be developed and structured just for a few years ago, we’ll still have a lot to accomplish in the Global South. But yes, I would say it’s a growing awareness in Brazil about using local arts and local expressions of arts to worship God.

Roger

In this network, GEN, do you see that as growing, as being a worldwide network.

Héber

Yeah. Today in GEN, we have representatives from 80 countries in the world. It’s a lot. We have a good representation of the Global South communities. But still, we have North Americans in the board, for instance, but we also have Africans, Latinos, Asians in the board. That means that this expression of the polycentric mission, the polycentric mission is that one that goes from everywhere to everywhere. There’s multiple centers of mission, not only North, not only South. This expression of polycentric mission, we can see in the GEN board because it’s not anymore a group of North Americans thinking of mission or mission and arts and mission for the other parts of the world. But we are thinking together and helping each other and strategizing together. With this ethnic variety and different nationalities, we were thinking GEN to reflect that polycentric mission.

Roger

Yeah, personally, I’ve really benefitted from the GEN network. But I want to ask you, why do you think people listening, should they join GEN? Why should they join GEN?

Héber

They should join GEN because with the globalization, we see a huge influence of the West in churches and missions and media and movies. The globalization came to make everything look like the same, like the West. God created the world in a slightly different way.

Roger

Yes, definitely.

Héber

With this huge cultural variety, here are lots of different cultural expressions. Ethnodoxology seeks to encourage these multiple expressions of faith in different parts of the world. Because the arts, our identity, are the most different things that we have that God gave us, and we can respond to him according to that gift of beauty, of cultural diversity he gave to us. So that’s why GEN matters.

Roger

Okay, so but is the Jenn network particularly for artists?

Héber

I would say GEN network, you don’t have to be an artist to be part of GEN. But it’s important that you have arts dear to your heart and your work, because when we talk about the outcomes of why GEN emphasizes and produces and encourages is an artistic expression. You don’t have to be an artist, but if you work in a multi-ethnic community or in a community different from your own, then GEN will help you to see artistic traditions of that community, and will help you to use it or identify what you can use and what you cannot use. But automatically, the decision comes from the people, of course. But being part of GEN, you receive the tools to engage with the arts of that community. You can do that not being an artist. You just need to be a curious person to go ahead and ask good questions to understand how the arts work and encourage them to use it.

Roger

Yeah. We were just both sitting in a seminar by a man named Juan from Spain, and he was talking about how the arts are God’s secret weapon for the world in missions. I think a lot of people think of the arts as something outside, like something periphery, not something core to our identity. But everything you’re talking about nations praising, tribes praising, whether they realize it or not, the arts are core to who they are. To be able to encourage that, support that.

Héber

Yeah. In GEN, we say and we understand that arts are a powerful means of communication. Because we are Christians, we always are looking to communicate something. We want to communicate a message that can transform anyone’s life. If we use the arts, local arts, the correct means of communication, that message will be not only understood, but will be received as for their own. It’s much better than if you try to bring the message of the gospel in a foreign vessel. You see? It will be something that not… It’s something new. It’s something from the outside, but maybe it’s not for the people. The people may not receive that as something for them. If you bring that powerful message in a way that people grasp that and accept as their own, Oh, this talks to me. I can hear. I hear this song since I was a child. Or this is the drama that my people used to practice to perform. I see the Bible stories in this drama. It make things personal, cultural, and appropriate for each people group.

Roger

Thank you. Well said. Thank you for sitting down and taking this time to talk with me.

Héber

Of course. My pleasure. Thank you very much.

Roger

As we close, I want to play a song for you performed by IziBongo, one of the featured worship teams at the conference. A lot of what I was taught as the foundation of Western Classical Music can be played on the piano. Yet, this piece cannot. In fact, those notions of major is happy and minor is sad is completely turned on its head by what sounds to most Western ears as pretty atonal. It’s very interesting to give you a translation of what’s being sung. The meaning is, “It’s God’s word that makes us so very happy.”

[Music Plays – “Pahpam Jarkwa”]

Thank you for listening. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

The post 52. GCAMM Conversations 2 appeared first on Roger W. Lowther.

52. GCAMM 2 – A Conversation with Héber Negrão

Welcome back to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast. I’m your host Roger Lowther, and I’m excited to continue our discussion from the last episode, giving a little peek into some of the conversations and relationships that were happening at the GCAMM Conference this past September in Ft. Worth, Texas, the Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions.

Let’s pick up where I left off last time and continue to mosey on through the cafeteria with mic in hand while everyone is eating their lunch and just see who else we can meet.

Roger

Well, we’re here in the lunchroom of the GCAMM Conference, and I am standing here with Robin Harris. Robin, please tell me, what you do.

Attendee

One of the roles I have is co-founder and president of the Global Ethnodoxology Network, or GEN, which is how people connect together between conferences like this to be encouraged, to find resources and training, and networking in between conferences for people who love arts and mission. That’s what the Global Ethnodoxology Network is.

Roger

Great. So let me emphasize that point. GCAMM is an event, but GEN is a network. It’s about relationships, right?

Attendee

Right. That’s right.

Roger

Okay. So what is GEN? Where is it going? What are you hoping for in the future?

Attendee

We’re celebrating our 20th anniversary this year. So we were founded at GCoMM in 2003. And so we’re celebrating 20 years, and we started as mostly, I would say North American missionaries who had a vision for doing arts and mission in a culturally appropriate, culturally sensitive way. Where we are going is now totally global. Many of our members, maybe even up to a third of them, are from the Global South. They’re members from all over the world doing arts and mission in their own contexts, and so we’re not where we started. It’s very exciting. We have a very globally diverse board right now, and in addition to that, we have a consortium of about 15 or 16 people that we call our Global Advisory Council. And many of them are here at GCAMM. They’re from a bunch of regions around the world. They’re actively doing ethnodoxology in their context, and they are leaders, and they own this movement. It is great to see what our global leaders are doing.

Roger

Okay, so this is awesome. Who would you recommend join GEN in the future if they don’t belong to it yet?

Attendee

People would enjoy GEN if they want to do arts in their context in culturally appropriate ways. So maybe you’re in a multicultural church and you’re having challenges actually including everybody. Maybe you love artists and you’re in a context where artists are marginalized, or you want to reach cross-culturally to other cultures in your context. GEN can help you do that in a really great way. We have trainings. We have networking. We have forums where people can ask questions. And so the best way to connect with us is through our free newsletter. You can go on to the site, worldofworship.org, or you can do worldofworship.org/newsletter, and that’ll take you right to the newsletter. It’s free. It comes out once a month or every six weeks.

Roger

This is great. What I’ve been hearing people saying in conversations around this conference is that it really is changing. I think before Global Ethnodoxology Network, that movement seemed a little narrow, like it was only for ethnomusicologists in very rural parts of this world. But now it’s much bigger than that, right?

Attendee

Exactly. That’s also reflected in our core values. We recently did a whole set of…wrote up the core values that have really emerged from the movement over the last 20 years. We realized as we were writing out those core values that it’s definitely not just music. Oh, my. No, it’s not just music. It’s all the arts. In fact, those are emphasized more in GEN than in a lot of places, to be very honest. It’s not just rural contexts. We deal a lot in training people how to do these kinds of things in urban contexts as well. Thank you for mentioning that because it really is more than just rural, cross-cultural missions. That’s a strength of ours. We’re really good at that, and we have a lot of specialists in that. But the world now is multicultural, and it’s urban, and we need to know how to address cultural issues in the arts for those contexts as well

Roger

Thank you, Robin. Thank you for starting this organization. I’m so excited to be part of it. It’s meant so much to me, but we really appreciate all the work you do.

Attendee

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Roger

Yeah, so tell me, who are you?

Attendee

I’m Debra Kim from South Korea, and I’m the director of Arts in Mission Korea, which is a mission organization that mobilizes and trains Korean Christian artists to encourage them to use their artistic talents for God’s kingdom in cross-cultural missions.

Roger

And how many people are in this network?

Attendee

You know what? So Arts in Mission Korea was started in 2013, which means it’s been 10 years, but it’s still very new to Korean people. You know, it’s not easy to spread the word, but now a few people notice that art is important and the arts can be used in the mission field. Because you know what? God is beautiful, and the gospel is beautiful. And so as Christians, we need to spread the word and we need to glorify God beautifully. And art is a language of worship. Art is a great instrument for worship and evangelism.

Roger

Thank you very much.

Attendee

Thank you.

Roger

And what is your name?

Attendee

My name is Joy Kim.

Roger

And what are you doing here?

Attendee

I work with Proskuneo Ministries, and now I’m attending GCAMM.

Roger

What is Proskuneo Ministries?

Attendee

Proskuneo Ministries is based in Atlanta, Georgia. We’ve been developing resources and gathering people to worship together, gathering different peoples from different cultures and languages to worship together. And we have a multicultural worshiping community in our town.

Roger

I happen to know that you also do a lot of traveling with Proskuneo so that other churches can be exposed to multicultural worship.

Attendee

Yes.

Roger

Why is that important?

Attendee

In a nutshell, I think that the churches have been worshiping in their own ways, but in multicultural context, where we actually do life together and we worship together, but then we are struggling, especially the churches in the US, are struggling to find what is our own expression of worship made up of a lot of different cultures and languages, and what is an honoring way to bring all these different expressions into one space of worship for a community. We’ve been experimenting with different stuff, but we believe that not just the context of ourselves, like multicultural context, calls for new expressions, but also we want to honor different come-froms of our people in our worshiping community to be able to express themselves in worship. So we’ve experimented with different creative elements of arts, and we learned songs from one another and wrote songs together, and are still on a journey to find what would be the songs and arts that bring us together to worship together in unity and diversity. I see that a lot of neighborhoods are becoming multicultural, so we like to share what we are learning from our own journey of building worshiping community.

Roger

Well, that’s awesome. I have certainly benefited from seeing your worship in unity and diversity. So, thank you so much for what you do.

Attendee

Okay.

Roger

There were so many cool people there, and I hope that you the listener get to meet some of these people in person. Maybe you can come to the next GCAMM event whenever and wherever it is. I have many more conversations to share with you, but I want to stop there for a moment and sit down for a longer conversation with one person, Héber Negrão, who is an ethnodoxologist from Brazil. And he is a member of the board of GEN, the Global Ethnodoxology Network. And he really has some interesting insights into what it means to be a missionary and an artist in the world today. So, let’s have a listen.

Okay, I’m sitting here with Héber Negrão, an ethnodoxologist in Brazil. And can you tell us more about who you are?

Héber

Yes. I’ve been working with ethnoarts ministries in Brazil since 2006, 17 years now. I am a member of EMLA (Evangelical Missionary Linguistic Association), which is the Wycliffe organization in Brazil. I am the arts coordinator of EMLA. Currently, I am taking my PhD studies at Dallas International University, a PhD candidate there in World Arts. I’m part of GEN. I’m a member of the board.

Roger

Okay. Now I have two questions. First, what is your art in particular?

Héber

I’m a musician. I studied violin since I was seven. I did the whole degree, but not the college one, just the mid-second level.

Roger

Do you sing as well?

Héber

I can sing. I’m not particularly great at it, but I don’t lose the pitch, at least.

Roger

Okay. All right. You are a board member of GEN. What’s GEN?

Héber

GEN is the Global Ethnodoxology Network. It’s a group of more than 300 members that use local arts in the context of worship. They use arts of people from different parts of the world to engage with God, to worship him, and engage with the world. Basically, that’s what GEN is about. It’s a group of people that like and encourage the use of local arts to engage with God.

Roger

Okay. What does that look like in your context in Brazil?

Héber

Yeah. In Brazil, we have a lot of indigenous people. We have around 344 different people groups in Brazil, and their culture is completely different than the Brazilian majority culture. The language is different, and the arts are also different.

Roger

Yeah, it’s a big country.

Héber

It’s huge, yes. In my ministry, I encourage local leaders, church leaders, from those indigenous people to use their arts to worship God.

Roger

I’ve met some of the leaders here, too, I guess, who are helping you in that or who are working in various parts of Brazil?

Héber

Yes, they work in Central Brazil, and I’m located in the northern part of Brazil. But I’ve been doing ministry in Brazil in very different places, so not only one.

Roger

I see.

Héber

Yeah.

Roger

All right. What trend do you see? A lot of people talk about the Global South, how Christianity is moving into the Global South. Can you talk about that?

Héber

Oh, yes, of course. The Global South is a phenomenon that is happening where the gravity center of Christianity is switching to the south. Today, there are more Christians in Latin America, Africa, and Asia than in North America and Europe. By that, because of this phase of Christianity is changing, it also affects how church is engaged in missions. So before, you had “From the West to the rest.” Now, with the center of Christianity being more the Global South, there is a tendency or trend to understand that mission is now from the south to the north. Many missiologists says that now the Christians in the south are re-evangelizing Europe, for instance.

Roger

And Japan as well, by the way. There are a lot of Brazilian missionaries in Japan.

Héber

Yeah, I know one of them. So that’s the major concept based on this change in the Christianity center.

Roger

What do you think about that? Is all the responsibility now put on the Global South?

Héber

There is an issue with the pendulum effect. The pendulum effect is when someone takes the pendulum to one part of the range, and you lose that pendulum, it doesn’t balance. It’s just goes all the way to the other side. In this case, the pendulum effect is people on the Global South saying things like, Okay, now the time of missions in North America and Europe is done. Now it’s our turn. That’s our responsibility to go and reach the world for God and stuff like that. But that’s not how it is.

Roger

It sounds exciting, though.

Héber

It is. It is for some people, but that’s not how God wants to do it because the mission is not for the church in the northern part of the planet or the southern part of the hemisphere. It’s for the global church. So ideally, because we have a huge representativity of Christianity in the South, it can be done “From everywhere to everywhere.” Not anymore “From the West to the rest,” but “From everywhere to everywhere.” Us from the Global South, the church from the Global South can collaborate, can be partners with the Global North—Americans or European missionaries and churches—to accomplish the task. Some people tend to give this huge emphasis on the church and the Global South saying, “Okay, don’t bother. We got it. We got this. Now it’s our turn.” There’s no such a thing in God’s mission. The mission is God’s, but he invites his church to be part of the mission, not his global church. His church, period.

Roger

Yeah, I agree. All right, so what trends do we see then in ethnodoxology? Would you say the Global South is taking on this…is it known what that word is, “ethnodoxology”? Is it a concept that is recognized?

Héber

It’s growing. It’s growing the awareness of using the local expressions of arts and different people groups in the South. It’s growing because it’s a new concept. You see, the Global Ethnodoxology Network was founded 20 years ago, and it’s still a new concept. So many people and mission agencies and churches may be practicing ethnodoxology without knowing, but because the discipline or the field was starting to be developed and structured just for a few years ago, we’ll still have a lot to accomplish in the Global South. But yes, I would say it’s a growing awareness in Brazil about using local arts and local expressions of arts to worship God.

Roger

In this network, GEN, do you see that as growing, as being a worldwide network.

Héber

Yeah. Today in GEN, we have representatives from 80 countries in the world. It’s a lot. We have a good representation of the Global South communities. But still, we have North Americans in the board, for instance, but we also have Africans, Latinos, Asians in the board. That means that this expression of the polycentric mission, the polycentric mission is that one that goes from everywhere to everywhere. There’s multiple centers of mission, not only North, not only South. This expression of polycentric mission, we can see in the GEN board because it’s not anymore a group of North Americans thinking of mission or mission and arts and mission for the other parts of the world. But we are thinking together and helping each other and strategizing together. With this ethnic variety and different nationalities, we were thinking GEN to reflect that polycentric mission.

Roger

Yeah, personally, I’ve really benefitted from the GEN network. But I want to ask you, why do you think people listening, should they join GEN? Why should they join GEN?

Héber

They should join GEN because with the globalization, we see a huge influence of the West in churches and missions and media and movies. The globalization came to make everything look like the same, like the West. God created the world in a slightly different way.

Roger

Yes, definitely.

Héber

With this huge cultural variety, here are lots of different cultural expressions. Ethnodoxology seeks to encourage these multiple expressions of faith in different parts of the world. Because the arts, our identity, are the most different things that we have that God gave us, and we can respond to him according to that gift of beauty, of cultural diversity he gave to us. So that’s why GEN matters.

Roger

Okay, so but is the Jenn network particularly for artists?

Héber

I would say GEN network, you don’t have to be an artist to be part of GEN. But it’s important that you have arts dear to your heart and your work, because when we talk about the outcomes of why GEN emphasizes and produces and encourages is an artistic expression. You don’t have to be an artist, but if you work in a multi-ethnic community or in a community different from your own, then GEN will help you to see artistic traditions of that community, and will help you to use it or identify what you can use and what you cannot use. But automatically, the decision comes from the people, of course. But being part of GEN, you receive the tools to engage with the arts of that community. You can do that not being an artist. You just need to be a curious person to go ahead and ask good questions to understand how the arts work and encourage them to use it.

Roger

Yeah. We were just both sitting in a seminar by a man named Juan from Spain, and he was talking about how the arts are God’s secret weapon for the world in missions. I think a lot of people think of the arts as something outside, like something periphery, not something core to our identity. But everything you’re talking about nations praising, tribes praising, whether they realize it or not, the arts are core to who they are. To be able to encourage that, support that.

Héber

Yeah. In GEN, we say and we understand that arts are a powerful means of communication. Because we are Christians, we always are looking to communicate something. We want to communicate a message that can transform anyone’s life. If we use the arts, local arts, the correct means of communication, that message will be not only understood, but will be received as for their own. It’s much better than if you try to bring the message of the gospel in a foreign vessel. You see? It will be something that not… It’s something new. It’s something from the outside, but maybe it’s not for the people. The people may not receive that as something for them. If you bring that powerful message in a way that people grasp that and accept as their own, Oh, this talks to me. I can hear. I hear this song since I was a child. Or this is the drama that my people used to practice to perform. I see the Bible stories in this drama. It make things personal, cultural, and appropriate for each people group.

Roger

Thank you. Well said. Thank you for sitting down and taking this time to talk with me.

Héber

Of course. My pleasure. Thank you very much.

Roger

As we close, I want to play a song for you performed by Izibongo, one of the featured worship teams at the conference. A lot of what I was taught as the foundation of Western Classical Music can be played on the piano. Yet, this piece cannot. In fact, those notions of major is happy and minor is sad is completely turned on its head by what sounds to most Western ears as pretty atonal. It’s very interesting to give you a translation of what’s being sung. The meaning is, “It’s God’s word that makes us so very happy.”

[Music Plays – “Pahpam Jarkwa”]

Thank you for listening. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

The post 52. GCAMM 2 – A Conversation with Héber Negrão appeared first on Roger W. Lowther.

51. GCAMM Conversations 1

Welcome to the Art Life Faith Podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther. This episode, I am honored to introduce you to some of the people I met at the GCAMM Conference in Fort Worth, Texas, the Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions. It took place September 11-14, 2023 at Southwestern Baptist University. This conference doesn’t happen very often, only once every few years. Some of the other ones I’ve been able to go to were in Nairobi, Kenya and Chiang Mai, Thailand.

It really is the largest gathering of missionary artists in the world, and in this gathering you get to meet artists who are missionaries through all the media: dancers, videographers, visual artists, musicians and so many others serving around the world to build the church of Christ specifically through the arts. The attendees really do come from all over the world, as you’re about to see. So I decided to take my microphone on a little walk during lunch time, and just mosey on through the lunch tables and see who was willing to speak with me. I hope this interaction gives you just a little picture of the type of people who come to the conference.

Attendee

Why, Hello! I’m Luke. I am an independent film and video editor and digital comms officer. And I’m here as part of Endeavor 8-1 and Arts & Justice Collective here at GCAMM.

Roger

And where are you from?

Attendee

I’m from the UK. I was born in Birmingham, which is Slap Bang in the middle of the UK. And I currently live and work in Wales.

Roger

Awesome. Great to meet you.

Attendee

Thank you.

Roger

And who are you?

Attendee

I’m Gayle Craven. I’m from Duncanville, Texas, and I currently live in De Soto, Texas, which are both cities south of Dallas. I’m a student at Dallas International University, and I’ve come to the conference for a class to learn about GCoMM and all the work that everyone’s doing around the world.

Roger

Are you an undergrad or grad student?

Attendee

I’m an undergrad. I’m working on my B.A. in International Service with a minor in World Arts.

Roger

Awesome. What do you hope to do after this?

Attendee

I don’t know yet. I’m still figuring that out, but I do definitely want to pursue visual arts, and I’m also very interested in film and music, so wherever God takes me, I guess.

Roger

Very cool. Well, it’s great to meet you.

Attendee

Thank you. It’s nice to meet you, too.

Roger

Well, it’s good to meet you. So who are you?

Attendee

Hi, I’m Karen, and I’m from England.

Roger

Oh, and what do you do.

Attendee

In England? Well, I don’t work in England. I work in Kenya. I work in the juvenile justice system. We help children to know about Jesus and learn how that they can get healed from their trauma that has caused them to commit serious crimes.

Roger

Is it arts-related?

Attendee

Yeah, I would say that I am not a creative person, but I facilitate very creative people. I work in a context where the youth write their own songs in the dead of night when they can’t sleep, and they draw pictures of things that they can’t put words to. So I facilitate that. Through their healing process, the art is crucial. It forms how they heal. It is an outlet, but also a beautiful creation in itself.

Roger

That’s cool. Yeah, definitely the arts has power to heal.

Attendee

100%.

Roger

Okay, good to meet you.

Attendee

Thank you.

Roger

And who are you?

Attendee

Well, I am an ethnodoxologist who’s been working in Central Africa for about three decades now. I’m considered a charter member of GCAMM. I was here in 2003. I’ve been able to come to each one except the one held in Singapore, which I couldn’t get out of Africa to get to that one.

Roger

And what do you do through the arts?

Attendee

Well, I’m actually involved in theological education, introducing the arts and encouraging future pastors to understand how important the arts are in ministry. I’m also working with arts and trauma healing, where people are given the ability to express the pain they have in their hearts through movement and drama and song and dance and all of that.

Roger

That’s amazing. Thank you.

Attendee

Yeah, you’re welcome.

Roger

And so, who are you?

Attendee

Yes, I am Heber from Brazil, involved in Ethno Arts Ministry since 2006, when I first attended the second GCAMM. I am the Ethnoarts Coordinator in Brazil, with the Wycliffe organization there. And currently, I am taking my PhD studies at Dallas International University in World Arts.

Roger

Oh, that’s awesome.

Attendee

Yeah, great.

Roger

Thank you.

Attendee

Thank you.

Roger

Okay, and who are you?

Attendee

Are you? I am Juan Arvelo coming from Spain, although I’m Venezuelan. I’ve been living in Spain for the last 13 years, working with WEC International, among the Basque group on Northern Spain.

Roger

Great. And what do you do there?

Attendee

I’m basically working with arts, trying to use arts for ministry locally, also globally, because I’m a WEC Arts Consultant also. My vision is to get them excited about the arts and ministry.

Roger

That’s awesome. It’s great to meet you.

Attendee

Likewise. Blessings.

Roger

Yeah, and who are you?

Attendee

Hi. My name is Pam.

Roger

And where do you live? What do you do?

Attendee

What do you do? My husband and I live in Germany, an hour north of Dusseldorf. And we work with TACO International that creatively proclaims the gospel to Muslims.

Roger

Wow, and what art forms do you use to do that?

Attendee

We use every art form. Our logo is a kaleidoscope, because if you’ve ever noticed when you look through a kaleidoscope, you change it just a little bit and the picture completely changes. We add new people to our team, take one away, and the picture completely changes. So God is able to give us creative things to do with whoever we have at the time.

Roger

Wow, that’s great. Thank you very much.

Attendee

You’re welcome.

Roger

It really was wonderful getting to meet all these different people from all over the world, and I’m looking forward to introducing more of them to you in the next two podcasts as well. But I want to stop there for now to share with you a longer conversation I had with Dr. Julisa Rowe. She is an actress and director serving in Nairobi, Kenya. And she is also the Kenya director for Artists in Christian Testimony International, a missions organization for artists. I had the privilege of getting to know Julisa during the GCAMM Conference that she led in 2018. She really did an amazing job putting together the conference, a week of concerts, dances, art exhibits, and talks from people in Kenya and all over the world. And I’ve stayed in touch with her ever since. You know, as an actor she really draws you in. I remember watching her during one drama and thinking, “Is she really okay? Maybe we need to help her?” And then, when you talk to her in person, she seems like such a normal person! Anyway, without further ado, here is our conversation.

So I’m sitting here with Dr. Julisa Rowe at the GCAMM Conference in Fort Worth, Texas. And I wanted to introduce y’all to her. So Julisa, thank you so much for being willing to be interviewed for this podcast.

Julisa

Absolutely. My pleasure.

Roger

Yeah. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you…?

Julisa

Well, as you said, my name is Julisa Rowe. And currently, I am living and working in Nairobi, Kenya. I am an ethnodramatologist. I could say that I am the world’s foremost Christian ethnodramatologist because I’m probably the only one.

Roger

Yeah, so ethnodramatologist. What is that exactly?

Julisa

Yes. Well, I’m sure many people have heard of ethnomusicology, which is the study of music of different cultures. Ethnodramatology is, in that sense, just what it sounds. It is the study of the drama forms of different cultures. And my particular interest is how to use those drama forms to communicate the gospel of Christ.

Roger

Wow. So is there only one kind of form in Kenya? What does that look like in your context?

Julisa

Yeah. Well, the statement that has been made about music is that music is the universal language. And ethnomusicologists come along and say, No, no, no, no, no, no, no … music is a language. Music is universal, but there are many different kinds. The same can be said of drama. When people think drama, they think of the Western Aristotelean style of drama, where you’ve got performers acting out a story on stage in a realistic way, and an audience watching and applauding at the end. But as I discovered in my research, you don’t even have to be a research person to observe and see the differences. There are many different styles of drama, even within an apparently homogeneous society. I don’t know. I’m not sure that there are many truly homogeneous societies anymore.

Roger

That’s true. Yeah.

Julisa

There are so many different cultures living together. And because the arts are a reflection of our worldview and our cultural values, they are naturally going to appear different according to those cultures. So when you get into Kenya, for example, if you look at the dramas, the theater being done in the city, even in the villages, there is a strong resemblance to Western-style drama. But when you scratch a little deeper, you realize, no, it’s not quite the same. What they value in it is a little bit different, perhaps a more melodramatic style of acting, more community involvement, give and take, improvisation, doing things off the cuff. But then that is just what we think of as spoken drama. But then you look at the other art forms and there’s dance, and they are actually doing drama through dance, dance-drama forms. Their music are stories. Now for me, as a dramatist, I view all of that under the umbrella of drama. We have all those different styles within Kenya.

Roger

Let me get back to the basics of just this idea of using drama or working through drama, I guess, to tell a story. I know in my experience, I’ve had exposure to amazing live acting that has really changed me. I think that it is the most powerful art form. When you’re next to an actor and you’re seeing their sweat, you’re seeing their heart racing, you just naturally get caught up in it. You can’t help it. When you see it through film, through screen, there’s some separation that ends up happening there. I want more and more people to be exposed to live theater. I think we’re lacking in that, though, in American culture as well, but certainly in Japan. How do we get this powerful art form? How do you bring it to more people? What are the challenges here?

Julisa

Yeah, well, I’m not going to argue with you. I do also believe it is the strongest, most powerful art form. That’s why I’m in it. It does speak to me and draw me. I think more and more research is showing that when people connect emotionally with something, they understand it on a deeper level. And there is that intangible energy that passes between actor, performer, and audience that is what draws us in. And that doesn’t happen in film. It’s a dead medium, they say, because of that. And they have to add in that energy through music and lights and effects and angles and everything and try and replicate that. I guess it’s a little bit like AI versus a human person writing something. It’s like, yeah, you can go through the motions, but you’re going to lack the soul of it.

Roger

That’s such a good point. With the music, it really makes a big difference in a movie to have that music. But with live theater, you don’t need that.

Julisa

Exactly.

Roger

And you can still have that same effect even more powerfully.

Julisa

Yeah, you can have one person on stage with no costume, no lights, just emoting the story. Yeah. So…I forgot what the question was.

Roger

Just the challenges then. If it’s such a powerful art form, then why aren’t more people being exposed to it? Why isn’t it being used more in missions?

Julisa

That is an excellent question. I have spent the last 35+ years doing it in church and in mission and trying to teach and encourage pastors and missionaries to use it more, particularly in teaching. It’s a powerful way to disciple and teach. And when people see it, they agree. But I think partly we are up against hundreds of years of tradition that is hard to overcome. It’s like, Well, but this is how we do church. We have a singing set, we have announcements, we have a sermon, and that sermon is so deeply embedded in people’s understanding of what church is that it’s hard to go against it. It takes a special leader, a special pastor whose mind is open to the possibilities of the arts to give space to it if we are in that traditional church setting. We have to have the permission of the leaders to do it, to incorporate it for anything beyond music, and it’s hard to find them. I think we have to start at the beginning, and I think that’s what this conference is all about, like-minded people coming together and realizing that we don’t have to do it the expected traditional way, but how can we do it differently? How can we let art speak for itself and learn theology through the arts? Because a lot of artists are not administrators. They are not the traditional leaders in that sense of setting things up, of guiding a church. They just want to worship God through their arts. Then I think the other thing is that it takes a lot of resource and time and energy, unless you’re going to improvise everything on the spur of the moment in drama. For it to be the most powerful and impactful, you have to spend time with it. You have to have a group of people that will spend time and help develop it. You’ve got to develop a script that is biblically sound, artistically excellent, culturally relevant. You have to practice it, and that takes time. One person can do a sermon in a few days and then get up and preach it. It’s a whole team of people. Then if you want to go more elaborate with it, you’ve got the cost of it. If you’ve got lights and costumes and props and sets. Yeah, it’s very resource-heavy in that regard. But even if you want to go simple, it takes a lot of demand on you.

Roger

Yeah, I hear about the challenges of the practice. I once heard in an acting workshop, there was a guy, they told the story about how, Oh, that’s amazing. I want to be able to be able to do that. He’s like, Oh, you can. Okay, well, how do I do it? Well, you have to get up and you have to practice your lines every day, memorize them, practice saying them for a month every time, 100 times or something like that. Many, many times. He’s like, Well, if I did that, of course I could do it. He’s like, Okay, well, that’s what I did. I hear that about the piano, too. It’s like, Oh, I wish I could play the piano like that. I was like, Well, practice, practice, practice. People don’t seem to realize that aspect of it and thinking, Oh, they’re just doing it.

Julisa

God, just drop them on the earth like this, and they just get up and go, Yeah, absolutely right.

Roger

Yeah, but I want to ask you now, what are the challenges, though, of recruiting actors into missions? Because one way I’ve been describing it to my college students, they’ll say it’s almost like having a patron of the arts, the way it used to be. You have the salary, and then you don’t have to then choose which jobs you’re going to do based upon how much it pays you, but what is strategic for kingdom growth? Of course, you have to raise that money. But it seems to me like it’s the ideal for an artist to say, “Yes, the church is supporting me to use this ability that I’ve been given and to work on that.” Where is the disconnect, though? Why is it so hard to recruit artists, actors, especially?

Julisa

I think the finances is a big one, and I think you’ve really hit the nail on the head with that. Yes, the ideal is to be fully supported or sponsored, just to be able to release into, Okay, what is the most strategic? What is the best way to do this? Our time is just devoted to this. I think any actor would love that. Where it becomes a difficulty is if you have to then go out and raise your own support, and I could speak from personal experience. I grew up on the mission field. I understand the whole faith missions network, but I’m not a good support raiser. I have to spend a lot of time trying to find the funding, trying to make ends meet. A lot of artists don’t want to do that. They just want to do their art. They don’t want to be a publicity person, a social media, a producer, a marketer, an administrator.

Roger

Well, when you put it that way…

Julisa

Yeah. That’s another aspect about the arts is that it involves a lot of behind-the-scenes people that aren’t doing the art, but that make the art happen. I think that’s one of the reasons that perhaps we don’t get a lot of artists in missions. They don’t want to engage in that aspect of it. Even using local artists, that’s the challenge that I have. It can be perhaps easier with ministry-minded artists who say, Okay, I’ve got time outside of my job to do this. But if they’re saying, I want to do this full-time, I need to put food on the table for my wife, my husband, my children. How do we do that? Then we get into the whole business of the arts, selling tickets, and how do we do that? Then we’re back into the cycle of producing and fundraising. I think that is one very big detriment. The other is just the lack of understanding and appreciation for the arts. I think particularly, I would say in the West, particularly in America, where we have a very strong Puritan heritage that disavowed the arts in the church. When Oliver Cromwell went and smashed all the windows and all the art and all the iconography, we have a deep suspicion of iconography and idolatry and equate representing people on stage or through art as iconography or idolatry. I think there’s that deep suspicion of it in the evangelical church, at least.

Roger

Well, certainly in Japan. They are purposely trying to stay as sparse as possible so that nothing distracts from the word of God.

Julisa

Yeah. I think that is such a shame. While I understand that and respect that, when you look deeply into scripture, you see that it is rife with stories, with performance, with creation, with beauty. We lose out on the depth and the richness of our faith as expressed in these artistic ways as a pale imitation of the creator God when we try and say, no, nothing of that. So that is an ideological, philosophical, theological barrier to overcome. And that’s just within the church. Then you’ve got missions. I think then it’s back to finance. We said, well, how do I do that? And we want to take what we know as our own art to other cultures, and then we’re getting into the whole ethnoarts thing about, Well, how can we now take this love of drama and do it appropriately in the culture I’m going to in Mali or wherever it might be?

Roger

Yeah, it’s my hope that as I travel around and tell stories of how the arts are being used for kingdom building, for planting churches, that more and more people are then willing to give to and support these young artists to go off into the field. I think that really is a huge problem across all media, is getting more and more artists into the mission field, because if we do, I can’t even begin to imagine what that’ll look like as we see through the art forms of each culture, as raising up those young artists in the nations, not just American missionaries, to express the gospel in their own context. I think it’ll be a really powerful thing.

Julisa

Yeah, can’t wait to see it.

Roger

Yeah, well, thank you so much for your time.

Julisa

Thanks, Roger. Appreciate your work.

Roger

This is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the Art Life Faith Podcast. As we close, I would like to share with you a short sound bite from an album of IziBongo, one of the featured worship bands at the conference.

Thank you for listening. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

The post 51. GCAMM Conversations 1 appeared first on Roger W. Lowther.

51. GCAMM 1 – A Conversation with Julisa Rowe

Welcome to the Art Life Faith Podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther. This episode, I am honored to introduce you to some of the people I met at the GCAMM Conference in Fort Worth, Texas, the Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions. It took place September 11-14, 2023 at Southwestern Baptist University. This conference doesn’t happen very often, only once every few years. Some of the other ones I’ve been able to go to were in Nairobi, Kenya and Chiang Mai, Thailand.

It really is the largest gathering of missionary artists in the world, and in this gathering you get to meet artists who are missionaries through all the media: dancers, videographers, visual artists, musicians and so many others serving around the world to build the church of Christ specifically through the arts. The attendees really do come from all over the world, as you’re about to see. So I decided to take my microphone on a little walk during lunch time, and just mosey on through the lunch tables and see who was willing to speak with me. I hope this interaction gives you just a little picture of the type of people who come to the conference.

Attendee

Why, Hello! I’m Luke. I am an independent film and video editor and digital comms officer. And I’m here as part of Endeavor 8-1 and Arts & Justice Collective here at GCAMM.

Roger

And where are you from?

Attendee

I’m from the UK. I was born in Birmingham, which is Slap Bang in the middle of the UK. And I currently live and work in Wales.

Roger

Awesome. Great to meet you.

Attendee

Thank you.

Roger

And who are you?

Attendee

I’m Gayle Craven. I’m from Duncanville, Texas, and I currently live in De Soto, Texas, which are both cities south of Dallas. I’m a student at Dallas International University, and I’ve come to the conference for a class to learn about GCoMM and all the work that everyone’s doing around the world.

Roger

Are you an undergrad or grad student?

Attendee

I’m an undergrad. I’m working on my B.A. in International Service with a minor in World Arts.

Roger

Awesome. What do you hope to do after this?

Attendee

I don’t know yet. I’m still figuring that out, but I do definitely want to pursue visual arts, and I’m also very interested in film and music, so wherever God takes me, I guess.

Roger

Very cool. Well, it’s great to meet you.

Attendee

Thank you. It’s nice to meet you, too.

Roger

Well, it’s good to meet you. So who are you?

Attendee

Hi, I’m Karen, and I’m from England.

Roger

Oh, and what do you do.

Attendee

In England? Well, I don’t work in England. I work in Kenya. I work in the juvenile justice system. We help children to know about Jesus and learn how that they can get healed from their trauma that has caused them to commit serious crimes.

Roger

Is it arts-related?

Attendee

Yeah, I would say that I am not a creative person, but I facilitate very creative people. I work in a context where the youth write their own songs in the dead of night when they can’t sleep, and they draw pictures of things that they can’t put words to. So I facilitate that. Through their healing process, the art is crucial. It forms how they heal. It is an outlet, but also a beautiful creation in itself.

Roger

That’s cool. Yeah, definitely the arts has power to heal.

Attendee

100%.

Roger

Okay, good to meet you.

Attendee

Thank you.

Roger

And who are you?

Attendee

Well, I am an ethnodoxologist who’s been working in Central Africa for about three decades now. I’m considered a charter member of GCAMM. I was here in 2003. I’ve been able to come to each one except the one held in Singapore, which I couldn’t get out of Africa to get to that one.

Roger

And what do you do through the arts?

Attendee

Well, I’m actually involved in theological education, introducing the arts and encouraging future pastors to understand how important the arts are in ministry. I’m also working with arts and trauma healing, where people are given the ability to express the pain they have in their hearts through movement and drama and song and dance and all of that.

Roger

That’s amazing. Thank you.

Attendee

Yeah, you’re welcome.

Roger

And so, who are you?

Attendee

Yes, I am Heber from Brazil, involved in Ethno Arts Ministry since 2006, when I first attended the second GCAMM. I am the Ethnoarts Coordinator in Brazil, with the Wycliffe organization there. And currently, I am taking my PhD studies at Dallas International University in World Arts.

Roger

Oh, that’s awesome.

Attendee

Yeah, great.

Roger

Thank you.

Attendee

Thank you.

Roger

Okay, and who are you?

Attendee

Are you? I am Juan Arvelo coming from Spain, although I’m Venezuelan. I’ve been living in Spain for the last 13 years, working with WEC International, among the Basque group on Northern Spain.

Roger

Great. And what do you do there?

Attendee

I’m basically working with arts, trying to use arts for ministry locally, also globally, because I’m a WEC Arts Consultant also. My vision is to get them excited about the arts and ministry.

Roger

That’s awesome. It’s great to meet you.

Attendee

Likewise. Blessings.

Roger

Yeah, and who are you?

Attendee

Hi. My name is Pam.

Roger

And where do you live? What do you do?

Attendee

What do you do? My husband and I live in Germany, an hour north of Dusseldorf. And we work with TACO International that creatively proclaims the gospel to Muslims.

Roger

Wow, and what art forms do you use to do that?

Attendee

We use every art form. Our logo is a kaleidoscope, because if you’ve ever noticed when you look through a kaleidoscope, you change it just a little bit and the picture completely changes. We add new people to our team, take one away, and the picture completely changes. So God is able to give us creative things to do with whoever we have at the time.

Roger

Wow, that’s great. Thank you very much.

Attendee

You’re welcome.

Roger

It really was wonderful getting to meet all these different people from all over the world, and I’m looking forward to introducing more of them to you in the next two podcasts as well. But I want to stop there for now to share with you a longer conversation I had with Dr. Julisa Rowe. She is an actress and director serving in Nairobi, Kenya. And she is also the Kenya director for Artists in Christian Testimony International, a missions organization for artists. I had the privilege of getting to know Julisa during the GCAMM Conference that she led in 2018. She really did an amazing job putting together the conference, a week of concerts, dances, art exhibits, and talks from people in Kenya and all over the world. And I’ve stayed in touch with her ever since. You know, as an actor she really draws you in. I remember watching her during one drama and thinking, “Is she really okay? Maybe we need to help her?” And then, when you talk to her in person, she seems like such a normal person! Anyway, without further ado, here is our conversation.

So I’m sitting here with Dr. Julisa Rowe at the GCAMM Conference in Fort Worth, Texas. And I wanted to introduce y’all to her. So Julisa, thank you so much for being willing to be interviewed for this podcast.

Julisa

Absolutely. My pleasure.

Roger

Yeah. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you…?

Julisa

Well, as you said, my name is Julisa Rowe. And currently, I am living and working in Nairobi, Kenya. I am an ethnodramatologist. I could say that I am the world’s foremost Christian ethnodramatologist because I’m probably the only one.

Roger

Yeah, so ethnodramatologist. What is that exactly?

Julisa

Yes. Well, I’m sure many people have heard of ethnomusicology, which is the study of music of different cultures. Ethnodramatology is, in that sense, just what it sounds. It is the study of the drama forms of different cultures. And my particular interest is how to use those drama forms to communicate the gospel of Christ.

Roger

Wow. So is there only one kind of form in Kenya? What does that look like in your context?

Julisa

Yeah. Well, the statement that has been made about music is that music is the universal language. And ethnomusicologists come along and say, No, no, no, no, no, no, no … music is a language. Music is universal, but there are many different kinds. The same can be said of drama. When people think drama, they think of the Western Aristotelean style of drama, where you’ve got performers acting out a story on stage in a realistic way, and an audience watching and applauding at the end. But as I discovered in my research, you don’t even have to be a research person to observe and see the differences. There are many different styles of drama, even within an apparently homogeneous society. I don’t know. I’m not sure that there are many truly homogeneous societies anymore.

Roger

That’s true. Yeah.

Julisa

There are so many different cultures living together. And because the arts are a reflection of our worldview and our cultural values, they are naturally going to appear different according to those cultures. So when you get into Kenya, for example, if you look at the dramas, the theater being done in the city, even in the villages, there is a strong resemblance to Western-style drama. But when you scratch a little deeper, you realize, no, it’s not quite the same. What they value in it is a little bit different, perhaps a more melodramatic style of acting, more community involvement, give and take, improvisation, doing things off the cuff. But then that is just what we think of as spoken drama. But then you look at the other art forms and there’s dance, and they are actually doing drama through dance, dance-drama forms. Their music are stories. Now for me, as a dramatist, I view all of that under the umbrella of drama. We have all those different styles within Kenya.

Roger

Let me get back to the basics of just this idea of using drama or working through drama, I guess, to tell a story. I know in my experience, I’ve had exposure to amazing live acting that has really changed me. I think that it is the most powerful art form. When you’re next to an actor and you’re seeing their sweat, you’re seeing their heart racing, you just naturally get caught up in it. You can’t help it. When you see it through film, through screen, there’s some separation that ends up happening there. I want more and more people to be exposed to live theater. I think we’re lacking in that, though, in American culture as well, but certainly in Japan. How do we get this powerful art form? How do you bring it to more people? What are the challenges here?

Julisa

Yeah, well, I’m not going to argue with you. I do also believe it is the strongest, most powerful art form. That’s why I’m in it. It does speak to me and draw me. I think more and more research is showing that when people connect emotionally with something, they understand it on a deeper level. And there is that intangible energy that passes between actor, performer, and audience that is what draws us in. And that doesn’t happen in film. It’s a dead medium, they say, because of that. And they have to add in that energy through music and lights and effects and angles and everything and try and replicate that. I guess it’s a little bit like AI versus a human person writing something. It’s like, yeah, you can go through the motions, but you’re going to lack the soul of it.

Roger

That’s such a good point. With the music, it really makes a big difference in a movie to have that music. But with live theater, you don’t need that.

Julisa

Exactly.

Roger

And you can still have that same effect even more powerfully.

Julisa

Yeah, you can have one person on stage with no costume, no lights, just emoting the story. Yeah. So…I forgot what the question was.

Roger

Just the challenges then. If it’s such a powerful art form, then why aren’t more people being exposed to it? Why isn’t it being used more in missions?

Julisa

That is an excellent question. I have spent the last 35+ years doing it in church and in mission and trying to teach and encourage pastors and missionaries to use it more, particularly in teaching. It’s a powerful way to disciple and teach. And when people see it, they agree. But I think partly we are up against hundreds of years of tradition that is hard to overcome. It’s like, Well, but this is how we do church. We have a singing set, we have announcements, we have a sermon, and that sermon is so deeply embedded in people’s understanding of what church is that it’s hard to go against it. It takes a special leader, a special pastor whose mind is open to the possibilities of the arts to give space to it if we are in that traditional church setting. We have to have the permission of the leaders to do it, to incorporate it for anything beyond music, and it’s hard to find them. I think we have to start at the beginning, and I think that’s what this conference is all about, like-minded people coming together and realizing that we don’t have to do it the expected traditional way, but how can we do it differently? How can we let art speak for itself and learn theology through the arts? Because a lot of artists are not administrators. They are not the traditional leaders in that sense of setting things up, of guiding a church. They just want to worship God through their arts. Then I think the other thing is that it takes a lot of resource and time and energy, unless you’re going to improvise everything on the spur of the moment in drama. For it to be the most powerful and impactful, you have to spend time with it. You have to have a group of people that will spend time and help develop it. You’ve got to develop a script that is biblically sound, artistically excellent, culturally relevant. You have to practice it, and that takes time. One person can do a sermon in a few days and then get up and preach it. It’s a whole team of people. Then if you want to go more elaborate with it, you’ve got the cost of it. If you’ve got lights and costumes and props and sets. Yeah, it’s very resource-heavy in that regard. But even if you want to go simple, it takes a lot of demand on you.

Roger

Yeah, I hear about the challenges of the practice. I once heard in an acting workshop, there was a guy, they told the story about how, Oh, that’s amazing. I want to be able to be able to do that. He’s like, Oh, you can. Okay, well, how do I do it? Well, you have to get up and you have to practice your lines every day, memorize them, practice saying them for a month every time, 100 times or something like that. Many, many times. He’s like, Well, if I did that, of course I could do it. He’s like, Okay, well, that’s what I did. I hear that about the piano, too. It’s like, Oh, I wish I could play the piano like that. I was like, Well, practice, practice, practice. People don’t seem to realize that aspect of it and thinking, Oh, they’re just doing it.

Julisa

God, just drop them on the earth like this, and they just get up and go, Yeah, absolutely right.

Roger

Yeah, but I want to ask you now, what are the challenges, though, of recruiting actors into missions? Because one way I’ve been describing it to my college students, they’ll say it’s almost like having a patron of the arts, the way it used to be. You have the salary, and then you don’t have to then choose which jobs you’re going to do based upon how much it pays you, but what is strategic for kingdom growth? Of course, you have to raise that money. But it seems to me like it’s the ideal for an artist to say, “Yes, the church is supporting me to use this ability that I’ve been given and to work on that.” Where is the disconnect, though? Why is it so hard to recruit artists, actors, especially?

Julisa

I think the finances is a big one, and I think you’ve really hit the nail on the head with that. Yes, the ideal is to be fully supported or sponsored, just to be able to release into, Okay, what is the most strategic? What is the best way to do this? Our time is just devoted to this. I think any actor would love that. Where it becomes a difficulty is if you have to then go out and raise your own support, and I could speak from personal experience. I grew up on the mission field. I understand the whole faith missions network, but I’m not a good support raiser. I have to spend a lot of time trying to find the funding, trying to make ends meet. A lot of artists don’t want to do that. They just want to do their art. They don’t want to be a publicity person, a social media, a producer, a marketer, an administrator.

Roger

Well, when you put it that way…

Julisa

Yeah. That’s another aspect about the arts is that it involves a lot of behind-the-scenes people that aren’t doing the art, but that make the art happen. I think that’s one of the reasons that perhaps we don’t get a lot of artists in missions. They don’t want to engage in that aspect of it. Even using local artists, that’s the challenge that I have. It can be perhaps easier with ministry-minded artists who say, Okay, I’ve got time outside of my job to do this. But if they’re saying, I want to do this full-time, I need to put food on the table for my wife, my husband, my children. How do we do that? Then we get into the whole business of the arts, selling tickets, and how do we do that? Then we’re back into the cycle of producing and fundraising. I think that is one very big detriment. The other is just the lack of understanding and appreciation for the arts. I think particularly, I would say in the West, particularly in America, where we have a very strong Puritan heritage that disavowed the arts in the church. When Oliver Cromwell went and smashed all the windows and all the art and all the iconography, we have a deep suspicion of iconography and idolatry and equate representing people on stage or through art as iconography or idolatry. I think there’s that deep suspicion of it in the evangelical church, at least.

Roger

Well, certainly in Japan. They are purposely trying to stay as sparse as possible so that nothing distracts from the word of God.

Julisa

Yeah. I think that is such a shame. While I understand that and respect that, when you look deeply into scripture, you see that it is rife with stories, with performance, with creation, with beauty. We lose out on the depth and the richness of our faith as expressed in these artistic ways as a pale imitation of the creator God when we try and say, no, nothing of that. So that is an ideological, philosophical, theological barrier to overcome. And that’s just within the church. Then you’ve got missions. I think then it’s back to finance. We said, well, how do I do that? And we want to take what we know as our own art to other cultures, and then we’re getting into the whole ethnoarts thing about, Well, how can we now take this love of drama and do it appropriately in the culture I’m going to in Mali or wherever it might be?

Roger

Yeah, it’s my hope that as I travel around and tell stories of how the arts are being used for kingdom building, for planting churches, that more and more people are then willing to give to and support these young artists to go off into the field. I think that really is a huge problem across all media, is getting more and more artists into the mission field, because if we do, I can’t even begin to imagine what that’ll look like as we see through the art forms of each culture, as raising up those young artists in the nations, not just American missionaries, to express the gospel in their own context. I think it’ll be a really powerful thing.

Julisa

Yeah, can’t wait to see it.

Roger

Yeah, well, thank you so much for your time.

Julisa

Thanks, Roger. Appreciate your work.

Roger

This is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the Art Life Faith Podcast. As we close, I would like to share with you a short sound bite from an album of IziBongo, one of the featured worship bands at the conference.

Thank you for listening. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

The post 51. GCAMM 1 – A Conversation with Julisa Rowe appeared first on Roger W. Lowther.

51. GCAMM 1 – Interview with Julisa Rowe

Welcome to the Art Life Faith Podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther. This episode, I am honored to introduce you to some of the people I met at the GCAMM Conference in Fort Worth, Texas, the Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions. It took place September 11-14, 2023 at Southwestern Baptist University. This conference doesn’t happen very often, only once every few years. Some of the other ones I’ve been able to go to were in Nairobi, Kenya and Chiang Mai, Thailand.

It really is the largest gathering of missionary artists in the world, and in this gathering you get to meet artists who are missionaries through all the media: dancers, videographers, visual artists, musicians and so many others serving around the world to build the church of Christ specifically through the arts. The attendees really do come from all over the world, as you’re about to see. So I decided to take my microphone on a little walk during lunch time, and just mosey on through the lunch tables and see who was willing to speak with me. I hope this interaction gives you just a little picture of the type of people who come to the conference.

Attendee

Why, Hello! I’m Luke. I am an independent film and video editor and digital comms officer. And I’m here as part of Endeavor 8-1 and Arts & Justice Collective here at GCAMM.

Roger

And where are you from?

Attendee

I’m from the UK. I was born in Birmingham, which is Slap Bang in the middle of the UK. And I currently live and work in Wales.

Roger

Awesome. Great to meet you.

Attendee

Thank you.

Roger

And who are you?

Attendee

I’m Gayle Craven. I’m from Duncanville, Texas, and I currently live in De Soto, Texas, which are both cities south of Dallas. I’m a student at Dallas International University, and I’ve come to the conference for a class to learn about GCoMM and all the work that everyone’s doing around the world.

Roger

Are you an undergrad or grad student?

Attendee

I’m an undergrad. I’m working on my B.A. in International Service with a minor in World Arts.

Roger

Awesome. What do you hope to do after this?

Attendee

I don’t know yet. I’m still figuring that out, but I do definitely want to pursue visual arts, and I’m also very interested in film and music, so wherever God takes me, I guess.

Roger

Very cool. Well, it’s great to meet you.

Attendee

Thank you. It’s nice to meet you, too.

Roger

Well, it’s good to meet you. So who are you?

Attendee

Hi, I’m Karen, and I’m from England.

Roger

Oh, and what do you do.

Attendee

In England? Well, I don’t work in England. I work in Kenya. I work in the juvenile justice system. We help children to know about Jesus and learn how that they can get healed from their trauma that has caused them to commit serious crimes.

Roger

Is it arts-related?

Attendee

Yeah, I would say that I am not a creative person, but I facilitate very creative people. I work in a context where the youth write their own songs in the dead of night when they can’t sleep, and they draw pictures of things that they can’t put words to. So I facilitate that. Through their healing process, the art is crucial. It forms how they heal. It is an outlet, but also a beautiful creation in itself.

Roger

That’s cool. Yeah, definitely the arts has power to heal.

Attendee

100%.

Roger

Okay, good to meet you.

Attendee

Thank you.

Roger

And who are you?

Attendee

Well, I am an ethnodoxologist who’s been working in Central Africa for about three decades now. I’m considered a charter member of GCAMM. I was here in 2003. I’ve been able to come to each one except the one held in Singapore, which I couldn’t get out of Africa to get to that one.

Roger

And what do you do through the arts?

Attendee

Well, I’m actually involved in theological education, introducing the arts and encouraging future pastors to understand how important the arts are in ministry. I’m also working with arts and trauma healing, where people are given the ability to express the pain they have in their hearts through movement and drama and song and dance and all of that.

Roger

That’s amazing. Thank you.

Attendee

Yeah, you’re welcome.

Roger

And so, who are you?

Attendee

Yes, I am Heber from Brazil, involved in Ethno Arts Ministry since 2006, when I first attended the second GCAMM. I am the Ethnoarts Coordinator in Brazil, with the Wycliffe organization there. And currently, I am taking my PhD studies at Dallas International University in World Arts.

Roger

Oh, that’s awesome.

Attendee

Yeah, great.

Roger

Thank you.

Attendee

Thank you.

Roger

Okay, and who are you?

Attendee

Are you? I am Juan Arvelo coming from Spain, although I’m Venezuelan. I’ve been living in Spain for the last 13 years, working with WEC International, among the Basque group on Northern Spain.

Roger

Great. And what do you do there?

Attendee

I’m basically working with arts, trying to use arts for ministry locally, also globally, because I’m a WEC Arts Consultant also. My vision is to get them excited about the arts and ministry.

Roger

That’s awesome. It’s great to meet you.

Attendee

Likewise. Blessings.

Roger

Yeah, and who are you?

Attendee

Hi. My name is Pam.

Roger

And where do you live? What do you do?

Attendee

What do you do? My husband and I live in Germany, an hour north of Dusseldorf. And we work with TACO International that creatively proclaims the gospel to Muslims.

Roger

Wow, and what art forms do you use to do that?

Attendee

We use every art form. Our logo is a kaleidoscope, because if you’ve ever noticed when you look through a kaleidoscope, you change it just a little bit and the picture completely changes. We add new people to our team, take one away, and the picture completely changes. So God is able to give us creative things to do with whoever we have at the time.

Roger

Wow, that’s great. Thank you very much.

Attendee

You’re welcome.

Roger

It really was wonderful getting to meet all these different people from all over the world, and I’m looking forward to introducing more of them to you in the next two podcasts as well. But I want to stop there for now to share with you a longer conversation I had with Dr. Julisa Rowe. She is an actress and director serving in Nairobi, Kenya. And she is also the Kenya director for Artists in Christian Testimony International, a missions organization for artists. I had the privilege of getting to know Julisa during the GCAMM Conference that she led in 2018. She really did an amazing job putting together the conference, a week of concerts, dances, art exhibits, and talks from people in Kenya and all over the world. And I’ve stayed in touch with her ever since. You know, as an actor she really draws you in. I remember watching her during one drama and thinking, “Is she really okay? Maybe we need to help her?” And then, when you talk to her in person, she seems like such a normal person! Anyway, without further ado, here is our conversation.

So I’m sitting here with Dr. Julisa Rowe at the GCAMM Conference in Fort Worth, Texas. And I wanted to introduce y’all to her. So Julisa, thank you so much for being willing to be interviewed for this podcast.

Julisa

Absolutely. My pleasure.

Roger

Yeah. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you…?

Julisa

Well, as you said, my name is Julisa Rowe. And currently, I am living and working in Nairobi, Kenya. I am an ethnodramatologist. I could say that I am the world’s foremost Christian ethnodramatologist because I’m probably the only one.

Roger

Yeah, so ethnodramatologist. What is that exactly?

Julisa

Yes. Well, I’m sure many people have heard of ethnomusicology, which is the study of music of different cultures. Ethnodramatology is, in that sense, just what it sounds. It is the study of the drama forms of different cultures. And my particular interest is how to use those drama forms to communicate the gospel of Christ.

Roger

Wow. So is there only one kind of form in Kenya? What does that look like in your context?

Julisa

Yeah. Well, the statement that has been made about music is that music is the universal language. And ethnomusicologists come along and say, No, no, no, no, no, no, no … music is a language. Music is universal, but there are many different kinds. The same can be said of drama. When people think drama, they think of the Western Aristotelean style of drama, where you’ve got performers acting out a story on stage in a realistic way, and an audience watching and applauding at the end. But as I discovered in my research, you don’t even have to be a research person to observe and see the differences. There are many different styles of drama, even within an apparently homogeneous society. I don’t know. I’m not sure that there are many truly homogeneous societies anymore.

Roger

That’s true. Yeah.

Julisa

There are so many different cultures living together. And because the arts are a reflection of our worldview and our cultural values, they are naturally going to appear different according to those cultures. So when you get into Kenya, for example, if you look at the dramas, the theater being done in the city, even in the villages, there is a strong resemblance to Western-style drama. But when you scratch a little deeper, you realize, no, it’s not quite the same. What they value in it is a little bit different, perhaps a more melodramatic style of acting, more community involvement, give and take, improvisation, doing things off the cuff. But then that is just what we think of as spoken drama. But then you look at the other art forms and there’s dance, and they are actually doing drama through dance, dance-drama forms. Their music are stories. Now for me, as a dramatist, I view all of that under the umbrella of drama. We have all those different styles within Kenya.

Roger

Let me get back to the basics of just this idea of using drama or working through drama, I guess, to tell a story. I know in my experience, I’ve had exposure to amazing live acting that has really changed me. I think that it is the most powerful art form. When you’re next to an actor and you’re seeing their sweat, you’re seeing their heart racing, you just naturally get caught up in it. You can’t help it. When you see it through film, through screen, there’s some separation that ends up happening there. I want more and more people to be exposed to live theater. I think we’re lacking in that, though, in American culture as well, but certainly in Japan. How do we get this powerful art form? How do you bring it to more people? What are the challenges here?

Julisa

Yeah, well, I’m not going to argue with you. I do also believe it is the strongest, most powerful art form. That’s why I’m in it. It does speak to me and draw me. I think more and more research is showing that when people connect emotionally with something, they understand it on a deeper level. And there is that intangible energy that passes between actor, performer, and audience that is what draws us in. And that doesn’t happen in film. It’s a dead medium, they say, because of that. And they have to add in that energy through music and lights and effects and angles and everything and try and replicate that. I guess it’s a little bit like AI versus a human person writing something. It’s like, yeah, you can go through the motions, but you’re going to lack the soul of it.

Roger

That’s such a good point. With the music, it really makes a big difference in a movie to have that music. But with live theater, you don’t need that.

Julisa

Exactly.

Roger

And you can still have that same effect even more powerfully.

Julisa

Yeah, you can have one person on stage with no costume, no lights, just emoting the story. Yeah. So…I forgot what the question was.

Roger

Just the challenges then. If it’s such a powerful art form, then why aren’t more people being exposed to it? Why isn’t it being used more in missions?

Julisa

That is an excellent question. I have spent the last 35+ years doing it in church and in mission and trying to teach and encourage pastors and missionaries to use it more, particularly in teaching. It’s a powerful way to disciple and teach. And when people see it, they agree. But I think partly we are up against hundreds of years of tradition that is hard to overcome. It’s like, Well, but this is how we do church. We have a singing set, we have announcements, we have a sermon, and that sermon is so deeply embedded in people’s understanding of what church is that it’s hard to go against it. It takes a special leader, a special pastor whose mind is open to the possibilities of the arts to give space to it if we are in that traditional church setting. We have to have the permission of the leaders to do it, to incorporate it for anything beyond music, and it’s hard to find them. I think we have to start at the beginning, and I think that’s what this conference is all about, like-minded people coming together and realizing that we don’t have to do it the expected traditional way, but how can we do it differently? How can we let art speak for itself and learn theology through the arts? Because a lot of artists are not administrators. They are not the traditional leaders in that sense of setting things up, of guiding a church. They just want to worship God through their arts. Then I think the other thing is that it takes a lot of resource and time and energy, unless you’re going to improvise everything on the spur of the moment in drama. For it to be the most powerful and impactful, you have to spend time with it. You have to have a group of people that will spend time and help develop it. You’ve got to develop a script that is biblically sound, artistically excellent, culturally relevant. You have to practice it, and that takes time. One person can do a sermon in a few days and then get up and preach it. It’s a whole team of people. Then if you want to go more elaborate with it, you’ve got the cost of it. If you’ve got lights and costumes and props and sets. Yeah, it’s very resource-heavy in that regard. But even if you want to go simple, it takes a lot of demand on you.

Roger

Yeah, I hear about the challenges of the practice. I once heard in an acting workshop, there was a guy, they told the story about how, Oh, that’s amazing. I want to be able to be able to do that. He’s like, Oh, you can. Okay, well, how do I do it? Well, you have to get up and you have to practice your lines every day, memorize them, practice saying them for a month every time, 100 times or something like that. Many, many times. He’s like, Well, if I did that, of course I could do it. He’s like, Okay, well, that’s what I did. I hear that about the piano, too. It’s like, Oh, I wish I could play the piano like that. I was like, Well, practice, practice, practice. People don’t seem to realize that aspect of it and thinking, Oh, they’re just doing it.

Julisa

God, just drop them on the earth like this, and they just get up and go, Yeah, absolutely right.

Roger

Yeah, but I want to ask you now, what are the challenges, though, of recruiting actors into missions? Because one way I’ve been describing it to my college students, they’ll say it’s almost like having a patron of the arts, the way it used to be. You have the salary, and then you don’t have to then choose which jobs you’re going to do based upon how much it pays you, but what is strategic for kingdom growth? Of course, you have to raise that money. But it seems to me like it’s the ideal for an artist to say, “Yes, the church is supporting me to use this ability that I’ve been given and to work on that.” Where is the disconnect, though? Why is it so hard to recruit artists, actors, especially?

Julisa

I think the finances is a big one, and I think you’ve really hit the nail on the head with that. Yes, the ideal is to be fully supported or sponsored, just to be able to release into, Okay, what is the most strategic? What is the best way to do this? Our time is just devoted to this. I think any actor would love that. Where it becomes a difficulty is if you have to then go out and raise your own support, and I could speak from personal experience. I grew up on the mission field. I understand the whole faith missions network, but I’m not a good support raiser. I have to spend a lot of time trying to find the funding, trying to make ends meet. A lot of artists don’t want to do that. They just want to do their art. They don’t want to be a publicity person, a social media, a producer, a marketer, an administrator.

Roger

Well, when you put it that way…

Julisa

Yeah. That’s another aspect about the arts is that it involves a lot of behind-the-scenes people that aren’t doing the art, but that make the art happen. I think that’s one of the reasons that perhaps we don’t get a lot of artists in missions. They don’t want to engage in that aspect of it. Even using local artists, that’s the challenge that I have. It can be perhaps easier with ministry-minded artists who say, Okay, I’ve got time outside of my job to do this. But if they’re saying, I want to do this full-time, I need to put food on the table for my wife, my husband, my children. How do we do that? Then we get into the whole business of the arts, selling tickets, and how do we do that? Then we’re back into the cycle of producing and fundraising. I think that is one very big detriment. The other is just the lack of understanding and appreciation for the arts. I think particularly, I would say in the West, particularly in America, where we have a very strong Puritan heritage that disavowed the arts in the church. When Oliver Cromwell went and smashed all the windows and all the art and all the iconography, we have a deep suspicion of iconography and idolatry and equate representing people on stage or through art as iconography or idolatry. I think there’s that deep suspicion of it in the evangelical church, at least.

Roger

Well, certainly in Japan. They are purposely trying to stay as sparse as possible so that nothing distracts from the word of God.

Julisa

Yeah. I think that is such a shame. While I understand that and respect that, when you look deeply into scripture, you see that it is rife with stories, with performance, with creation, with beauty. We lose out on the depth and the richness of our faith as expressed in these artistic ways as a pale imitation of the creator God when we try and say, no, nothing of that. So that is an ideological, philosophical, theological barrier to overcome. And that’s just within the church. Then you’ve got missions. I think then it’s back to finance. We said, well, how do I do that? And we want to take what we know as our own art to other cultures, and then we’re getting into the whole ethnoarts thing about, Well, how can we now take this love of drama and do it appropriately in the culture I’m going to in Mali or wherever it might be?

Roger

Yeah, it’s my hope that as I travel around and tell stories of how the arts are being used for kingdom building, for planting churches, that more and more people are then willing to give to and support these young artists to go off into the field. I think that really is a huge problem across all media, is getting more and more artists into the mission field, because if we do, I can’t even begin to imagine what that’ll look like as we see through the art forms of each culture, as raising up those young artists in the nations, not just American missionaries, to express the gospel in their own context. I think it’ll be a really powerful thing.

Julisa

Yeah, can’t wait to see it.

Roger

Yeah, well, thank you so much for your time.

Julisa

Thanks, Roger. Appreciate your work.

Roger

This is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the Art Life Faith Podcast. As we close, I would like to share with you a short sound bite from an album of IziBongo, one of the featured worship bands at the conference.

Thank you for listening. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

The post 51. GCAMM 1 – Interview with Julisa Rowe appeared first on Roger W. Lowther.

50. Let Us Draw Near – A Conversation with Ron Man

Welcome to the Art Life Faith Podcast. I’m your host, Roger Lowther. This is our 50th podcast episode. Woo hoo! Happy birthday, Art Life Faith Podcast!

I can’t believe we’ve done this 50 times now. I’m so grateful for all of you who’ve come along with us on this journey and who’ve supported this podcast in so many ways, by continuing to listen, by giving it five-star ratings, and leaving your reviews. We’ve had 5,000 downloads so far since we first started three years ago in the height of the pandemic, and we continue to grow each and every episode. Thank you for spreading the word. I’ve really been encouraged by some of the reviews that we’ve got, and I’d like to share some of them with you.

“Beautiful! Unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.”

Another said,

“Perfect bite-sized treasures of the gospel for weary souls.”

Another wrote,

“Beautiful gems of inspiration. I love how Roger identifies beauty in the midst of brokenness.”

The last one I’ll share is this,

“Roger’s easy storytelling technique draws you in, tugs at your heartstrings, and refreshes your soul.”

These reviews don’t just encourage me, but help other listeners as well. The more ratings and reviews we get, the easier it is for others to find it. If you’re willing, please, wherever you listen to podcasts, would you consider leaving your rating and review as well? And ff this podcast is an encouragement to you, please pass it on to others.

Well, as I’ve shared this before, this podcast was something born out of COVID. I’d actually been wanting to do it for many years and … little-known fact, I briefly had a podcast just out of college back in the 90s before podcasts were really a thing. But it wasn’t until COVID stopped our ability to gather and hold events, and then later in the summer only with small groups, that this became not just a desire, but really a necessity to find ways to get these stories out there to show how God is working in our midst.

For years now, we’ve had to hold online Zoom meetings, and it just made sense to start trying to report on those events in English as well so that more of you could participate in the conversations from a distance, and give you a chance to see and hear just a little of what God is doing here in Japan. Actually, we’re still pretty far from the numbers we had at events before COVID, so this is an ongoing necessity, to find ways to get that message and stories out there in as many different media as possible.

Anyway, God is working. Many great things are happening. I hope you’ll continue to follow along with our stories in the months and years to come because there are many great things to follow. In fact, I’m excited about our next episode. I’m going to try to do something different, interviewing a lot of people at a conference I’m about to attend. This is the GCAMM conference from September 11-14 in Fort Worth, Texas. GCAMM is the largest gathering of missionary artists in the world. It’s an amazing group of people who I’ve learned so much from, and I’m blessed to be able to call many of them friends.

Now, if you’re listening to this podcast, you really need to know a little bit about this conference and this group. It’s not too late to come. It’s going to be the 20th anniversary of GCAMM, the Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions. These conferences only happen every few years. The first one I attended was in Chiang Mai, Thailand. After that, I was able to go to one in Nairobi, Kenya. And then during COVID, the event had to be moved online, but it was still an amazing time. The people at these events gather from all over the planet. Many countries, many languages, many organizations, many churches.

When I first came into missions as an artist, I really had a very narrow view of what missions through the arts looks like. The best example is probably in this area of contextualization. I saw my job as contextualizing the gospel in ways that Japanese people could hear and understand. The arts were a way to listen to and get insights into elements of Japanese culture and then learn how to talk about the gospel through them. I thought of myself as a translator of sorts, translating the gospel. But what I didn’t see was what the Japanese people would teach me.

You see, missions in Japan will never be over. It isn’t over even when the Japanese can no longer be called an unreached people group. Missions is eternal. Our glimpses into heaven through Revelation and all other books of the Bible show us that we will always be worshiping God not just alongside the Japanese people, but through their art and culture. The best of every culture will be represented in heaven for the eternal glory of God. Every good and perfect gift is from God. Every work of art belongs to God. God is speaking through Japanese art and culture to share himself with the Japanese people, and also with you and with me. I’ve tried to capture some of these examples in my books, The Broken Leaf, Aroma of Beauty, Pippy the Piano, and I have even more stories to share in my next two books, A Taste of Grace and Hidden Beauty.

The work of missionaries in the arts is to listen and point out how God is already working in that culture. To show that God is not far from any person or culture, for in him, all the nations live and move and have their being. In other words, missions is not temporary. It’s not a dead-end street. It’s not about me bringing the gospel to the Japanese people or the Japanese people bringing the gospel to me. It’s about God bringing the gospel to all people through Japanese culture and through every other culture on the planet. This is just a little of what the community at GCAMM has taught me, so I hope you can be part of it as well.

I’ll include the website for this conference and a link to registration in the show notes for this episode.

Today, I’ll be sharing a conversation with Dr. Ron Man, one of the organizers for this conference. He himself is a missionary artist, having served in Europe for many years, and now travels the globe teaching about the biblical foundations of worship. It’s an understatement to say that he’s been a huge influence on my life, including introducing me to this concept of ethnodoxology, worship through the cultures of the world, and the GCAMM community. He has a book coming out this fall called Let Us Draw Near, which many of us have been eagerly waiting for. It’s only because of COVID that he finally had a chance to take a break from his busy travel schedule and write down the things he’s been teaching all these years.

Anyway, without further ado, here is our conversation.

Roger

Ron Man, we’re so happy to have you on this episode today.

Ron

Thanks for having me.

Roger

Yeah, this is awesome. I am really intrigued by your travel schedule. I mean, you travel all over the place. Where have you been recently?

Ron

Well, let’s see… Last November I was in Bangladesh, and then I go to Spain every February to a little Bible school, and then I was at a conference in Pakistan in the spring and then went on from there to Ethiopia to teach in a theological college. I’ve covered some ground.

Roger

Oh, my goodness. How much time do you have between all these trips?

Ron

Well, I usually would limit them to maybe four or five trips a year of two or maximum three weeks at a time.

Roger

Well, it doesn’t sound as bad when you put it that way, but when I get your newsletter, I think, I can’t believe he’s going on another trip. Sometimes it seems like you’re only home for a week or two before you’re off to some other place.

Ron

It’s not quite that bad, but I’ve had a lot of neat opportunities. I guess not that many people do what I do, teaching on worship, biblical worship in that way.

Roger

Yeah. Tell us more. What are you doing? What are you traveling to do?

Ron

Well, my disclaimer, when I go into these places to teach, usually in schools, Bible schools, seminaries, Bible colleges, and whatnot, for a week or two, I usually start out by saying, “I’ve not come to tell you how to do worship in your culture because I’m not from your culture. What I can share with you are biblical principles of worship, which, because they are biblical, by definition, they transcend culture.” That’s what I can share with them.

I have colleagues in some of the organizations we’ll be talking about later, who have been on the mission field for years, decades maybe, in particular spots. After that, after being immersed in the culture for that long, they have a right to speak into some of the actual practices of worship in those cultures. I don’t have that right since I’m just in and out one or two weeks at a time. I don’t try to speak very much about practices. We’ll talk a little bit about practical aspects, but the main thing is just laying these biblical foundations.

It’s really exciting how everywhere I’ve gone in the world, I’ve found real hearts for worship in these students that I teach. That’s something you can’t teach, a heart for worship. But what I’ve found in so many places that with this commitment, this heart for this love for worship already, that when you add some real solid biblical content to it, they just soak it up and come alive. It’d be a lot harder to teach them a heart for worship than to teach them biblical material to undergo this.

Roger

I’m trying to imagine what this looks like. You’re walking into places where everyone speaks a different language, wearing different clothes, perhaps eating different foods. I mean, completely different cultures. But there’s been times when I’ve been in places in the world… I’m thinking of a particular mini-seminar I attended in India where a pastor stood up and said, “We want to transcend culture. We want to think about the culture of heaven. That is the real culture that we’re trying to strive for.” And he went on to denounce Indian culture.

How is what you’re talking about different than that? What does it mean to transcend culture?

Ron

Well, I use an illustration in my teaching of a bridge, which I can’t give you the graphic in this context, of course, but a suspension bridge where the two towers in the illustration represent a biblical framework, which needs to guide us and control us and give that content, that framework to our worship practices.

But then in the illustration of a suspension bridge, I explain that a lot of the weight of the bridge is borne by this cable or suspension span between the two towers, which, unlike the sturdy firm towers sunk deeply into the ground, this cable has to have built into it a lot of flexibility because of changes of temperature and winds and so forth. And that serves in the illustration for the biblical framework being the towers and the span, the flexible span, representing the flexibility or latitude we have in worship practices, which the New Testament seems to allow because it frankly just does not give us a lot of detail about how our worship services should exactly look like.

I think, as it’s been explained, that perhaps that’s God’s way of allowing the gospel as it goes into different cultures and as the church is planted among the nations, that there’s room to breathe the air of that culture and give expression using the music, the arts, the different cultural expressions that are already built into people’s hearts.

I like to give the people that freedom to give expression to that in their own way, in their own context, of their own arts and their own expressions and whatnot. And yet there’s always this biblical framework. And that’s what I try to explain, what I try to teach. In some ways, my job is easy because I teach them for one or two weeks on the biblical foundations and framework, and then I leave. And then they have the hard job of actually putting that into practice in their own context and making it fit into their own expression.

Roger

That’s beautiful. So you’re giving us this picture of this suspension bridge, which can move and flex with the situation. You’re coming into a group of people who are very passionate about worship and giving a context for how to think creatively about what can that look like. How does that affect, I don’t know … obviously the worship songs will be in different languages, but more than that? What does that mean in terms of what instruments we use? What does that mean in terms of what themes we’re singing about? What does that mean in terms of how dance would be part of the liturgy? Or visual arts? Or other things as well?

Ron

I encourage them to think about things maybe they haven’t thought of, but pulling from their own culture, from their own context, what they could pull in and effectively use.

Roger

You know, it always bothers me when I travel around the world and attend various worship services, and I feel like I could be anywhere in the world at any time in history, because I feel like, wow, we’ve really lost the richness of what this could be. I feel like something’s wrong if I’m attending a worship service and it’s exactly the same, whether I’m in India or Malaysia or America or France. There should be differences besides the language that’s spoken, right? Is that what you’re saying?

Ron

Yeah, I really believe that. But there’s another complication in this world of ethnodoxology — we’ll throw that term out right now. You find ethnomusicology in secular universities, which is a study of the different musics of the people of the world. Ethnodoxology is a new field in the world of missions, a newly coined term that speaks to the worship, “ethno” meaning people, and “doxology” meaning praise or glory. It’s how the different peoples of the world praise our great God in their different cultural contexts and whatnot.

This is a growing, burgeoning field in missions that’s grabbed a lot of people’s attention just in recent decades of really valuing and validating the local expressions. Missionaries not coming in as used to be done all too often bringing the gospel dressed in their own cultural clothing. They brought not only the gospel, but too often they brought English and they brought their own dress or their own instruments or own styles and music and whatnot. But there’s been a wonderful development of missionaries being trained and developed to go in and be listeners and learners and take the long route of really immersing themselves in the culture, and then and only then, perhaps, being able to be part of the discussion about what can effectively be used from the culture in the local expressions of worship as the gospel reaches them.

So it’s a wonderful development in the field of missions and has been so effective. They get the Bible translated into their own language and say, “Well, God speaks my language, not just the white man’s language or something coming from the outside.” But the same thing happens with the arts when they say, “Well, God loves my music or my art or my whatnot, and not just what’s brought in from the outside.” That’s been a wonderful and freeing development and so effective in letting people be who they are, what they are, what’s already built into their DNA from childhood up, and that can be a way to give expression to their worship.

In this conference we had that you were part of, Roger, in Africa, the Maasai people came from Tanzania. They’re very distinctive in their dress. They’re very tall and wear these red plaid costumes, and they have very distinctive forms of dance and dress and music and whatnot. It was explained to us at the conference that for a long time, the gospel was not making inroads into their culture until somebody, missionaries were able to make clear to them that they could become Christians and still be Maasai, that they could bring their own expressions to bear in expression of Christian faith.

And then the gospel took hold, and many, many of them came to Christ. So just that valuing and validating of who people are and their culture and the air they breathe has been such a powerful force in missions in the last decade.

Now, the complication I started to make reference to with this is that whether we like it or not, part of the reality is that young people all over the world, especially in urban areas, because of modern communication and the internet and globalization and whatnot, whether we like it or not, Western popular styles of music are part of what we call the heart music of young people all over the world. We want to value local expressions and local instruments, but it can’t be an either/or thing. We don’t want to stomp out the old traditional ways, but we don’t want to say, “Well, the new ways come from the West and they’re not allowed” when it’s what the young people want, what’s being built into them in their own cultural context. So there has to be a both/and, and that makes it complicated and tricky, but we need to give place to both.

And we find that in my country, in the United States as well. You have issues like that between generations here. You have cultural differences, not just between countries or nations. You find cultural differences within individual churches, especially between the generations, young and old, who see things and like things and prefer things in much different ways from one another. And so, again, it needs to be both a teaching aspect and a discipling aspect for the young people to honor the old and the older people to honor the young, and that they both have valid expressions to bring.

If I could tell a quick story that I heard once at a conference. Joe Stowe, who was president of Moody Bible Institute at the time, told this beautiful story. They have a radio station and decided to change their music format. For many, many years they had traditional old-fashioned church hymn, gospel hymn-type music, and they decided to change to a more contemporary music format. They received a letter from an elderly woman who wrote, “I’ve been listening to your station and supporting it financially for years. And I just love the old hymns and the things you broadcast. And now you’ve gone and decided to change the format to this more contemporary style. But,” she wrote, “if you think that’s what’s needed to reach the youth of today, I want you to know I’m 100 % behind it. Here’s my check.” And I thought, “What a beautiful, mature Christian who understands that it’s not just about her, or what I want or what I like.” I often tell that story because I think it’s such a tremendous expression of true Christian love and maturity that we need more of.

Roger

I think it’s interesting about that story of the dancers. I remember them coming in. The rings around their necks and legs and wrists would make this sound that was rhythmic. We were all just amazed at the dress that they had on. But then I remember a number of us Westerners afterwards saw that after the worship service, they changed and changed into Western clothing.

Ron

Oh, did they? I didn’t even notice that.

Roger

We’re like, “Oh!” I think that’s one aspect of what you’re talking about too. It’s not just either or. They are children of Western culture as well that’s prevalent worldwide, but they can also worship through their traditional art forms and feel like, “Yeah, this is special. This is part of our heritage, part of our ancestral family.” But at the same time, they can also join in worship services that have a Western style as well at other times and be able to engage in that.

Ron

I come home after church and change clothes too. Perhaps that’s a similar thing.

Roger

Yeah, a mutual friend of ours, Nancy Nethercott, just sent out her newsletter. I don’t think she’d mind me sharing the story of her at a singing, songwriting workshop somewhere in the world. It wasn’t just about writing new songs in their language, but they ended up adopting themes that are not often talked about in what we may find in Western hymnody or something. Because of where people are coming from in their cultural context, their history, different things they’ve had to go through, they end up wanting to sing about different themes, different perspectives of God’s traits and characteristics than what we may often see.

Ron

Very interesting, yeah. They’d be topics that wouldn’t be normally dealt with in their own culture.

Roger

Right. For example, let me give one that I have experience with. A topic we often see in American songs is rejoicing in God as the resurrected savior, the one who was crucified, but he has come again and he has victory over the grave. And that seems to be something that a lot of contemporary songs today embrace. Whereas in Japan, when we’re writing contemporary songs, it’s usually about the suffering of Christ on the cross. So American songs in general may tend to focus on Easter. Japanese contemporary songs may tend to focus on Good Friday. They’re both true, and you need elements of both, but it’s just because of…Japanese are especially… I don’t know, sensitive, I could say, to the beauty in suffering, the beauty that comes through brokenness. And seeing that in the gospel is something that’s so attractive to the Japanese. And they love singing about it. A lot of the songs I’m thinking about that we’ve written in our church, that Japanese people have been writing, end up having those themes of the suffering servant or the God who knows our pain.

Ron

Yeah, I have a friend who wrote a dissertation on looking at some American songs and hymns and whatnot, and there is that tendency, like you’re saying, of this everything’s great, everything’s fine, looking ahead at what’s what, and not always dealing with some of the hard realities of life. In any culture, I think there needs to be some balance and not neglect one and just focus on the other.

Roger

Yeah, I really believe God speaks through our cultures in different ways, showing his glory, but in ways that help us see him that really fit where we are at as a culture. Some cultures have been really beaten down over the years. And so you end up seeing that in their prayers. You end up seeing that in their worship songs.

Ron

Again, it’s both/and. You have to transcend the culture in a certain sense because you can’t just stay wallowing in the sadness and whatnot because there is victory in Christ and whatnot, but you need to bring the reality of life into our expressions and lament and things like that and have an appropriate place as well.

Roger

Yeah, I want to ask. This conference you’re referencing is GCAMM, Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions. There is a conference coming up this September, which is really exciting. You’re on the board of this organization. I’d like to hear from you more about what this is and how it got started.

Ron

Well, this is our 20th anniversary celebration. We started 20 years ago, and we’re going to be at the same location we started at 20 years ago at Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, who has welcomed us with open arms and are really helping us get this thing going. Since then, we met in Minnesota, then we moved overseas. We met in Singapore, Chiang Mai, Thailand, and Nairobi, Kenya. And the last one was during COVID. We had to do an online version of it, as so many other organizations did. We’re back in person, and we’re excited about this 20th anniversary.

Right before COVID, we decided to change the name. Originally, it was GCoMM, Global Consultation on Music and Missions. We realized that we needed to broaden it, that there’s a place for all of the arts, so visual arts, spoken arts, dance, and all the others. And so, we decided to change the name. We were already reflecting that in what we did, but we wanted to make it more explicit and honor the other arts and not just be primarily about music. So it is now the Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions.

Roger

Why did it start? What was the purpose of these?

Ron

Well, it was to gather people from many different nations and basically celebrate the diversity we’re talking about, and expressions in worship and music, the arts and music in worship in the church, and also in outreach and missions and ministry and discipleship and whatnot. These gatherings have usually been about 200-250 people from about 35 different nations. We have had and will have this fall, plenary speakers giving some biblical foundations again, but there are also a lot of breakout groups talking about specific arts, areas of the arts, specific issues that we face. We’ll gather in breakouts in regional, global regions of the world and break up that way. Lots of time for fellowship and interaction. That networking is just a huge aspect of that.

20 years ago, when the first GCoMM was held, another group was born at the same time called the International Council of Ethnodoxologists. The name has since been changed because ICE sounds too much like border control in the United States. And so they changed the name to the Global Ethnodoxology Network.

GCAMM is an event and GEN is a global organization, not really an organization so much as an umbrella network of people all over the world that are involved in using the arts in different ways in missions, work, outreach, worship, teaching, discipleship, and whatnot. It’s just a way to connect people and resource people and help people see how they can cooperate together. It’s been wonderful how both the organization GEN and the event GCAMM have grown over the years and have been particularly valuable. I think you, Roger, yourself have given testimony to what it’s meant in your life. Maybe you want to comment on that.

Roger

Yeah, definitely! But as you were speaking, I was thinking about the discussion you led at the gathering in Kenya. It was interesting to me how they were talking about which instruments are okay to use in worship. There was a traditional instrument that, I forget the name of it, but that the people were like, “Oh, no, you can’t use that instrument in worship because it has religious significance that isn’t Christian. That’s very distracting, so we can’t use that.” But in the discussion, we found out that if they had just moved … what was it? … a piece of red cloth, one little change to the instrument, and suddenly it was okay. Because then it wasn’t used for idol worship anymore, it could be used for Christian worship. We all around the room were like, “Oh, interesting!” To be able to share stories like that and to hear about the debates that people are having around the world and to share that together was fascinating to me.

Ron

Because it’s part of that whole discussion is that as we say, we want to value and validate local expressions. It does not mean that anything goes. We don’t just pull anything from the culture. One of the most common questions I get when I travel is the question, “Is such and such music appropriate for use in Christian worship?” It can be in all different kinds of categories. It’s a difficult question. Sometimes, like I said, even in my country, the generations will have different ideas about what’s acceptable and what isn’t. But the fact of the matter is that it’s tricky, and it doesn’t mean you just pull anything in from the culture, but you have to use some discernment and biblical wisdom. A lot has to do with associations, as you were saying, if a particular instrument or a particular music or art form was used in ancestor worship or demon worship even, that maybe you better leave it alone or at least remove the “red cloth,” to make it acceptable. Actually missionaries, ethnodoxologists or arts consultants as they’re sometimes called, are receiving pretty advanced training now to be able to go into these fields and use discernment and help the people consider together some of these things and what can be fruitfully brought in and what best be left alone.

It’s a tricky thing. The Bible doesn’t address all these different instruments and art forms and whatnot, so we need to bring biblical wisdom to bear. Paul says, “All things are lawful, not all things are profitable.” What’s going to be profitable? That will differ from culture to culture. What can be brought in and what should we best leave alone and not bring in? It takes care. It needs wisdom. It takes some specialized training, but also listening to the locals, as you’re saying, to hear their stories and what their real intentions are and meanings and associations are, so we can make those decisions in a biblical and wise way.

Roger

Yeah, definitely. The first GCAMM I went to was in Chiang Mai, Thailand. First of all, the thing that impressed me the most was the love that everyone was showing for each other. These are people from all over the world wrestling with these questions. What does worship look like in our context?

We met at a school there, a Christian art school, and dance is really big at that school. So we were led in worship through traditional Thai dance. I guess before that point in my mind, I thought of the arts as something like contextualization, only a tool that you try to use to reach people. But when it comes from the native people themselves, like the Thai saying, “This is our native dance. We want to use this to worship God. What does that look like?” And to figure it out within that community was just such a beautiful thing. It didn’t seem contrived. There was a beauty about it that just made my own heart sing, “Oh, there’s so many ways that we can praise God.”

And I felt like I was getting a picture of heaven itself, where I’m not just praising God in different languages, but through every culture, every dance, all the traditional clothing of the world. To see just a little glimpse of that was such a beautiful thing that led me in worship. I think as missionaries, sometimes we have this concept that we come in and think, “Okay, how can I contextualize this so that those people know the gospel?” and fail to see the reverse happening. Like, “Oh, I am led in worship of God because of what I am seeing the people here doing.”

Ron

Right. The beauty of that diversity is what you’re talking about, I think. Like you say, there can never be too many ways to praise our Almighty God. God is a creator God. He’s created a world of incredible diversity. I think that diversity honors him and glorifies him when we can bring all that to bear from all the nations of the world and give our own expressions to it and not a one-size-fits-all approach to it.

Roger

Yeah, I think what you just said there, that explains why people should come to GCAMM in September, right? Is to see all these different ways that God is being praised and be drawn in themselves. Is there anything you’d add to that? Why do you think they should go?

Ron

As I said before, a lot of it is just networking and connecting with people and learning from what others are doing. But how can we cooperate together?

We’d love to see regional conferences like this spun off, or people from East Asia, like you, and there’s a group in Europe that’s talking about having one there. There’s a group in the Caribbean that would like to pull one together. South America. We’d love to see that happen as well. You’re informing, enriching one another, instilling cooperation and mutual aid and cooperative efforts and things we can do together. There’s a lot of opportunity for that. There’s a rich learning environment.

Networking is the name of the game, I think, in many ways when it comes to this, that’s just mutually enriching. It’s a great place to network, like you said, on a level that comes from a common love and commitment not only for the Lord, but for worship and for artistic expressions of worship. Just to bask in the glory of all that diversity is something that is really rich. I’ve come away really impressed and loving the Lord more and his people more just from seeing that glory.

Roger

Well, I can’t wait. Hey, let’s do it now. No, I guess we’re going to have to wait.

Ron

Till September. September 11-14 in Fort Worth, Texas at Southwestern Baptist University. You can find out all the information at https://gcommhome.org/. All the information is there about all the things happening and how you can register and whatnot. The GEN, the Global Ethnodoxology Network, this umbrella organization has a website too that’s called https://www.worldofworship.org/.

But the event in September, we’re really excited about it. People are signing up or gathering that diversity from the nations to come and celebrate together. We’re very excited that Roger Lowther is going to be one of our plenary speakers, and he’s going to speak to us from his context of his fruitful artistic ministry in Japan. But he’s also, as he was telling me today, is going to share about just what GCAMM has meant to him and how it’s enriched him and widened his horizons. He’s just a great poster boy for the event and what it can mean among an arts worker.

Roger

Yeah, I’m really honored to have the chance to share how it really has changed the way I think about ministry as we do it in Japan.

Ron

That’s wonderful. That’ll be really encouraging to hear at this 20th anniversary celebration as well. Very cool.

Roger

Well, we need to stop soon. But before we do, I’d love to let people know about your book that’s coming out. It’s pretty exciting. Can you tell us something about that?

Ron

Well, I’ve got a basic course that I teach on the biblical foundations of worship that just walks people through and deals with some fundamental introductory issues about worship, the revelation and response paradigm of worship, and walks the students through the Old Testament, the New Testament, talk about the centrality of worship throughout the Bible and how that’s a major theme, if not the integrating theme of the whole scriptures and the biblical story. I’ve been teaching this course, and I’ll be teaching this fall in Turkey, which will be the 40th country that I’ve had the opportunity to teach on worship. I’ve had tremendous opportunities.

One benefit along with all the downsides of COVID was that it gave me an opportunity, because of not being able to travel so much or at all, to actually put that course into book form. That’s what I’ve done. As I grow older and maybe will travel a little less if I’m not able to come. I’ve got a book now to say this is the course. This is basically everything I’ve been talking about, everything I’ve been teaching for the last 20 years I’ve now got into a book. I’m really excited about that.

I have a publisher. It’s in process. It’s going slowly. Hopefully, it will be out this fall, I think. But anyway, it’s called, Let Us Draw Near: Biblical Foundations of Worship. That phrase, of course, comes from Hebrews 10:19-22, where it says,

“Since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,” the writer says, “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.”

Christ has opened the way, done everything necessary to have free access into the presence of God, a uniquely New Testament understanding of worship. And that open access we have in and through and even with Christ into the presence of God. That’s the title, Let Us Draw Near. It’s laying biblical foundations of Worship. It’s going to be a big book. It’s a textbook. But I’ve just poured everything into it, everything I know virtually and everything I’ve been teaching about for 20 years. I’m excited that it’s down and I’m excited too that it’s going to come out. I hope this textbook will be useful in schools and to lay people, anybody who wants to know these biblical foundations in our worship.

Roger

Yeah, it’s very exciting. I’m so glad it’s finally getting into print form because I’ve been able to hear you speak in a number of places in the world now, including Japan. I remember when you were teaching in my home, we had a large group of people, and that ended up sparking conversations that lasted for months afterwards, people just trying to wrestle with the content that you’re bringing up. So it’s going to be used mightily, I know. So, Ron, thank you so much for sitting down tonight. It was awesome to be able to talk with you about these things.

Ron

Well, it’s a pleasure. Thank you. I always love talking about it. And looking forward to maybe seeing many of you at GCAMM in September.

Roger

Yeah, I’ll see you there!

So GCAMM is pretty cool, and I really do hope to see many of you there. This is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the Art Life Faith Podcast. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

The post 50. Let Us Draw Near – A Conversation with Ron Man appeared first on Roger W. Lowther.

50. Let Us Draw Near — A Conversation with Ron Man

Welcome to the Art Life Faith Podcast. I’m your host, Roger Lowther. This is our 50th podcast episode. Woo hoo! Happy birthday, Art Life Faith Podcast!

I can’t believe we’ve done this 50 times now. I’m so grateful for all of you who’ve come along with us on this journey and who’ve supported this podcast in so many ways, by continuing to listen, by giving it five-star ratings, and leaving your reviews. We’ve had 5,000 downloads so far since we first started three years ago in the height of the pandemic, and we continue to grow each and every episode. Thank you for spreading the word. I’ve really been encouraged by some of the reviews that we’ve got, and I’d like to share some of them with you.

“Beautiful! Unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.”

Another said,

“Perfect bite-sized treasures of the gospel for weary souls.”

Another wrote,

“Beautiful gems of inspiration. I love how Roger identifies beauty in the midst of brokenness.”

The last one I’ll share is this,

“Roger’s easy storytelling technique draws you in, tugs at your heartstrings, and refreshes your soul.”

These reviews don’t just encourage me, but help other listeners as well. The more ratings and reviews we get, the easier it is for others to find it. If you’re willing, please, wherever you listen to podcasts, would you consider leaving your rating and review as well? And ff this podcast is an encouragement to you, please pass it on to others.

Well, as I’ve shared this before, this podcast was something born out of COVID. I’d actually been wanting to do it for many years and … little-known fact, I briefly had a podcast just out of college back in the 90s before podcasts were really a thing. But it wasn’t until COVID stopped our ability to gather and hold events, and then later in the summer only with small groups, that this became not just a desire, but really a necessity to find ways to get these stories out there to show how God is working in our midst.

For years now, we’ve had to hold online Zoom meetings, and it just made sense to start trying to report on those events in English as well so that more of you could participate in the conversations from a distance, and give you a chance to see and hear just a little of what God is doing here in Japan. Actually, we’re still pretty far from the numbers we had at events before COVID, so this is an ongoing necessity, to find ways to get that message and stories out there in as many different media as possible.

Anyway, God is working. Many great things are happening. I hope you’ll continue to follow along with our stories in the months and years to come because there are many great things to follow. In fact, I’m excited about our next episode. I’m going to try to do something different, interviewing a lot of people at a conference I’m about to attend. This is the GCAMM conference from September 11-14 in Fort Worth, Texas. GCAMM is the largest gathering of missionary artists in the world. It’s an amazing group of people who I’ve learned so much from, and I’m blessed to be able to call many of them friends.

Now, if you’re listening to this podcast, you really need to know a little bit about this conference and this group. It’s not too late to come. It’s going to be the 20th anniversary of GCAMM, the Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions. These conferences only happen every few years. The first one I attended was in Chiang Mai, Thailand. After that, I was able to go to one in Nairobi, Kenya. And then during COVID, the event had to be moved online, but it was still an amazing time. The people at these events gather from all over the planet. Many countries, many languages, many organizations, many churches.

When I first came into missions as an artist, I really had a very narrow view of what missions through the arts looks like. The best example is probably in this area of contextualization. I saw my job as contextualizing the gospel in ways that Japanese people could hear and understand. The arts were a way to listen to and get insights into elements of Japanese culture and then learn how to talk about the gospel through them. I thought of myself as a translator of sorts, translating the gospel. But what I didn’t see was what the Japanese people would teach me.

You see, missions in Japan will never be over. It isn’t over even when the Japanese can no longer be called an unreached people group. Missions is eternal. Our glimpses into heaven through Revelation and all other books of the Bible show us that we will always be worshiping God not just alongside the Japanese people, but through their art and culture. The best of every culture will be represented in heaven for the eternal glory of God. Every good and perfect gift is from God. Every work of art belongs to God. God is speaking through Japanese art and culture to share himself with the Japanese people, and also with you and with me. I’ve tried to capture some of these examples in my books, The Broken Leaf, Aroma of Beauty, Pippy the Piano, and I have even more stories to share in my next two books, A Taste of Grace and Hidden Beauty.

The work of missionaries in the arts is to listen and point out how God is already working in that culture. To show that God is not far from any person or culture, for in him, all the nations live and move and have their being. In other words, missions is not temporary. It’s not a dead-end street. It’s not about me bringing the gospel to the Japanese people or the Japanese people bringing the gospel to me. It’s about God bringing the gospel to all people through Japanese culture and through every other culture on the planet. This is just a little of what the community at GCAMM has taught me, so I hope you can be part of it as well.

I’ll include the website for this conference and a link to registration in the show notes for this episode.

Today, I’ll be sharing a conversation with Dr. Ron Man, one of the organizers for this conference. He himself is a missionary artist, having served in Europe for many years, and now travels the globe teaching about the biblical foundations of worship. It’s an understatement to say that he’s been a huge influence on my life, including introducing me to this concept of ethnodoxology, worship through the cultures of the world, and the GCAMM community. He has a book coming out this fall called Let Us Draw Near, which many of us have been eagerly waiting for. It’s only because of COVID that he finally had a chance to take a break from his busy travel schedule and write down the things he’s been teaching all these years.

Anyway, without further ado, here is our conversation.

Roger

Ron Man, we’re so happy to have you on this episode today.

Ron

Thanks for having me.

Roger

Yeah, this is awesome. I am really intrigued by your travel schedule. I mean, you travel all over the place. Where have you been recently?

Ron

Well, let’s see… Last November I was in Bangladesh, and then I go to Spain every February to a little Bible school, and then I was at a conference in Pakistan in the spring and then went on from there to Ethiopia to teach in a theological college. I’ve covered some ground.

Roger

Oh, my goodness. How much time do you have between all these trips?

Ron

Well, I usually would limit them to maybe four or five trips a year of two or maximum three weeks at a time.

Roger

Well, it doesn’t sound as bad when you put it that way, but when I get your newsletter, I think, I can’t believe he’s going on another trip. Sometimes it seems like you’re only home for a week or two before you’re off to some other place.

Ron

It’s not quite that bad, but I’ve had a lot of neat opportunities. I guess not that many people do what I do, teaching on worship, biblical worship in that way.

Roger

Yeah. Tell us more. What are you doing? What are you traveling to do?

Ron

Well, my disclaimer, when I go into these places to teach, usually in schools, Bible schools, seminaries, Bible colleges, and whatnot, for a week or two, I usually start out by saying, “I’ve not come to tell you how to do worship in your culture because I’m not from your culture. What I can share with you are biblical principles of worship, which, because they are biblical, by definition, they transcend culture.” That’s what I can share with them.

I have colleagues in some of the organizations we’ll be talking about later, who have been on the mission field for years, decades maybe, in particular spots. After that, after being immersed in the culture for that long, they have a right to speak into some of the actual practices of worship in those cultures. I don’t have that right since I’m just in and out one or two weeks at a time. I don’t try to speak very much about practices. We’ll talk a little bit about practical aspects, but the main thing is just laying these biblical foundations.

It’s really exciting how everywhere I’ve gone in the world, I’ve found real hearts for worship in these students that I teach. That’s something you can’t teach, a heart for worship. But what I’ve found in so many places that with this commitment, this heart for this love for worship already, that when you add some real solid biblical content to it, they just soak it up and come alive. It’d be a lot harder to teach them a heart for worship than to teach them biblical material to undergo this.

Roger

I’m trying to imagine what this looks like. You’re walking into places where everyone speaks a different language, wearing different clothes, perhaps eating different foods. I mean, completely different cultures. But there’s been times when I’ve been in places in the world… I’m thinking of a particular mini-seminar I attended in India where a pastor stood up and said, “We want to transcend culture. We want to think about the culture of heaven. That is the real culture that we’re trying to strive for.” And he went on to denounce Indian culture.

How is what you’re talking about different than that? What does it mean to transcend culture?

Ron

Well, I use an illustration in my teaching of a bridge, which I can’t give you the graphic in this context, of course, but a suspension bridge where the two towers in the illustration represent a biblical framework, which needs to guide us and control us and give that content, that framework to our worship practices.

But then in the illustration of a suspension bridge, I explain that a lot of the weight of the bridge is borne by this cable or suspension span between the two towers, which, unlike the sturdy firm towers sunk deeply into the ground, this cable has to have built into it a lot of flexibility because of changes of temperature and winds and so forth. And that serves in the illustration for the biblical framework being the towers and the span, the flexible span, representing the flexibility or latitude we have in worship practices, which the New Testament seems to allow because it frankly just does not give us a lot of detail about how our worship services should exactly look like.

I think, as it’s been explained, that perhaps that’s God’s way of allowing the gospel as it goes into different cultures and as the church is planted among the nations, that there’s room to breathe the air of that culture and give expression using the music, the arts, the different cultural expressions that are already built into people’s hearts.

I like to give the people that freedom to give expression to that in their own way, in their own context, of their own arts and their own expressions and whatnot. And yet there’s always this biblical framework. And that’s what I try to explain, what I try to teach. In some ways, my job is easy because I teach them for one or two weeks on the biblical foundations and framework, and then I leave. And then they have the hard job of actually putting that into practice in their own context and making it fit into their own expression.

Roger

That’s beautiful. So you’re giving us this picture of this suspension bridge, which can move and flex with the situation. You’re coming into a group of people who are very passionate about worship and giving a context for how to think creatively about what can that look like. How does that affect, I don’t know … obviously the worship songs will be in different languages, but more than that? What does that mean in terms of what instruments we use? What does that mean in terms of what themes we’re singing about? What does that mean in terms of how dance would be part of the liturgy? Or visual arts? Or other things as well?

Ron

I encourage them to think about things maybe they haven’t thought of, but pulling from their own culture, from their own context, what they could pull in and effectively use.

Roger

You know, it always bothers me when I travel around the world and attend various worship services, and I feel like I could be anywhere in the world at any time in history, because I feel like, wow, we’ve really lost the richness of what this could be. I feel like something’s wrong if I’m attending a worship service and it’s exactly the same, whether I’m in India or Malaysia or America or France. There should be differences besides the language that’s spoken, right? Is that what you’re saying?

Ron

Yeah, I really believe that. But there’s another complication in this world of ethnodoxology — we’ll throw that term out right now. You find ethnomusicology in secular universities, which is a study of the different musics of the people of the world. Ethnodoxology is a new field in the world of missions, a newly coined term that speaks to the worship, “ethno” meaning people, and “doxology” meaning praise or glory. It’s how the different peoples of the world praise our great God in their different cultural contexts and whatnot.

This is a growing, burgeoning field in missions that’s grabbed a lot of people’s attention just in recent decades of really valuing and validating the local expressions. Missionaries not coming in as used to be done all too often bringing the gospel dressed in their own cultural clothing. They brought not only the gospel, but too often they brought English and they brought their own dress or their own instruments or own styles and music and whatnot. But there’s been a wonderful development of missionaries being trained and developed to go in and be listeners and learners and take the long route of really immersing themselves in the culture, and then and only then, perhaps, being able to be part of the discussion about what can effectively be used from the culture in the local expressions of worship as the gospel reaches them.

So it’s a wonderful development in the field of missions and has been so effective. They get the Bible translated into their own language and say, “Well, God speaks my language, not just the white man’s language or something coming from the outside.” But the same thing happens with the arts when they say, “Well, God loves my music or my art or my whatnot, and not just what’s brought in from the outside.” That’s been a wonderful and freeing development and so effective in letting people be who they are, what they are, what’s already built into their DNA from childhood up, and that can be a way to give expression to their worship.

In this conference we had that you were part of, Roger, in Africa, the Maasai people came from Tanzania. They’re very distinctive in their dress. They’re very tall and wear these red plaid costumes, and they have very distinctive forms of dance and dress and music and whatnot. It was explained to us at the conference that for a long time, the gospel was not making inroads into their culture until somebody, missionaries were able to make clear to them that they could become Christians and still be Maasai, that they could bring their own expressions to bear in expression of Christian faith.

And then the gospel took hold, and many, many of them came to Christ. So just that valuing and validating of who people are and their culture and the air they breathe has been such a powerful force in missions in the last decade.

Now, the complication I started to make reference to with this is that whether we like it or not, part of the reality is that young people all over the world, especially in urban areas, because of modern communication and the internet and globalization and whatnot, whether we like it or not, Western popular styles of music are part of what we call the heart music of young people all over the world. We want to value local expressions and local instruments, but it can’t be an either/or thing. We don’t want to stomp out the old traditional ways, but we don’t want to say, “Well, the new ways come from the West and they’re not allowed” when it’s what the young people want, what’s being built into them in their own cultural context. So there has to be a both/and, and that makes it complicated and tricky, but we need to give place to both.

And we find that in my country, in the United States as well. You have issues like that between generations here. You have cultural differences, not just between countries or nations. You find cultural differences within individual churches, especially between the generations, young and old, who see things and like things and prefer things in much different ways from one another. And so, again, it needs to be both a teaching aspect and a discipling aspect for the young people to honor the old and the older people to honor the young, and that they both have valid expressions to bring.

If I could tell a quick story that I heard once at a conference. Joe Stowe, who was president of Moody Bible Institute at the time, told this beautiful story. They have a radio station and decided to change their music format. For many, many years they had traditional old-fashioned church hymn, gospel hymn-type music, and they decided to change to a more contemporary music format. They received a letter from an elderly woman who wrote, “I’ve been listening to your station and supporting it financially for years. And I just love the old hymns and the things you broadcast. And now you’ve gone and decided to change the format to this more contemporary style. But,” she wrote, “if you think that’s what’s needed to reach the youth of today, I want you to know I’m 100 % behind it. Here’s my check.” And I thought, “What a beautiful, mature Christian who understands that it’s not just about her, or what I want or what I like.” I often tell that story because I think it’s such a tremendous expression of true Christian love and maturity that we need more of.

Roger

I think it’s interesting about that story of the dancers. I remember them coming in. The rings around their necks and legs and wrists would make this sound that was rhythmic. We were all just amazed at the dress that they had on. But then I remember a number of us Westerners afterwards saw that after the worship service, they changed and changed into Western clothing.

Ron

Oh, did they? I didn’t even notice that.

Roger

We’re like, “Oh!” I think that’s one aspect of what you’re talking about too. It’s not just either or. They are children of Western culture as well that’s prevalent worldwide, but they can also worship through their traditional art forms and feel like, “Yeah, this is special. This is part of our heritage, part of our ancestral family.” But at the same time, they can also join in worship services that have a Western style as well at other times and be able to engage in that.

Ron

I come home after church and change clothes too. Perhaps that’s a similar thing.

Roger

Yeah, a mutual friend of ours, Nancy Nethercott, just sent out her newsletter. I don’t think she’d mind me sharing the story of her at a singing, songwriting workshop somewhere in the world. It wasn’t just about writing new songs in their language, but they ended up adopting themes that are not often talked about in what we may find in Western hymnody or something. Because of where people are coming from in their cultural context, their history, different things they’ve had to go through, they end up wanting to sing about different themes, different perspectives of God’s traits and characteristics than what we may often see.

Ron

Very interesting, yeah. They’d be topics that wouldn’t be normally dealt with in their own culture.

Roger

Right. For example, let me give one that I have experience with. A topic we often see in American songs is rejoicing in God as the resurrected savior, the one who was crucified, but he has come again and he has victory over the grave. And that seems to be something that a lot of contemporary songs today embrace. Whereas in Japan, when we’re writing contemporary songs, it’s usually about the suffering of Christ on the cross. So American songs in general may tend to focus on Easter. Japanese contemporary songs may tend to focus on Good Friday. They’re both true, and you need elements of both, but it’s just because of…Japanese are especially… I don’t know, sensitive, I could say, to the beauty in suffering, the beauty that comes through brokenness. And seeing that in the gospel is something that’s so attractive to the Japanese. And they love singing about it. A lot of the songs I’m thinking about that we’ve written in our church, that Japanese people have been writing, end up having those themes of the suffering servant or the God who knows our pain.

Ron

Yeah, I have a friend who wrote a dissertation on looking at some American songs and hymns and whatnot, and there is that tendency, like you’re saying, of this everything’s great, everything’s fine, looking ahead at what’s what, and not always dealing with some of the hard realities of life. In any culture, I think there needs to be some balance and not neglect one and just focus on the other.

Roger

Yeah, I really believe God speaks through our cultures in different ways, showing his glory, but in ways that help us see him that really fit where we are at as a culture. Some cultures have been really beaten down over the years. And so you end up seeing that in their prayers. You end up seeing that in their worship songs.

Ron

Again, it’s both/and. You have to transcend the culture in a certain sense because you can’t just stay wallowing in the sadness and whatnot because there is victory in Christ and whatnot, but you need to bring the reality of life into our expressions and lament and things like that and have an appropriate place as well.

Roger

Yeah, I want to ask. This conference you’re referencing is GCAMM, Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions. There is a conference coming up this September, which is really exciting. You’re on the board of this organization. I’d like to hear from you more about what this is and how it got started.

Ron

Well, this is our 20th anniversary celebration. We started 20 years ago, and we’re going to be at the same location we started at 20 years ago at Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, who has welcomed us with open arms and are really helping us get this thing going. Since then, we met in Minnesota, then we moved overseas. We met in Singapore, Chiang Mai, Thailand, and Nairobi, Kenya. And the last one was during COVID. We had to do an online version of it, as so many other organizations did. We’re back in person, and we’re excited about this 20th anniversary.

Right before COVID, we decided to change the name. Originally, it was GCoMM, Global Consultation on Music and Missions. We realized that we needed to broaden it, that there’s a place for all of the arts, so visual arts, spoken arts, dance, and all the others. And so, we decided to change the name. We were already reflecting that in what we did, but we wanted to make it more explicit and honor the other arts and not just be primarily about music. So it is now the Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions.

Roger

Why did it start? What was the purpose of these?

Ron

Well, it was to gather people from many different nations and basically celebrate the diversity we’re talking about, and expressions in worship and music, the arts and music in worship in the church, and also in outreach and missions and ministry and discipleship and whatnot. These gatherings have usually been about 200-250 people from about 35 different nations. We have had and will have this fall, plenary speakers giving some biblical foundations again, but there are also a lot of breakout groups talking about specific arts, areas of the arts, specific issues that we face. We’ll gather in breakouts in regional, global regions of the world and break up that way. Lots of time for fellowship and interaction. That networking is just a huge aspect of that.

20 years ago, when the first GCoMM was held, another group was born at the same time called the International Council of Ethnodoxologists. The name has since been changed because ICE sounds too much like border control in the United States. And so they changed the name to the Global Ethnodoxology Network.

GCAMM is an event and GEN is a global organization, not really an organization so much as an umbrella network of people all over the world that are involved in using the arts in different ways in missions, work, outreach, worship, teaching, discipleship, and whatnot. It’s just a way to connect people and resource people and help people see how they can cooperate together. It’s been wonderful how both the organization GEN and the event GCAMM have grown over the years and have been particularly valuable. I think you, Roger, yourself have given testimony to what it’s meant in your life. Maybe you want to comment on that.

Roger

Yeah, definitely! But as you were speaking, I was thinking about the discussion you led at the gathering in Kenya. It was interesting to me how they were talking about which instruments are okay to use in worship. There was a traditional instrument that, I forget the name of it, but that the people were like, “Oh, no, you can’t use that instrument in worship because it has religious significance that isn’t Christian. That’s very distracting, so we can’t use that.” But in the discussion, we found out that if they had just moved … what was it? … a piece of red cloth, one little change to the instrument, and suddenly it was okay. Because then it wasn’t used for idol worship anymore, it could be used for Christian worship. We all around the room were like, “Oh, interesting!” To be able to share stories like that and to hear about the debates that people are having around the world and to share that together was fascinating to me.

Ron

Because it’s part of that whole discussion is that as we say, we want to value and validate local expressions. It does not mean that anything goes. We don’t just pull anything from the culture. One of the most common questions I get when I travel is the question, “Is such and such music appropriate for use in Christian worship?” It can be in all different kinds of categories. It’s a difficult question. Sometimes, like I said, even in my country, the generations will have different ideas about what’s acceptable and what isn’t. But the fact of the matter is that it’s tricky, and it doesn’t mean you just pull anything in from the culture, but you have to use some discernment and biblical wisdom. A lot has to do with associations, as you were saying, if a particular instrument or a particular music or art form was used in ancestor worship or demon worship even, that maybe you better leave it alone or at least remove the “red cloth,” to make it acceptable. Actually missionaries, ethnodoxologists or arts consultants as they’re sometimes called, are receiving pretty advanced training now to be able to go into these fields and use discernment and help the people consider together some of these things and what can be fruitfully brought in and what best be left alone.

It’s a tricky thing. The Bible doesn’t address all these different instruments and art forms and whatnot, so we need to bring biblical wisdom to bear. Paul says, “All things are lawful, not all things are profitable.” What’s going to be profitable? That will differ from culture to culture. What can be brought in and what should we best leave alone and not bring in? It takes care. It needs wisdom. It takes some specialized training, but also listening to the locals, as you’re saying, to hear their stories and what their real intentions are and meanings and associations are, so we can make those decisions in a biblical and wise way.

Roger

Yeah, definitely. The first GCAMM I went to was in Chiang Mai, Thailand. First of all, the thing that impressed me the most was the love that everyone was showing for each other. These are people from all over the world wrestling with these questions. What does worship look like in our context?

We met at a school there, a Christian art school, and dance is really big at that school. So we were led in worship through traditional Thai dance. I guess before that point in my mind, I thought of the arts as something like contextualization, only a tool that you try to use to reach people. But when it comes from the native people themselves, like the Thai saying, “This is our native dance. We want to use this to worship God. What does that look like?” And to figure it out within that community was just such a beautiful thing. It didn’t seem contrived. There was a beauty about it that just made my own heart sing, “Oh, there’s so many ways that we can praise God.”

And I felt like I was getting a picture of heaven itself, where I’m not just praising God in different languages, but through every culture, every dance, all the traditional clothing of the world. To see just a little glimpse of that was such a beautiful thing that led me in worship. I think as missionaries, sometimes we have this concept that we come in and think, “Okay, how can I contextualize this so that those people know the gospel?” and fail to see the reverse happening. Like, “Oh, I am led in worship of God because of what I am seeing the people here doing.”

Ron

Right. The beauty of that diversity is what you’re talking about, I think. Like you say, there can never be too many ways to praise our Almighty God. God is a creator God. He’s created a world of incredible diversity. I think that diversity honors him and glorifies him when we can bring all that to bear from all the nations of the world and give our own expressions to it and not a one-size-fits-all approach to it.

Roger

Yeah, I think what you just said there, that explains why people should come to GCAMM in September, right? Is to see all these different ways that God is being praised and be drawn in themselves. Is there anything you’d add to that? Why do you think they should go?

Ron

As I said before, a lot of it is just networking and connecting with people and learning from what others are doing. But how can we cooperate together?

We’d love to see regional conferences like this spun off, or people from East Asia, like you, and there’s a group in Europe that’s talking about having one there. There’s a group in the Caribbean that would like to pull one together. South America. We’d love to see that happen as well. You’re informing, enriching one another, instilling cooperation and mutual aid and cooperative efforts and things we can do together. There’s a lot of opportunity for that. There’s a rich learning environment.

Networking is the name of the game, I think, in many ways when it comes to this, that’s just mutually enriching. It’s a great place to network, like you said, on a level that comes from a common love and commitment not only for the Lord, but for worship and for artistic expressions of worship. Just to bask in the glory of all that diversity is something that is really rich. I’ve come away really impressed and loving the Lord more and his people more just from seeing that glory.

Roger

Well, I can’t wait. Hey, let’s do it now. No, I guess we’re going to have to wait.

Ron

Till September. September 11-14 in Fort Worth, Texas at Southwestern Baptist University. You can find out all the information at https://gcommhome.org/. All the information is there about all the things happening and how you can register and whatnot. The GEN, the Global Ethnodoxology Network, this umbrella organization has a website too that’s called https://www.worldofworship.org/.

But the event in September, we’re really excited about it. People are signing up or gathering that diversity from the nations to come and celebrate together. We’re very excited that Roger Lowther is going to be one of our plenary speakers, and he’s going to speak to us from his context of his fruitful artistic ministry in Japan. But he’s also, as he was telling me today, is going to share about just what GCAMM has meant to him and how it’s enriched him and widened his horizons. He’s just a great poster boy for the event and what it can mean among an arts worker.

Roger

Yeah, I’m really honored to have the chance to share how it really has changed the way I think about ministry as we do it in Japan.

Ron

That’s wonderful. That’ll be really encouraging to hear at this 20th anniversary celebration as well. Very cool.

Roger

Well, we need to stop soon. But before we do, I’d love to let people know about your book that’s coming out. It’s pretty exciting. Can you tell us something about that?

Ron

Well, I’ve got a basic course that I teach on the biblical foundations of worship that just walks people through and deals with some fundamental introductory issues about worship, the revelation and response paradigm of worship, and walks the students through the Old Testament, the New Testament, talk about the centrality of worship throughout the Bible and how that’s a major theme, if not the integrating theme of the whole scriptures and the biblical story. I’ve been teaching this course, and I’ll be teaching this fall in Turkey, which will be the 40th country that I’ve had the opportunity to teach on worship. I’ve had tremendous opportunities.

One benefit along with all the downsides of COVID was that it gave me an opportunity, because of not being able to travel so much or at all, to actually put that course into book form. That’s what I’ve done. As I grow older and maybe will travel a little less if I’m not able to come. I’ve got a book now to say this is the course. This is basically everything I’ve been talking about, everything I’ve been teaching for the last 20 years I’ve now got into a book. I’m really excited about that.

I have a publisher. It’s in process. It’s going slowly. Hopefully, it will be out this fall, I think. But anyway, it’s called, Let Us Draw Near: Biblical Foundations of Worship. That phrase, of course, comes from Hebrews 10:19-22, where it says,

“Since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,” the writer says, “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.”

Christ has opened the way, done everything necessary to have free access into the presence of God, a uniquely New Testament understanding of worship. And that open access we have in and through and even with Christ into the presence of God. That’s the title, Let Us Draw Near. It’s laying biblical foundations of Worship. It’s going to be a big book. It’s a textbook. But I’ve just poured everything into it, everything I know virtually and everything I’ve been teaching about for 20 years. I’m excited that it’s down and I’m excited too that it’s going to come out. I hope this textbook will be useful in schools and to lay people, anybody who wants to know these biblical foundations in our worship.

Roger

Yeah, it’s very exciting. I’m so glad it’s finally getting into print form because I’ve been able to hear you speak in a number of places in the world now, including Japan. I remember when you were teaching in my home, we had a large group of people, and that ended up sparking conversations that lasted for months afterwards, people just trying to wrestle with the content that you’re bringing up. So it’s going to be used mightily, I know. So, Ron, thank you so much for sitting down tonight. It was awesome to be able to talk with you about these things.

Ron

Well, it’s a pleasure. Thank you. I always love talking about it. And looking forward to maybe seeing many of you at GCAMM in September.

Roger

Yeah, I’ll see you there!

So GCAMM is pretty cool, and I really do hope to see many of you there. This is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the Art Life Faith Podcast. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

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49. A Café Performance

Welcome to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast. I’m your host, Roger Lowther. This is the show where we bring conversations and stories we’ve been having here in Japan and report them back to you, the listener, so that you too can join in the conversation from a distance. This is a chance for you to see and hear a little of what God is doing here in Japan.

Well, leading into this summer, 2023, we’ve been flooding our hopes and dreams and plans with prayer. We were praying for two things. One, for God to open hearts to be willing to meet in community again after a long period of isolation in COVID-19. Two, for God to use the energy and enthusiasm of five interns who were planning to come and join our team this summer from the US to spread the gospel. We’ve seen both happen. Man, we’ve seen both happen in spades.

In order to tell you one of these stories, I need to jump back a few years. From early on in the life of Grace City Church Tokyo, the church that we’ve helped start in 2010, we’ve had a gospel choir. The choir, made up of Japanese people, was a way to gather people and build relationships. Through it, we had a chance to give not only a taste of Christian community, but to really look in-depth at the gospel every week through words that were being sung. The lyrics were, of course, themes and scripture taken directly from the Bible. It also filled a felt need that Japanese people love to sing. Then in 2011, we had a terrible earthquake. This choir played an important role in bringing hope and healing to people in the disaster area during a very dark time.

One of the men in this choir, who for the sake of this podcast I’ll call Suzuki-san, supported the relief work and ended up joining the choir. Over the years, this choir continued, and he sang not only in various places around the city, but also in worship services at our church. Through those experiences, Suzuki-san and his family experienced Christian worship for the first time, and they continued to experience Christian worship for many years to come. Moving the story along, Suzuki-san has a daughter. For the sake of this podcast, I’ll call her Miki-san. Now, Miki-san is a dancer. One Friday evening at our Art Life Faith event, one of our summer interns, Gardner, danced. Another intern, Faith, played the piano and accompanied her. Man, it was a great event. I really wish you all could have been there, but especially to join in the extended fellowship time that we had afterward. We were able to connect in really deep ways with the people who came. Well, it was at that event that Gardner, Faith, and Miki met for the first time. And they hit it off immediately. They’re all the same age, they’re all same year in college, and they’re all artists.

Over the days and weeks ahead, their relationship only continued to grow. And so did Miki-san’s relationship with God. That following week, she came to worship and watched as Gardner danced for the offertory and Faith played on the keyboard. It was a great rendition of Mary, Jesus’s mother, responding to the call of God. Miki-san was moved to tears because she felt that very same pull in her own life. Afterwards, she told Gardner, “Every time I’m around Christians, I feel God calling me. Every time I read the Bible, I feel God pulling me toward him.”

Well, during that following week, Miki-san was studying the Bible with the interns and prayed with them. Then God led her one step further. She said she wanted to be washed with that “Christian water.” She wanted to be baptized. And that following Sunday, she met with the pastor and an elder to share why she wanted to be baptized. She shared how God had been slowly working in her life, in her heart for all these years, ever since she started coming to worship services to hear her father sing in the choir.

My wife, Abi, asked Miki-san’s mother how she felt about the baptism, and she responded, “Iin ja nai,” which means, “Sure, why not?” She was happy for her daughter, for the joy and community she had found. She also said she was happy that her daughter was free to make this decision, that she wasn’t bound by the usual Japanese traditions to care for the family altar.

I had dinner with Miki-sans’ father just a few days later to make sure things were okay. I definitely didn’t want to do anything that hurt our relationship or caused a rift in the family. He made it clear that although he wasn’t interested in himself becoming a Christian, and that he thought the idea of baptism was way too exclusive, but that he supported his daughter. If this is what she wanted, he was okay with it.

So Miki-san joined the baptism class, and a couple of months later, just this past month, she was baptized. The service was pretty exciting. In fact, this whole story to me is really exciting. I mean, don’t you see the difference that prayer makes? God responded in ways so far beyond what we asked or hoped for.

There’s another piece to the story that I’d like to share with you as well. This whole summer, a symbol of prayer had been following us to all of our events. Our Japanese intern, Mayuko Shono, designed a collaborative arts project for a church that was inviting me to come speak in their global missions conference. She instructed the people to tear pieces of origami paper representing brokenness and prayerfully lay each one down to make three very colorful panels of Mt. Fuji and Jesus carrying the cross up that mountain. Hundreds participated in the work. Then the panels were displayed in the lobby for many weeks to encourage people to continue to pray. But it was still not finished. Then when the panels were sent to Japan, we symbolically built on this visible foundation of prayer. We ripped pieces of pink origami paper and glued them on what seemed to be a dead cherry tree. Through person after person, event after event, the tree blossomed and bloomed and grew as a visual reminder of the fruit of prayer. We plan to continue to display these panels this fall and add birds representing life and freedom and abundance. On each of the pieces of paper, people wrote short messages, notes of encouragement, short prayers, and words of scripture. It’s a living piece of art that continues to grow and expand with the participation of each new person.

People ask me all the time, “What is the role of the arts in missions?” Well, I hope that through this one story, you get a brief glimpse of an answer. Gospel music, dance, an art collaborative piece, all these things helped to bring one young woman to faith and spread the gospel to many, many more.

For the rest of this episode, I’d like to share with you a conversation I had at one of these events where the interns were performing. I sat down with Christopher, an artist who lives in Berlin. He happened to be in Japan for the day to lead a multi-day workshop at Gallery nani, an art gallery in Nagoya run by our teammates, Peter and Diane Bakelaar. Here is our conversation:

Roger

We are sitting here live in Tokyo at the IQ Cafe in this really chic space, overlooking a busy intersection in Shibuya, one of the coolest parts of Tokyo. And tonight we had a performance of a dancer and a pianist, and they shared their testimony to an audience that is mostly non-Christian. There’re Christians in the audience, but there’re a lot of non-Christians as well. And they’re currently in the other room still talking and discussing various questions that have been prepared for them. I’m sitting here with Christopher, who is visiting from Berlin. I thought we’d talk first a little bit about this event.

It was a cool event, wasn’t it?

Christopher

Yeah, it really had energy to it, I would say.

Roger

Yeah, it did, didn’t it? People were really drawn into what was going on. It wasn’t a large space, but I guess there was like, I don’t know, 100 people maybe? And we were all sitting around tables about six or seven per table. And now people are talking and building community around those tables. And art just brought down a lot of walls. A lot of the people didn’t know each other before this event. So this is just one more example of how arts can bring people together. But I don’t know, what did you think about the performance itself?

Christopher

I thought it was, again, an example of…oftentimes you think some type of event of this nature, of a performance with a piano player as well as a dancer, that they need these large spaces, that it really needs to be at a certain level in order for it to impact people. And as you described, Roger, it was really an intimate space. And I think oftentimes having those intimate spaces actually create opportunities for relationship, for connection, because there’s not that much distance between stage and audience. They all actually become one. And I was able to see that with the dancer, right there interacting with the audience, and the audience was able to feel that they were connecting with the dancer, which actually enables opportunity for community with one another.

Roger

Definitely. It felt like that. It was not just watching a performance, but it was like we were all engaged with them.

Christopher

It’s something where you cannot not engage with it because it’s so much in your face and not in a way that is threatening, but in a way that is actually intimate and inviting.

Roger

My eyes kept getting distracted, too, by the wall of windows behind them, just looking out and seeing the train that kept going by on the Yamanote Line, which goes all around downtown Tokyo, and all the people walking out on the intersection. I was just like, “This is so cool that we’re here and we’re talking about Christ in this environment, downtown Tokyo.” This isn’t a church space, really. We’re in this tall building used as an office during the week. That struck me. We didn’t have to separate out Christianity or our faith from the city or from the workplace or something like that. But this is happening right here in this community building.

Christopher

That’s why we have so many different spaces is this dichotomy. This is the place I go for church. And this is the place that I go to hang out with my friends. And this is the space that I might go for some artistic event or some cultural event. But I really believe that we’re made to be holistic humans. We’re wearing all these different hats, and we’re going to all these different spaces. And at the same time, we’re like, “Why can’t it all be brought together? Why can’t it all be holistic the way that it was made to be?”

Roger

Definitely.

Christopher

It’s beautiful seeing that.

Roger

That’s a really good segue into who you are. The listening audience is probably curious about that. So you live in Berlin?

Christopher

I do.

Roger

What do you do there?

Christopher

I’ve been in Berlin for almost 18 years now, and we run a cultural center. And the idea of the cultural center is to bring together the business and the art as well as the social sector into one place. And it’s important to be able to see culture holistically. And it actually relates to my story as far as where it even or why it came to be.

Roger

Practically what does that look like…business and art and social sector?

Christopher

Well, for me it’s the aspect of that holistic living that you were talking about. I always struggle to figure out, well, where do I belong in culture? There’s an artistic side where I really enjoy going to museums. I did some drawing classes. But on the other side, I have a degree in psychology and sociology and communication and worked as a social worker. And so I have a passion for social work and things that are going on there, but have a job just like anyone else and work for a living. And I’m involved in the business world and always felt like I had to choose. And everyone wanted to be a different person in those different places. But realizing that as I allowed one of those sides to die, either my creative artistic side or my heart for people and for caring and for society, I felt that I was more pleasing others than I was actually being able to live where I was. And so as I told my story to other people, realized that a lot of people were feeling that way. And so the question was, then what does it mean? And what does it look like to create a space where you don’t have to choose who I’m supposed to be in a particular place, that I can actually be in a space where I can be creative and at the same time, I can do my job.

At the same time, I can be having an evening discussion looking at breast cancer because I have a friend that is struggling with it and have an exhibit in our gallery. So right now is a great example as far as how that comes together. We just had an opening in our gallery this past Friday, and in the gallery, it’s looking at breast cancer awareness. And there we invited an artist from Austria and a dancer from Morocco whom the photographer photographed. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at 29, and it had a huge impact on her. The photographer wanted to photograph because of the dance that she does. She’s a professional dancer. In the end, there’s an exhibit of this photographer’s work, photography, black and white, of this woman doing dance, but at the same time addressing the topic of breast cancer.

Now, it just doesn’t end there. It’s actually taking place in this space in which people from our shared office space who actually rent desks and offices are able to come to. They’re able to encounter artwork that’s absolutely beautiful photography. In the evening of the opening, we also had a dance performance that normally they wouldn’t go, particularly to a gallery, but since it’s in the same space, they’re able to encounter art.

That simultaneously is discussing a social topic that so many people are affected by in regards to breast cancer. And so there’s these professional people that have businesses that are involved in that that are able to experience the beauty of art and photography without leaving the space with people who come in from the neighborhood, who are interested in artistic and creative things. And at the same time, those who are interested in social topics who might be struggling themselves with breast cancer come to the exhibit. So it’s bringing people together that normally wouldn’t interact and engage with one another, but they all have a passion and an interest or some type of connection to what’s going on. And so we need to be thinking holistically. How do we reach or how do we connect or how do we engage with one particular audience? How are we thinking holistically of what connects our hearts? And it’s our stories that connect us. And how do we create the place for those stories to be able to be shared as well as to be able to be heard?

Roger

Yeah, that’s really important, to create that space so those discussions can take place and bring those people together.

Now, I want to ask you, why are you in Japan today? What are you doing here?

Christopher

What am I doing here? It’s a good question. Yeah, four years ago, I was able to speak at a conference and it was a great opportunity for me to connect with the Japanese culture as well as Community Arts Tokyo and meet some people and build relationships. And I had a whole new perspective and experience from being able to be here. And part of my heart just grew in love with the city of Tokyo as well as the people that are here.

Roger

Yeah, I should add, Christopher came and he spoke in one of our conferences a number of years ago, and it was a great hit. And after that led a discussion with a lot of people and then made friendships through that. In fact, we even had dinner with one of them last night.

Christopher

Yeah, it was amazing reconnecting with them.

Roger

Years later, you still have kept those relationships going.

Christopher

And today…someone actually moved to Berlin after the conference and worked at our cultural center for a year and a half of volunteering. And he moved back to Tokyo and I was able to have lunch with him yesterday as well. So it’s amazing as far as that importance of creating that space that the conference did and to be able to connect with one another. And so, I’m now headed down to Nagoya. Starting on Saturday, I’m leading a workshop that’s looking at the restoration of shalom. It’s our longing for beauty, our longing for community, and our longing for identity. And it’s unpacking what is that longing for beauty. What does it really mean? And beauty is not just art. I like to break down beauty into three different aspects. You have created beauty, which means in regards to artwork. It could be a table. It could be an Excel sheet, actually. My wife does finances, and she thinks Excel sheets are the most beautiful things that ever were created. Iit also is creation.

Roger

Not when I make them!

Christopher

Yeah, exactly, but also creation in regards to nature. But there also is the third type of beauty, which I define as the way that we love one another. There’s a moral and ethical beauty that actually brings us hope. But then our belonging for identity that we all want to be known. But where does our identity come from? How do we live our identity out? Our identity is not found in the roles that are given to us, but the roles that we have actually enable us to live out the identity that’s given to us. And lastly, the aspect of community.

Roger

Yeah, so you’re going down to Nagoya. Peter and Diane Bakelaar run Gallery nani, where you’re doing this event. And the community is totally behind everything that they’re doing down there. They’ve made thousands of relationships with the community. They’re so trusted there and want to keep encouraging these kinds of discussions that you’re talking about.

So tell me more, though. What does that look like in terms of… I don’t know. This is a multi-day thing, right? What is the take-away that you’re hoping for after this?

Christopher

One of the expressions I use is that personal renewal leads to cultural renewal. We need to focus on cultural renewal. We need to go out there and seek all things new. But the reality is, do we have an understanding of what these things mean to ourselves? And so the workshop is actually a series of roundtable discussions in regards to beauty or what does it mean to engage. One thing you brought up tonight was in regards to collaboration as well. What does collaboration even mean? Oftentimes in Christian circles we talk about commission. What is commission? It’s helping us to have a better understanding of what are these things that we’re called to and not just in a language that we might read in theological terms or language that we might use in biblical terms. But really, what does it mean for me to understand this? Not in the sense of my head, because we have a lot of head knowledge, but head knowledge is not actually what changes culture. Head knowledge is not actually even what changes us.

We get frustrated all the time when we get in a difficult or challenging situation. We’re like, I know what I’m supposed to believe. I know what I’m supposed to do. But the reality is, we wrestle because we’re still disappointed that’s not happening. The point of these workshops is, what does it mean to take this information from our head and actually to have it trickle down to our heart, that our hearts are renewed, that I have a renewal, and what beauty means to me in the way that I see it, that I have renewal in my heart, not just as far as what I’m told what my identity is in Christ. We can use these words and throw them around in stories that we share. But what does that mean to me personally and not just in words? And lastly, we talk about the importance of community, but do we really recognize as far as the sacrifice that community has, but the importance and the role that it plays in our lives?

Roger

So basically helping people see what it looks like to live it out, right? Rather than just talking about the concepts.

Christopher

And also to do it holistically. There can be roundtable discussions that do in some ways involve your head, but it’s involving the head, heart, and hands in the sense of allowing a place for personal connection, for our heart stories to come out and not just head knowledge to come out. And then secondly, it’s actually going and actually doing practical hands-on things in the city of Nagoya and Seto and going to observe things. We’ll be going to some art galleries, but at the same time, we’ll be involving and engaging in social work projects and not just talking about it, but here we’re going to help out in a social work project in Nagoya when we’re talking about community and the importance that it is to serve.

Roger

Yeah, that’s awesome. And I know, watching you teach in the past, you have a real heart for connecting with people. That’s really what it’s about. And you’re telling me how you would work through what you’re going to say, but now that you’ve done it 100 times, you can really pour into the people and what are they needing, what are they thinking, and build those relationships between people.

Christopher

And that’s why I’ve done these workshops hundreds of times now. And I still love giving them because it’s always new people and it’s new stories. And one of the aspects is that how much I grow, it can be selfish. It’s like every time that I leave the workshop, I grow as a person because I hear a new story. I understand beauty in new ways. Actually, I love that oftentimes in our culture, we say that, “Oh, I need time by myself in order to discover more who I am.” I’ve discovered more who I am through being in community and hearing other people’s stories and seeing other people’s brokenness in my own brokenness. There’s beauty that comes through that. And so it’s really how do we continue to create those spaces for that to occur.

Roger

I think that’s an especially important message here in Japan. We’re still trying to crawl out of this hole of COVID and people are like, “Oh, you know what? Maybe we just don’t need community anymore. We can just meet online once in a while, send some messages to people, but we don’t need to be gathering.” But you just can’t get any of the things that you’re talking about. Or like tonight, the intimacy that we felt, the power of that, it can’t be done online. You have to be there in person.

Christopher

How many of these people quite possibly got invited through someone else and were able to experience this beautiful performance who might not ever go to performance? And they might actually then learn, “Wait, I never thought that I enjoyed classical dance. And now I’m learning something new about myself.” Then they’re actually being exposed to a greater beauty that they didn’t even know. And so they’re understanding more the fullness of beauty and that all beauty actually reflects God.

Roger

Yeah, definitely. I think we better end there so we can go back out and talk to more people. But thank you, Christopher.

Christopher

Hey, no problem. Thanks so much for having me. Take care.

Roger

This is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the Art Life Faith podcast. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

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Thank you, Tim Keller, For My Dorm Room!

One evening in the fall of 1992, during my first year of college, I attended a “cultural diversity” seminar (I think that’s what it was called…), mandatory for students who wanted a single dorm room in the Juilliard residence hall. I desperately wanted a single room, because I was not in a good situation. My roommate occasionally smoked illegal recreational drugs and often had girls over to spend the night in our very cramped room. Many times, I resorted to sleeping on the couch in the common room or in the library when it was open.

So with this intent alone, I attended this seminar with perhaps 60 others … though, to be honest, I would have much rather been anywhere else practicing. I chose a chair in the very back of the dark room, slouched down, and prepared for a long nap while the speaker was introduced and came to the microphone.

“Good evening. I’m a pastor here in the city,” he began, “and I’ve been invited to speak with you this evening about what the Bible has to say to artists, and why the arts are crucial.” That opening opened my ears, but I kept my eyes closed. He spent most of his time talking about an artist who painted a leaf and died but found his work finished and perfected in heaven as a full living tree. Now, that opened my eyes! All my striving for perfection on the stage — in front of audiences, in front of judges, in front of teachers and peers — this pastor confirmed that it was good, and that, in fact, it was nothing less than a picture of heaven itself. But that perfection is unattainable to us, but there is a greater artist, the Artist (capital A) to whom all artists points, who has accomplished it for us. I had never heard someone talk about music and the arts that way before. I needed to know more.

Before the lights came on, while the MC was explaining how to get credit for attendance, I went up and put my hand on the shoulder of the speaker. I realized my mistake (approaching people in a dark room while the event is still happening) when he visibly jumped. “Please tell me,” I rushed in embarrassment for startling him, “who wrote that story you were talking about and what is it called?”

“J.R.R. Tolkien. Leaf by Niggle,” he said.

I thanked him and rushed back to my seat to write it down. I had never heard of Tolkien. I had not even never heard of The Lord of the Rings.

I forgot to get the pastor’s name and had to go to the student affairs office the next day to see what information they had on him. They told me his name was Timothy Keller and that he led a church called Redeemer. Not long after, I started to attend their worship services. It was a small church at that point, of about 250, that only met in the evenings on the upper East side. (They couldn’t meet in the mornings because of another church that met there.) It was not easy for me to get to because the subway lines didn’t go across Central Park and it was not a good time as the organ practice rooms were only open on Sunday afternoons. But I went to learn more.

Years later, I sometimes played the organ in worship in the mornings when they moved to the bigger venue of Hunter College Auditorium. And I invited Keller (with other Intervarsity students) to speak numerous times at Columbia University, the other school I went to. (One Good Friday gathering in the lobby of my dorm, John Jay Hall, was especially powerful! At that time, I was a premed student and he addressed all 40 in the room as premed students, from the viewpoint of Luke as a doctor. I think I can repeat that whole talk to you verbatim…)

Over the years, I gained a vision for world missions and the city and the arts and how the gospel applies to all of life. I read every book he quoted as I rode the 1 and 9 subway lines commuting back and forth between Juilliard and Columbia every day for classes, buying them at the Barnes ‘n Noble right next to the school. I heard him speak at NYU and the Columbia Law School and many colleges and secular venues across the city. In 2005, because of this background with Redeemer, I got pulled into helping to start a church in downtown Tokyo through City to City.

With Tim’s passing from cancer a month ago, I will never get to tell him, “Thank you, I got my dorm room!” No doubt, that would have been perplexing. Fortunately, I did get to thank him after one of his talks in Memphis for how he (unknowingly) led me into a life of world missions. His response, “Wow… Thank you… How do you respond to something like that?…”

I am so thankful for him and his ministry. I will continue to share what he taught me, sitting under his teaching for those six years in New York in the 90s and then many of his talks and books since. I will continue to encourage artists in far-flung corners of the world as he encouraged me all those years ago as a young and foolish college student.

Christ works in ways far beyond we realize, but one day we will join him in heaven and find our “leaf” finished and perfected. In the meantime, we can be assured of this. God uses the little things to build his kingdom for the sake of his glory, even speaking to a small group of musicians who would rather be anywhere else practicing.

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