Freshness and Hope: A call to artists

Boredom
I am a teacher. I've taught 4th grade for 26 years. Since I get bored easier than anyone I know, how is it possible that I have done this one thing over and over for so long? Same curriculum, same state, same district, same textbooks...

Freshness
What does the Bible say about making something fresh? Start with the Old Testament: Moses and the law; then judges extended understanding. What about the Psalms? How well did those fit with Leviticus and Numbers? What about Song of Solomon? Do you think it blew some religious leaders’ minds when it first came out? I think it still blows religious minds today.

So, think about all that the nation of Israel had figured out about what God wants – and then Jesus comes along. The religious leaders came to him with what they had figured out, presented that to Jesus, and what did he do? He gave examples. In some examples, he said that the answers or solutions were because of the hardness of their hearts. He never ever ever settled for the figured-out solution. He always extended it. Made it fresh. Look at the rich young ruler.

Now look at the history of the New Testament. I would say that we are in the New Testament. We have had 2,000 years of religious leaders figuring things out. Does anybody see a pattern here?

A teacher's job is to get new ideas into the heads of students. How do they do that? Or rather how do students learn? I'll tell you. Teachers take what students already know, they find a pattern, and then hook a new idea onto that pattern, onto what students already know. That is how the brain learns. It creates or discovers patterns. Good teachers do not throw everything out to the students every year. They find what students already know and build on that. In kindergarten they teach letters and numbers, which builds into math and reading, then into algebra, geometry, calculus, writing, thinking, and more learning.

Church has been more preoccupied with the past revelations of God to other people than to looking to the fresh, daily bread. Does that mean throwing out everything we already know? No, there should be a richness in experience with scriptures. Jesus knew the scriptures well. But he said that the religious leaders were analagous to tombs, full of dead rotten things. What happened to the manna in the desert when people tried to keep it for more than one day?

So, we come to us. The artists. Those that easily are bored. Those that need and are obsessed and cannot help needing their lives to be fresh, daily. I believe that we are explorers for the church. We look for the fresh bread that God bakes each morning. Jesus prayed that God would give us our daily bread. So, we begin with the word FRESH.

Hope
The second word I would try to plant in you is HOPE.

Let me ask you, if hope has eyes, if hope can see, where does it look, where does it see? In which direction? Does hope look backwards? Does hope look at the present? No, hope looks ahead. Hope tries to see what God is about to do, what God wants to do. Hope brings in fresh air where the air has become stale. Hope brings in fresh dreams where dreams have been used over and over until they no longer mean the same thing or we cannot see what the original dreamer saw. I would say that Hope makes the kingdom of heaven come alive.

That is why artists are prophets. We are looking for the fresh word for today about what is coming. Not disregarding the words from yesterdays. We look to be like Jesus. Extending God’s words. There is much more ahead of us, coming from God, than what is behind us. Who believes that? We see so much of what is behind us and it is so rich that it would be easy to think that God has already revealed the bulk of what he is going to reveal. What does the scripture say? Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard…

Ephesians 1:15-23  (NIV)

For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

by Rick Van Dyke

HopeArts Reboot, August 2008 Meeting

On Monday evening, August 11, we had our second HopeArts meal and discussion as we continue to “think together” what HopeArts can be in this new season. Our goals are to continue answering the following two questions:

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What should the goals of HopeArts be?

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What are we, as individuals and a group, gifted and called to do to accomplish these goals?

The following items were addressed and/or discussed in the meeting:

1. The fall Prospectus for the “hope” themed exhibit, 8MM, and writing thingamajig is now available, in print, at church, and on the website – dive in! This prospectus includes guidelines for three different types of submissions:

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Visual Arts (including three-dimensional work – we now have pedestals)

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Literary Arts – can be included on the website, as part of the visual arts exhibit, and/or as readings during 8 Minutes Max.

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Performing Arts – 8 Minutes Max is scheduled for October 11. One change is that you must now submit an entry form before the event.

Note

: the deadline for Visual Arts entries, Literary Arts entries, and 8MM entry forms is September 28.

2. The calendar for seasonal events this year is under review. The long-term goal is to have the themes for the year decided and communicated before each new year of events begins (before September). Another goal is to have these themes better coordinated with the life of Hope Chapel, with sermon series, church activities, etc.

3. The HopeArts Website is current and active, so be sure to thank Kate Van Dyke for keeping up with this. Use it as a resource, check the calendar frequently, send in any calendar entries for events you find out about, and comment on the blog.

4. In an effort to connect the life of HopeArts better with the life of Hope Chapel, we hope to plan a time in the next few months for the artists and the elders to get together to meet and get to know one another.

5. We reviewed the ideas that we came up with together in July’s meeting and some thoughts about the link between connecting with others and serving others.

6. The leadership structure for HopeArts is still under consideration, but here is our current plan for the two types of groups that would make things happen:

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An Arts Councily Thingy (currently Jack Dorman, Wendy Dooldeniya, Rick Van Dyke and Kelly Foster) would oversee the overall coordination, planning, and pastoring of HopeArts. This group is likely to stay fairly small to help keep it focused and to allow more people to be involved in more specific leadership teams.

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Task-, Issue-, or Event-Related Teams would each have a specific focus such as ‘Visual Arts Exhibits’ or ‘Communication’ or ‘Special Services’. As people are interested and excited about particular kinds of activities, our goal will be to provide these kinds of opportunities to serve.

We are still listening to find out what people want to happen, who feels called to serve, what elements of HopeArts are not currently being covered in our current leadership team. Continue to pray for HopeArts and ask for direction and discernment for your role in it. And let Jack, Wendy, Rick or Kelly know what your hear. Any ideas for names for these two types of groups would be much appreciated as well.

7. It was asked if there would be a HopeArts Festival this coming summer. There has been no determination yet, but planning would need to begin very soon if the answer is yes. The festival requires a lot of commitment by a lot of people. So pray, listen, consider, and let us know what you think.

8. We played a quick game of HopeArts Bingo as an unconventional way of brainstorming and getting broad input into the kinds of activities people are interested in making happen. The input we got should be quite useful and is being reviewed and analyzed.

9. Count on the second Monday of each month for HopeArts gatherings. Watch for more details concerning our September 8 get-together.

Kelly Foster

Service via relationships

For all the depth and complexity of living the Christian life, our
main tasks are remarkably clear and simple: Love God and love your
neighbor. Our model for how to love our neighbor – to love each other
whoever that other happens to be – is the way God loved us through the
two primary acts of the Incarnation and the Crucifixion of Jesus.

The Incarnation tells us that God does not find it adequate to love us
from a distance. God desires to be with us, to know us, to connect
with us. Our Creator is relational and He made us that way as well.
We see this at the beginning of things in the Garden of Eden and at
the end of things at the New Jerusalem.

The Crucifixion graphically illustrates for us that God’s love is self-
giving beyond what we can even imagine. Jesus ‘emptied himself’ in
the greatest act of love imaginable. So we have these two main
actions of love: being with one another and giving of ourselves for
one another, connecting and serving.

Connecting

As simple as it sounds, being together with one another is of central
importance to the Christian life. Our culture’s overvaluation of
freedom and independence has led us to intentionally build a society
based on separateness and alienation, so building intentional
relationships is a rebellious, counter-cultural act. It is also very
difficult to build relationships when everyday incidental interactions
with one another rarely happen. So we have to be deliberate about
getting together and getting to know one another. We have to be
patient in building relationships, it takes lots of time and cannot be
rushed. And we have to make this happen at every scale, from larger
communities to smaller family-sized groups to developing close
friendships.

Serving

‘Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests
of others’ (Phil. 2:4). If there is anything more un-American than
giving up our independence to be with others, it’s giving up our own
needs and desires to serve others. The problem we imagine is that as
we give of ourselves, other people will simply take from us, use us
up, and spit us out. And in this world, this is very likely going to
happen. Remember that our Lord gave his whole life for people that
actively hated him.

But imagine a community where everyone is looking to the interests of
others. How much more would our own needs and desires be met in this
way? This, I think, is what Paul was envisioning for the church at
Philippi, a church that was already pretty good at loving each other.
Most contemporary churches fall far short this vision. How many
people have you heard say that they left a church because ‘it wasn’t
meeting my needs’? The model of a church as a need-meeting machine
for individuals fits in neatly with our service economy, but that
doesn’t make it less wrong. Paul’s vision of a community where
everyone focuses on loving and serving each other provides a beautiful
alternative in which our own needs can be met beyond what we can
imagine by not focusing on them.

Connecting and Serving within HopeArts

So what does all this have to do with HopeArts?

First, this is an affirmation that the things we have found to be
valuable to us are valuable to God as well. At its most basic level,
HopeArts has allowed us to connect with others whose brains are wired
similarly to ours and who also struggle with connecting creative work
with an abiding faith in Christ: we know that we are not alone. At
the same time, we realize how much we are of service to one another
through simple things like feedback, encouragement, and even
deadlines. Hope has provided a safe and supportive community for us
in a way that most if not all of us have never experienced in any
other church.

Second, if we truly accept that our artistic skills are a gift, then
we are called to use them to build up the community, or rather
communities. We live and find our identities within various groups
and many of us share a desire to reach out to broader communities.
HopeArts has created a place for us to serve and connect with each
other that should provide us a good base to expand our connection and
service to the whole Hope Chapel community, to Christian artists
throughout Austin, and to the Austin arts community at large.

And third, service is a tricky word for artists. It is easy to get
caught up in conventional, pragmatic versions of service within the
church or in the world. Most people do not see the pursuit of beauty
and meaning as a service, it’s often considered a questionable
indulgence at best. Jesus forcefully challenged this notion on several
occasions. But that does not mean that our service through our art is
of more value than the more mundane types of service such as taking
out the trash, changing diapers in the nursery, or working the sound
booth at a performance. We should be actively engaged in both types
of service. (There was a very interesting discussion of these issues
between Christine Warner and Barbara Nicolosi at the Transforming
Culture Symposium.)

Connecting to Serve, Serving to Connect

In God’s economy, means and ends get all tangled up into a glorious
knot. Do we connect with each other to serve one another or do we
serve each other in order to connect with one another? Yes,
absolutely.

We must be connected to people to serve them well. If we try to serve
people through our art without getting to know them first it can
easily become simply a service to our own egos forced onto others.
Service that really serves others is built out of listening to and
understanding them, desiring to know what their real needs and
struggles are. We can, of course, help people we don’t know, but long-
term systematic service should be built on long-term real
relationships.

On the flip slide, though, serving others is a great way to connect
with them. It is often difficult to get to know someone by directly
asking who they are or what’s important to him or her, but if you work
side-by-side with someone you will quickly find these things out. As
challenging as collaborating on a project can be, often the
relationships built out of the collaboration are of more lasting value
than the work itself. And if we desire to serve a group through our
art, a great way to get to know the group is through serving them in
more basic ways first. For example, if I want to help bring art into
the elementary school class I may spend some time as an assistant to
the regular Sunday School teacher (serving snacks, taking attendance,
etc.) to get to know the kids and the curriculum first.


All of this is about growing ourselves and especially building God’s
Kingdom. As Richard Foster says, ‘more than any other single way, the
grace of humility is worked into our lives through the Discipline of
service.’ And a community that humbly loves and serves others with
beauty and meaning will truly be a glimpse of God’s Kingdom.

Kelly Foster