Art Life Faith Podcast: Recent Episodes

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Hello and welcome to the Art Life Faith podcast. I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

Every year, we have interns come work alongside us in what God is doing here in Japan through the arts. This summer, one of our interns was a phenomenal dancer named Anna Gardner Herren, with a huge heart for missions around the world. This was her third summer with us here in Japan, and she also made trips to Taiwan and Korea.

Last August, I interviewed her in this podcast—”#61 Summer Internships” if you’d like to have a listen—so I thought it would only be fair to give her a chance to interview me this year. She has her own wonderful podcast called The Purpose of Beauty, where she explores the role of beauty in our lives talking with various artists from around the world. In this episode that I’m about to share with you, we discuss some things that I’ve never talked about before on this podcast, especially about the music of Bach and its impact in Japan, so I think you’ll enjoy it.

You can find other episodes of her podcast by searching for The Purpose of Beauty or by going to our show notes. Here is our conversation:

Anna GardnerHello and welcome to the “Purpose of Beauty” podcast. I’m here with Roger W. Lowther, founder and director of Community Arts Tokyo and worship director at Grace City Church Tokyo. He also just happens to be my boss as the Mission to the World team leader in Japan. So let’s welcome Roger.

RogerThank you. Great to be here. Looking forward to talking with you about this.

Anna GardnerI’m so excited to talk to you because you have so many books written about beauty, so I really wanted to hear some things that you had to say.

RogerSure. Well, where do we start?

Anna GardnerWhere do we start? Well, one of the things that I really enjoyed hearing you talk about is Bach, and especially Bach in Japan. So for those of you just tuning in, he is a really amazing organ player, has played all over Japan and America and probably other places as well. And he was telling me more about how Bach is so influential and important in Japan, possibly more so than America.

RogerYeah, I would say so.

Anna GardnerBut how did you first encounter Bach?

RogerOh, interesting question. I’ve actually never been asked that before.

Anna GardnerReally? Well, I would love to know.

RogerI was about to switch teachers between elementary school and junior high, and the teacher wanted to test me, audition me to see if he would take me on as a student. And so he gave me a lesson and said, “I want you to learn this piece.” It was from the Liturgical Year, the little pieces that Bach wrote, each one’s like a page long, so it’s not too hard. And I passed the audition. He said, “Wow, I’ve never had someone learn this so quickly.” I had nothing to compare it to so I didn’t know. I practiced really hard.

Anna GardnerSo Bach is one of your origin stories of playing the organ?

RogerYeah, I mean, it was a very stressful situation, so I didn’t actually enjoy playing the piece very much. But that was my first interaction. Yeah, and then it’s grown from there.

Anna GardnerWow. Did you ever think you would be playing it here in Japan?

RogerNo, Japan was not on my radar at that point. But actually after that, my audition to Juilliard, to college, was through a piece. They make you memorize and play a prelude and fugue of Bach, which are much longer as organ works than piano. It’s about 15 minutes, something like that. And so that was my first piece on the audition, and I will never forget any of the notes in that piece ever, because I had four other auditions before that one, and I recorded it, and it is permanently etched into my head. So yeah, right now I’m actually going through a whole project to record all of Bach’s sacred organ works.

Anna GardnerWhy his sacred organ works?

RogerBecause people really haven’t focused on that. They’re not technically as showy and interesting for people in concert situations. They’re like, “That’s a little too slow” or “a little too long.” And yet in worship, it’s “a little bit too long.” They don’t really want them in worship either. So people don’t really play most of the pieces in that collection. I thought, “Okay, well, the only way it’s going to be heard, is if I record it, maybe do a whole set.” I’m thinking of doing a whole marathon of it. It’ll be many, many hours to play them all in a row.

Anna GardnerYou’re going to play them all in a row?

RogerAt some point. This is a long-term project. Either next year or the year after that I’m getting ready for it.

Anna GardnerThat’s crazy. Well, best wishes for that. I also am curious, since coming to Japan and playing Bach, do you have any stories about your interactions with Bach here in Japan?

RogerOh, yeah. It really shocked me. I’m used to playing Bach in America, and you’ll probably have smaller audiences if you do an all-Bach concert with the organ. I think in America, we like having lots of color and orchestration and loud/soft dynamic changes and things like that. The organ is so good at changing colors. But Bach tends to be a more similar sound for longer periods of time. And yet it’s been amazing the reactions I’ve gotten from Japanese people. So a story: Just my first year here, I was meeting with a language partner to help me learn how to speak Japanese. We’d meet once a week and have conversations together. And one of the things I wanted to do was just practice speaking about Christianity in Japanese.

Anna GardnerOh, that’s actually so scary.

RogerI knew it was needed. I needed to learn how to do it, but she didn’t want to talk about religion at all. She’s like, “No, no, no, let’s stick to politics and art and culture.”

Anna GardnerYou mean politics was easier than religion? Oh, my goodness.

RogerYeah, so we had a great friendship, but that topic was off limits. We’re not talking about religion. And I’m like, okay, well, I guess I’ll have to learn it some other way. Then Easter, that first year, I gave a concert at a local church and invited her. She wanted to support her language student, so she came. And at the end of the concert, she was in tears. And I was thinking to myself, What’s wrong? Maybe she got bad news. A family member is sick or something like that. And she said, “I can’t talk right now. We’ll talk next week.” I’m like, Okay. I hope she’s okay. And so then the next week, we got together for our usual scheduled language conversation. And she said, “I’ve never thought about hope that way. And the way you talked about it through the music of Bach and from the Bible. I’ve never heard that message before.” And that was the beginning of something. We were able to talk about religion quite frequently after that.

Anna GardnerBecause of Bach?

RogerBecause of Bach. It opened this doorway in her heart to something that was off limits before and to a little bit of herself. I still talk to her now. This is, I don’t know, 20 years ago. I’ve been here 20 years. So it opened doors to deeper relationships. And I have so many stories like that.

Anna GardnerDo you have maybe one more that you want to share with us? Because I love that story.

RogerWell, we’re looking out the window of my living room here, and at that building way over there, I gave a concert in the lobby of that business building. It’s a huge space, and I brought my organ and a battery, and I was playing music by Bach, and this guy came by. He’s like, “Oh, Roger. It’s so good to see you again.” He was a conductor who had hired me a number of years before to play the St. Matthew Passion.

Anna GardnerOh, beautiful.

RogerPlaying the organ continuo part. So those of you know the St. Matthew Passion, it requires quite a few singers. There’re multiple choirs and two orchestras. There’s a lot of echoing going back and forth, calling to each other. There’s a lot of people. First of all, I was the only non-Japanese in the room, but also I was the only Christian in the room.

Anna GardnerWait, you’re playing St. Matthew Passion? And you’re the only Christian?

RogerYeah.

Anna GardnerThat’s crazy.

RogerAnd there’s one point in the rehearsal, the director knew that I was a missionary, and he stops. He was trying to explain like, “well, this is the point where, let’s just let Roger explain it because he’s a missionary. Roger, would you stand up and explain to everyone?” And I’m like, okay, first of all, I knew everyone in that room spoke Japanese better than me, and I’m like, That’s quite a lot of pressure for not making mistakes. But anyway, I did my best. And it was just through these rehearsals, people would ask me questions after like, “What does this mean?” And I remember during the concert itself, the conductor broke down in tears, and the orchestra members were looking at each other like, “What’s wrong with him?”

Anna GardnerLike, while you all are performing?

RogerWhile we were performing.

Anna GardnerOh, my goodness.

RogerThe musicians were like, “Is he having a heart attack? Should we stop and help him?” Because he’s faltering. This isn’t a professional orchestra. It’s a volunteer orchestra. And afterwards, I talked with him. He said, “I want to be a Christian. Never before has the message hit me so deeply.” That was a fall concert, October, and he was baptized that following Christmas worship.

Anna GardnerOkay, that’s crazy.

RogerYeah. There were others as well in the orchestra who were reading through the text and trying to figure out why this was so powerful and what was going on. Where else would Japanese people who have never seen a Bible before…here they were reading scripture in this context because of the music of Bach. It’s just amazing how God has provided this doorway.

Anna GardnerIt’s such a bridge to use the arts to share the gospel. And you would know that because you lead Community Arts Tokyo here. But that’s really special that Bach was such a gateway for you to be able to talk about God. So wow.

RogerYeah. Praise God.

Anna GardnerI was reading one of your works. You’ve written so many books, and we need to talk about that soon, too. But I was reading one of your books about Bach in Japan and was wondering why it’s specifically impactful for Japanese people. Do you have any ideas?

RogerThat is a difficult question to answer.

Anna GardnerSorry.

RogerI’ve been trying to figure it out for years. I think that in the arts, there’s this idea of trying to give an image to yourself in order to sell more works to be more successful like that. Bach was completely the opposite. He’s more like a craftsman. He just wanted to do the best he possibly could in his local context. Leipzig was not one of the biggest cities in Germany at the time. And so he’s just doing his thing, doing it to the best of his ability. And I feel like a lot of artists in Japan are like that, too. It’s more about the work they make rather than the name attached to it. Some of the greatest works of art here, it’s not about their name. It’s not written on there. You may not even know who wrote it. It could be anonymous…Oh, man, who made this?…that craftsman mentality. So I think that’s part of the answer.

Anna GardnerThat makes sense because even from something like rice balls, there’s this idea of making it right and making it well. And there’s people who are famous for making a rice ball well. But of course, they weren’t making it well to be famous. Why would you want to become famous for making rice balls? But at the same time, there’s something really Japanese to me about that, about investing your time to make something really well, not for other people to look at you and say you did it well, but just to do it well.

RogerYeah, definitely. Actually, the most famous artist in Japan for the music of a Bach, Masaaki Suzuki…he’s really famous, I mean, when you go to the Leipzig Museum, the foremost museum about the music of Bach, it seems like half the recordings there are by Suzuki. So a Japanese group, the Bach Collegium of Japan, is representing the music of Bach globally, but he’s a very humble man. He wasn’t doing it for his own glory or anything like that. “Let’s record all of the cantatas of Bach to the best of our ability and just see what happens.” And God has really blessed his efforts in that.

Anna GardnerThat’s so beautiful. I think it inspires me that people would care about doing something well, not to be seen. I feel like as a Christian artist, sometimes I’m saddened by seeing non-successful or Christian works that to me, aren’t that great. But then when I see people who are Christians or non-Christians just doing something really well. I feel like we, as Christians, should also work so hard to do things well for Christ.

RogerI appreciate beauty and things done well for sure. Because it lowers walls and it allows for more people to interact with the artwork, to build community around that artwork. I feel like when things are not done as well, it feels like it’s…I don’t know, if you’re trying to put more meaning on the message…then it’s almost manipulative. “You should care about this because of the message.” Well, if it’s good, you can’t help but be drawn in.

Anna GardnerI think that’s one thing that I’ve really been encouraged about with Community Arts Tokyo. For reference, this is my third summer interning with Community Arts Tokyo.

RogerThank you for coming back so many times!

Anna GardnerI’m so happy to come back because not only do we get to interact with a bunch of really amazing artists, but Christian artists who are making works really well for God. You’ve probably experienced that way more than me here.

RogerWe feel really blessed that we’re surrounded by such an amazing community of people who do their art to the best of their ability. We really inspire each other and encourage one another. I love that community.

Anna GardnerIt’s really a community. I think that you and your family and these other artists from the church and Community Arts Tokyo have created a community where we are able to invite people in who are not Christians, even who are not artists. It’s something that’s been special to me and special to some of my friends. To me, it’s really beautiful. That brings me to the point of, what is the purpose of beauty in your life?

RogerOh, you need to read my books!

Anna GardnerOh, yes. Tell us about your books, please.

RogerAroma of Beauty is one. Hidden Beauty is another.

Anna GardnerThat one’s my favorite.

RogerYeah, I mean, I thought a lot about this… Let me tell you a story. It’ll be easier that way. I used to think that beauty was something decorative, that it was something unnecessary. It’s only something for when you have the time or money to do. And then in 2011, we had that large earthquake, and I ended up going up as a truck driver bringing food, water, supplies.

Anna GardnerTo the countryside of Japan, right?

RogerYeah, and I thought, that’s what people need in that situation. But we found out from day one, from my very first trip, that beauty was just as important as all those other things, that people actually could not live without it or it led to despair. It led to “Why go on living? We lost everything.” And yet, somehow, beauty would bring not just encouragement, but hope, which is really powerful in that situation. And so that’s why I called the book Aroma of Beauty. It’s a bunch of stories about how people are finding hope through beauty in that terrible situation.

Anna GardnerYeah. How can we find your books?

RogerThey’re all on Amazon or wherever you buy books online.

Anna GardnerI’ll link it in the show notes. Okay, great. And tell us about your new book, too.

RogerYeah, my new book comes out August 1.

Anna GardnerYes. So the day this podcast airs, your book should be live.

RogerAwesome. Go buy my book.

Anna GardnerYes. Go check out his book.

RogerI really had fun writing this one. It’s called Hidden Beauty: Seeing God in Japan.

Anna GardnerWait, is this the one that you wrote on the plane?

RogerI don’t think so.

Anna GardnerOkay, no. I just remember you writing one book, literally on your plane ride to or from Japan.

RogerI’m always writing on my plane rides.

Anna GardnerI love it. Okay, but the Hidden Beauty book.

RogerYes.

Anna GardnerWhich I’ve gotten to preview, and y’all haven’t.

RogerWe do a series every month called Art, Life, Faith. It’s a great opportunity for artists to try to connect and work out what it means to connect their art, their life, and their faith. We feature a different artist every month. Those are great, but I realized that I wanted to share those stories with more people. We had the gathering, the event, but what if we try to get this in print? Try to continue the process, continue the conversation. And so quite a few people in that book were part of those Art, Life, Faith discussions. I wanted to get their stories out there and work with them. And it was amazing to see the excitement on their faces. Like, “Oh, my story is coming out in print. Thank you, Roger.” So I’m working with them asking, “Is that accurate? Would you change the wording of that.” And they’d respond like, “Yeah, maybe I would change that, but that sounds good.”

And so seeing God in Japan, it’s about Japanese people seeing God in their lives, but also through the art, culture, and history of Japan. I would say that even if the readers are not interested in Japanese culture at all that they would still be interested in the book. “How do we see God in our daily lives? How can we worship God through anything that we do every day?” That’s basically the message of the book.

Anna GardnerWhich is a lot about ethnodoxology, another thing I really wanted to ask you about. I don’t know if you remember this, but about a year ago, I went and met one of your friends in Korea who is an artist, and we talked about ethnodoxology in Korea. But I would also love to talk about ethnodoxology for our listeners in Japan. What does that look like? And first of all, what is ethnodoxology?

RogerOkay, first, ethnos means the peoples, the nations, and doxology means praise, praise of the nations. People were thinking how do we get the Bible, how do we get scripture, how do we get the gospel into every language in the world, worshiping God through their heart languages rather than translating into English or something like that. But then about 25 years ago, there was this big movement to ask what does that look like through the art languages: the ethnic instruments, musical forms, ways like that… Because there’s still this image in Christianity of importing either contemporary worship songs or traditional hymns, and that those are the only things that are legit when it comes to worshiping God. So how do we encourage the nations by saying, “Your art forms are legitimate in worshiping God.” At the time, that was basically unheard of. It was very controversial, and people got angry, and they stood against it. Even here in Japan, we’ve seen that. Okay, can I share a story about this?

Anna GardnerPlease do. I would love to hear a story.

RogerSo we’re sitting here next to some kotos. [music] You just heard me pluck one of the strings. My son is learning the koto from Chieko.

Anna GardnerI love Chieko-san.

RogerHer story is great. She became a Christian, and she was a professional koto player, a traditional Japanese harp. And when she became a Christian, she’s like, “Oh, now I have to give up the koto and learn the piano.”

Anna GardnerWait, what? That doesn’t make sense.

RogerBecause she’s a Christian now, and that’s the only legitimate art formsfor Christianity.

Anna GardnerThe only instrument you can play as a Christian is the piano?

RogerOr the guitar.

Anna GardnerYeah. No.

RogerIn Japan, there is that image, and the koto is associated with the temple or the shrine. She’s like, “Oh, no, that can’t worship God. That’s another religion.” And so she was bummed about that because she was a professional and that was what she had dedicated her life to.

Anna GardnerWait, first of all, that’s incredible that she would be willing to become a Christian knowing that.

RogerI know.

Anna GardnerYeah. That’s actually really moving.

RogerThat’s part of the power of her testimony. But we invited her as a church staff at Grace City Church Tokyo. We prayed about it and approached her and said, “We would like you to play in worship on the koto.” And she’s like, “No, I can’t do that. It will not go well.” And we’re like, “No, no, no. We want to do this. We think it’ll be good.” And she’s like, “Okay.” So she did. And she was shocked as she was playing. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she felt like for the first time she was able to worship through her heart language of koto music. She had no idea that she could worship God through koto music. It just had never occurred to her before with the image she had of Christianity, that God would love her to the depths of her being, the very identity of who she was as a koto player. So it was really moving to have her play.

Anna GardnerThat’s really beautiful.

RogerBut…

Anna GardnerBut? Oh, no.

RogerAfter worship, that’s when the trouble started. There were a lot of angry people. We had a lot of meetings, not the types of meetings that you really want to have. People were saying, “I could not worship because of that instrument. How dare you sneak in that instrument? It prevented me from worshiping. It was very distracting.” They were very upset.

Anna GardnerThat’s crazy because to me, I feel like it would be very moving and beautiful in worship.

RogerYeah, you would think so. I mean, it’s not a loud instrument. It’s pretty subtle.

Anna GardnerIt is so subtle.

RogerBut do you know what the key was? When we shared, “Did you see the tears coming down her cheeks as she was playing? It was so powerful. She was worshiping God through her instrument. And we want to first love her and embrace her. And personally, I too was drawn in praise alongside her. I was able to worship God more fully because of her playing. Can’t you see it in that way?” Then they were like, “Oh, well, I guess if you put it in that way.” They thought we were trying to be clever and tricky, sneaking in our agenda of bringing in traditional Japanese instruments just to be cool or something, like a gimmick. No, it’s not about being a gimmick. It’s about a relationship with Chieko and loving her, embracing her, allowing her to worship God and coming alongside. That was the key. So then next time she played in worship, they were able to worship as well because they felt, even though they didn’t know how to worship God through that, they could worship alongside Chieko in her relationship with God. It was so powerful and so good.

Anna GardnerI love that story, and it makes me so happy to hear that she was able to use her art form for Christ, even though it’s not a traditional Christian instrument, if you will. It reminds me of another artist that I think might be in your book, Kei-san. We have this wonderful friend at our church. His name is Kei-san, and he makes fashion design beautiful clothing. He’s a Japanese fashion designer. I remember putting on one of his designs and thinking, I want to dance in this. He actually allowed me to borrow this design and take it to Nagoya and perform in it. I bring this up because maybe it’s not a traditional way to worship through dance or to worship through wearing a costume or a fashion design. But to me, this fashion design was part kimono and part Western wear. I wore this to portray the story of Ruth, who was a foreigner living in Israel. While I, as an outsider to the Japanese culture, I first see the kimono fabric. I see that it’s in the shape of a kimono, and to me, it seems so Japanese. But to all the Japanese, they only see how it’s different.

They think, “Oh, that’s not a kimono. That’s so different.” It’s different. How they see me. They don’t see me as “she’s nice and respectful.” They see me as, “she’s an outsider.” And so it helped me to see the story of Ruth and to see how she might have experienced herself in Israel, being an outsider and people seeing her as an outsider. But yet she made this firm commitment to God, to our God, despite her being a Moabite. And so if she could worship the God of Israel, and I can also worship God with dance, and you can worship God with the organ, and Chieko-san can worship with the koto, then that is ethnodoxology in our daily lives.

RogerYeah, it’s something that only every individual person can answer because sometimes it surprises us what that looks like. For example, I was thinking recently about my recent podcast with a heavy metal musician. He has a very large following here in Japan.

Anna GardnerWait, is he Japanese?

RogerHe’s Japanese.

Anna GardnerBut he does heavy metal? Yes. And he’s a Christian.

RogerYes. And he’s a Christian.

Anna GardnerAnd he’s a Christian? Tell me more.

RogerOkay. I mean, it really fits the subject of ethnodoxology because you may think, “Okay, koto, that makes sense. A traditional Japanese instrument. Heavy metal? Not so much.” I mean, that’s a Western art form. The West is imposing their musical styles on the rest of the world. Isn’t it terrible? But this singer, we call him Tone…

Anna GardnerTone?

RogerIn our interview, he told me how he felt like he was born to this, that God called him into this. If you listen to his music, you notice, first of all, it’s heavy metal, but he’s singing in Japanese. So okay, it’s in Japanese language. And he’s using Japanese traditional scales.

Anna GardnerActually? Wait, are they different than the ones we use in America?

RogerYeah, they’re actually koto scales. It’s different. And so you can hear it very clearly on his guitar, he’s going through the Japanese scales. But he says the reason this is Japanese music isn’t for those reasons but because he’s a Japanese man worshiping God in his context. That makes it Japanese. That makes it the praise of the nations. When you think ethnodoxology, you wouldn’t think particularly of a Japanese person worshiping God through heavy metal music.

Anna GardnerNo, that’s not what I would think of, Roger.

RogerThat’s not the image that comes up. And yet that fits the category as well, right? I mean, he is very good at what he does. He’s very technically proficient, loves high quality. When you watch his music videos online, you’re like, “Wow, that’s really good.” And I think we are going to see Tone in heaven leading us all in worship of God through heavy metal music.

Anna GardnerThat’s crazy.

RogerYeah. And it’s going to be representing the country of Japan in a sense. It’s all about how we praise God in our context with who God called us to be. And it’s different. With heavy metal music, it’s an in-your-face-a-little-bit art form. It’s very loud. It’s very fast. And yet there’s this sense that through it, you are giving everything—all your mind, body, soul, all your technical proficiency, all your energy, all your passion, it’s all coming through. And heavy metal as a style can do that better than, well, koto music, as a contrast.

Anna GardnerYou know, koto is like the silent version, the inner version.

RogerYeah. So I think God gifts these art styles to us in order to praise him. That’s what ethnodoxology is. To be able to praise through this gifting that God gives us, whether it’s organ music or dance or whatever it might be in our context, in our communities, for his glory.

Anna GardnerThat’s beautiful. The praise of the nations. Well, thank you so much for telling us about ethnodoxology and about how God can be glorified not just in piano and guitar. I want to ask you just a couple more questions. The first one is, is there any way that we can be praying for you?

RogerYes.

Anna GardnerHow can we pray for you?

RogerWell, as you know, as a church we’ve been on the move for 15 years with no permanent worship space.

Anna GardnerWhat does that look like on a Sunday morning?

RogerSo that has been very busy. We had all of our church equipment stored in a van in a large building on a weird elevator mechanical robot system.

Anna GardnerLike one of those rotating car things? Oh, my goodness.

RogerWe’d have to do that and drive it to the venue wherever it was. There were many different venues, and then unload and set up, and then do the whole process in reverse.

Anna GardnerWhich is just so exhausting on a Sunday morning. The sound people and the helpers set up the whole church, which is not a small church.

RogerNo.

Anna GardnerAnd then take it down and then start over the next week and not have anywhere to come during the week.

RogerSo from June 1, for the first time, we have a semi-permanent space we can use throughout the week. We thought, great, we’re going to have more time. And we do but for different things. Now that we have a space throughout the week, we’ve been using it throughout the week for so many great things. And God has really been giving us many opportunities for meeting new people, for evangelism, for discipleship. And it’s so exciting. But it’s also very tiring. And the setup process from June first until now, we’re speaking mid-July. We’re a little bit tired. We’ve really been pushing. It’s been really good, but I’m looking forward to resting a little bit for the rest of this summer and recovering from that.

Anna GardnerYeah. I wonder if you could talk to any of our listeners who might be artists who just need some rest. How do you find rest in God or in art when you’re exhausted from working so hard?

RogerWell, I’m probably not a good example of that. What I do personally is change the art that I’m focused on for a little bit.

Anna GardnerOkay, well, that is true. You never stop.

RogerSo if I’m focused really hard on music and then I get really worn out from music, I can switch then to writing. And in different genres of writing, whether it be writing fiction or non-fiction. And personally, I find that really energizing to switch what I’m focused on in my creative projects.

Anna GardnerI do understand that, though. It’s a different pathway of your brain. Well, I know we can be praying for you about getting some rest, whether that’s changing your art form for a little while or whatever. But is there anything else we can be praying for, for Community Arts Tokyo as an organization in the future?

RogerYeah, I’ve been actually a little bit disappointed about the way this movement hasn’t grown like I had hoped within the church in Japan, this idea that art plays an important role in worship, in evangelism, in discipleship. There’re so few Christians in Japan. Churches are small with mostly older people. We’re seeing great things happen in our church and churches in our immediate network, but I really need to see this movement spread further, wider. How can we help the nation hear these stories? That’s one reason I started writing. We really need more people to come alongside us so we can be in more cities, working with more churches. And I would love to see God grow the church here in Japan, to see his kingdom grow and for arts to be a part of that.

Anna GardnerWell, we will definitely be praying for that. I think we can all agree that that is something we all also want. So thanks for sharing that. I have one final question for you, but I’m going to give you a second to think about it while I close out the podcast. Do you have any advice that you would give to our listeners? I don’t know if I have any listeners who are organ players currently, but we might start something. But just artists or people who use the arts in their daily lives or are no longer professional artists but are Christians. For that purpose, as they pursue beauty, whether that’s in just going to worship and getting ready for worship and putting on a Sunday dress, or whether that’s making beautiful things for Christ. Do you have any advice that you would personally give to our listeners who are artists and also not artists.

RogerYeah, sure.

Anna GardnerWhile you think about that, I’m going to briefly close out the podcast. Thank you so much for listening. The goal of this podcast is not to get famous, but just to share some beautiful stories of people that I have met and to hopefully allow you to be encouraged by the way that they see Christ through their art. And I’m really excited to have Roger on here. He’s written some wonderful books. So if you’re more interested in learning about the purpose of beauty or the aroma of beauty or the hidden beauty of art in Japan, and Christianity in Japan, you should go check out his books. I’ll definitely link it in the show notes. They’ve been really helpful for me as an artist, so I hope you’ll go check them out. They’ve been so encouraging.

RogerThank you for that endorsement.

Anna GardnerThat is not a paid endorsement. I want y’all to enjoy this and be encouraged by something that is so encouraging to me. So with that, I’ll turn it over to you to close this out.

RogerWell, the advice, I guess I would say to artists is to not be discouraged, that God has given us certain gifts and passions to do things. And if we rely on people for encouragement to do it, then a lot of pathways end up being closed. For example, when I first started writing, people were like, “You’re an organist. You’re not a writer. Why are you writing?” And I had people saying, “Missionaries, you’re supposed to be in meetings all the time.”

Anna GardnerWhat? Aren’t you supposed to be serving?

RogerIf I had just listened to people’s voices when I started writing during COVID, I would have not been writing now. And I do feel like God has blessed that to get certain stories, certain messages out to wider groups of people. And so that’s the message I have for other artists, too. Be creative. Enjoy what you’re doing and see God enjoying what you’re doing and delighting in it. And if you are able to praise God through what you’re doing, others will come alongside and be able to praise him as well.

Anna GardnerAmen to that. That’s so encouraging. Thank you for that. And thank you so much for joining our podcast.

RogerThank you for inviting me.

Anna GardnerHope to have you back on again sometime. Which means I have to come back to Japan, right?

RogerOkay. Well, we’ll be here.

Anna GardnerThank you so much. I hope you’ll have a wonderful rest of your day.

RogerBye.

Thank you for listening to the Art Life Faith Podcast. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne.” We’ll see you next time.

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Welcome to the Art Life Faith podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

Well, before we get this episode’s interview, I want to share a couple of updates with you. A couple of weeks ago, we launched the Japanese edition of Third Culture Kids, which is designed to help Japanese families living overseas with the challenges that come from raising kids in a foreign context. We know it’s going to be a big help to a lot of people, and so we’re excited to see that it made it to the top 10 for Christian books in Japan and the top 20 for family relationships.

We are also looking forward to the launch of my next book, Hidden Beauty: Seeing God in Japan on August 1. The book is about seeing the beauty of God that’s hidden within the art, history, and lives of people in Japan. In fact, this is a book that has grown out of our Art Life Faith gatherings. Most of the people I tell stories about in the book have been featured speakers in the past. By writing it down with them, this has been one more way to help Japanese people articulate how they see connections between their art, life, and faith. It’s been really fun to see the excitement on their faces as these stories now come out in print. I really hope that even if you’re not interested in Japanese culture at all, that through these books, you will gain a fresh perspective on how God can be worshiped in your daily life.

Well, for this episode I have the privilege of talking to Takahiro Nakamine, otherwise known as Tone, who leads a Christian heavy metal band called Imari Tones, and he led our Art Life Faith discussion the evening after recording this interview. There were a lot of people there, very interested in hearing what he had to say, hear his music, and watch some of his music videos. He has quite a following here in Japan, and it really was an honor talking with him.

I find discussions like this particularly fascinating, because when we consider what it means for ethnodoxology, the praise of the nations of the world, sometimes it’s not what we expect. Takahiro’s music is very Japanese, not because he plays traditional Japanese instruments, and not because he is singing in Japanese, and not even because he incorporates Japanese scales into his music. It’s because he is authentically praising God. It just flows out of his music and leads us to worship God as well. No one can say the West imposed their culture on him. Rather, he took an art form that spoke to him and made it his own. I mean, there is no other heavy metal band in the world quite like Imari Tones. He said he was born to play heavy metal, and I have to agree. Here’s just a little taste of his music.

[“Passion” by Imari Tones]

RogerSo, Takahiro, thank you so much for sitting down with me to talk with people on this podcast.

TakahiroKonichiwa! Arigato Gozaimasu! Thank you for having me. My name is Tak. I’m from Japan, and I’m in a band called Imari Tones, and we play Christian heavy metal.

RogerSo that I have so many questions for you, but let me first start with your name. So, Takahiro Nakamine, but you said that you’re also called Tone. Why are you called Tone?

TakahiroYeah, some of my close friends call me Tone, and basically it’s about my guitar sound. People call it Tone. And because I have a good tone, people call me Tone.

RogerThat’s awesome.

TakahiroAlso, you know, my name is Takahiro Nakamine. That’s my real name, and the first and last letter of these goes like T, O, N, E, so that’s where I got my nickname.

RogerVery cool. I love it. A musical nickname. And your band is called Imari Tones. Now how did the band get that name?

TakahiroIt’s a long story. Imari is a name of Japanese porcelain, like dish pottery. Japanese old pottery from like the 18th century. We had very beautiful traditional pottery. And this pottery was exported to Europe and was very expensive. So, in a sense, it means Japanese beauty. So that’s one explanation. Since we are a Christian band, I can also say porcelain pottery is made from clay. It’s a jar of clay, like in the Bible.

RogerThat’s so cool. Well, actually, one of the most famous Christian bands in the United States is called Jars of Clay. You are Jars of Clay Japan.

TakahiroYeah, you can say that. But the real reason I named our band Imari Tones is because Imari is actually my wife’s name. We were together since we were in high school, so we’ve been together for very, very long time now. We became Christians after we got married. When we were young, we were not Christians yet. But for some reason when I started making music, I named my band after my wife Imari.

RogerBeautiful.

TakahiroShe’s now playing bass in our band. When we were young, she was not in a band yet. She joined later, and she claimed the band because she was like, this is my band.

RogerYeah, it’s named after her.

TakahiroIt’s my name.

RogerThat’s so cool.

TakahiroIt’s beautiful. It’s all hers now.

RogerAll right, so I have so many questions about heavy metal music. The image that comes to my mind is that heavy metal is meant to be anti-establishment, in your face. On your website, you advertise as the first heavy metal Christian band. Right?

TakahiroFrom Japan.

RogerFrom Japan. Right, of course.

RogerSo what does that look like here? And what kind of response are churches giving you here?

TakahiroAs you know, Christianity in Japan is very small, and the church music scene is obviously very small. Everybody knows everybody. It’s a really small community. But basically we’ve been trying to be not too close and not too far. We have that kind of relationship with the Japanese church, if that makes sense.

RogerYeah, maybe most of the churches here are kind of older in age and smaller and maybe traditional in a lot of ways. At least that’s a strong image.

TakahiroYeah, I think that’s true.

RogerSo how do they respond to your music?

TakahiroMany churches don’t allow us to play our music because it’s too loud or something like that. But most people in the Japanese Christian community simply ignore us or try to stay away. Generally speaking, that’s the most common reaction from Christian people here in Japan. But sometimes we have very passionate people who go crazy when they see us perform because we are doing something different.

RogerRight.

TakahiroAnd we are doing something really passionate, energetic, and we are very fun to watch. Yeah, that’s what people say.

RogerSo, yeah, I’ve seen some of your videos up on YouTube, and you have quite a following here with a lot of subscribers. It is a lot of fun to watch.

TakahiroThank you.

RogerI can’t wait to get to see you guys live sometime. But I’m still trying to put this together, the idea of heavy metal and Christianity in Japan. Even before we started, we were talking and you were telling me about how you try to put even some of the Japanese scales into your music. I find that fascinating. I’d love to hear more about that.

TakahiroSo, you know, we’ve been playing this Christian heavy metal music in Japan. When we say we play Christian metal, Japanese audiences say, like, oh, you sing chorus hymns like in a cathedral. And heavy metal, the only Christian band they know is Stryper. That kind of reaction we always receive. When we say Christian metal, people always think of this Western European, traditional kind of church, cathedral thing. But we play something different. Like in the past five years, we have been trying to play heavy metal music based on Japanese traditional music.

RogerSo you play those scales on your guitar?

TakahiroYeah, now I’m playing them often. I’m playing Japanese traditional scales like the Hira Joshi, Kokin Joshi, Kumoi Joshi, and Ryukyu scales.

And you know the Japanese national anthem “Kimi Ga Yo.” It sounds like old traditional music. And we turned Kimi Ga Yo into a Christian metal anthem Praising Jesus. We were kinda worried because when we play this song, it’s really obvious it’s the Japanese national anthem, but we are singing the words that praise Jesus in the Japanese language. And so with conservative kind of people in a political sense, we worried some people may get angry and we would get shot or something.

RogerOh, no.

TakahiroSo we were kind of worried when we decided to play that song. It is called “God Anthem” and I think it’s one of our most popular songs. And yeah, it’s called Gat Anthem instead of Japanese national anthem. It turned out people love it.

RogerSo is that one of the ones we can hear on YouTube?

TakahiroYeah, you can hear it. You can watch it on YouTube.

RogerOkay, maybe I’ll play a little bit of that in this episode.

TakahiroYes, please.

[“God Anthem” by Imari Tones]

RogerYou mentioned earlier that some people just go crazy over your music. They get so excited because it’s so different and unique. Do you have any stories you can share from concerts of people reacting to the music?

TakahiroYeah, people always go crazy. People always go nuts. When we play live shows, it’s always exciting, awesome. We have this amazing reaction from people and people say something like, you guys are ridiculously awesome or stupid good. Something like that, you know? So we are not just good, we are like crazy good, stupid good.

RogerAwesome. I can kind of imagine it because I’ve been to quite a number of black gospel choir concerts where there ends up being this mosh pit up front with people jumping up and down and screaming, waving their arms. Yeah, that’s so cool.

TakahiroIt’s about happiness, joy, overflowing and … I don’t know how to put it in English, sorry. But it’s about the Holy Spirit. Yeah, I believe that.

RogerSo talking more about the style of heavy metal a little bit, how do you think that that style can uniquely praise Jesus? What does it mean for you to praise God through your music?

TakahiroYeah, it’s a really deep question. So many Christian people ask me, why are you playing heavy metal? Why did you choose heavy metal? But my honest answer is I didn’t choose it. I don’t think we had a choice. It just turned out this way, and we were born this way. God chose us to play metal, and this is something given by God. I totally believe rock and roll music is a gift from God, and it should be used to praise God. You know, God creates something awesome and it’s always the devil who comes later and make things go bad.

RogerYeah.

TakahiroWe have to use it for God. It’s all about freedom and using all your soul, all your body, all your passion, all of your energy. We are using it to praise God. Really loud and everything for God’s glory. I wish I had more English vocabulary.

RogerYeah. Don’t let me put words in your mouth, but it seems to me that the style, as you were saying earlier, it’s loud blues, it’s fast blues, it’s very energetic. And somehow you’re able to give glory to God through the loudness, through the fastness. And there’s an excitement there that isn’t in other forms of other styles. Usually, if you think about classical music, it’s a little bit more subdued.

TakahiroI think every Christian metal musician will say this, but many people think their idea about heavy metal is the devil’s music. But as a Christian metal musician, we have to claim it back from the devil. Did I say that right? Is my English even correct?

RogerYeah, yeah.

TakahiroWe have to get it back from the devil. So much heavy metal music is actually influenced by or based on classical music in so many ways. Many metal musicians are actually classically trained. We have to play it as it is intended to be, and I mean to praise Jesus.

RogerThat’s cool. You know, I’m a pipe organist and the reason I got into the pipe organ music is because I liked how loud it was. No kidding. Like I would “pull out all the stops,” an English expression we have, which means basically as loud as it can get. And I’d be playing away and I love just being loud and have the sound wash over me. I can see that same kind of thing with heavy metal. And back when I was younger, I used to play very technically, I loved playing fast and technically proficiently. Heavy metal is very fast on the guitar. The things I’ve seen you play, there is a sense that you can say something, you can give praise to God in a different way than you can in other styles and other art forms. And I think that’s part of the beauty of what you do.

TakahiroThank you.

RogerYeah.

TakahiroPipe organs are cool. They are like, literally, the biggest musical instrument in the world. The whole church, the whole building, the whole cathedral is a musical instrument.

RogerRight, right.

TakahiroThat’s awesome.

RogerYeah, all the walls are shaking and everyone’s sitting there, their bodies are shaking.

TakahiroWow.

RogerThere’s even some types, they’re very rare, that have a 64 foot, which means it’s a very, very low note. You can’t even hear it. It’s only meant to shake you.

TakahiroSome of those sounds, like really low frequencies, get harmonically distorted like electric guitars. So I think that these loud, big organs have many things in common with electric guitars.

RogerWell, people are going to be coming in soon, so I guess we’d better stop there. I’m so looking forward to tonight. Thank you so much, too, for sitting down and talking with us.

TakahiroThank you very much. You’re welcome.

RogerThank you for listening to the Art Life Faith Podcast. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne.” We’ll see you next time.

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Welcome to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

Well, a lot’s been happening since our last podcast, so let me catch you up a bit. First, our church, Grace City Church Tokyo, celebrated its 15th anniversary this past Sunday on Pentecost Sunday, June 8, 2025. We started weekly worship exactly 15 years ago, and it’s been quite a journey since, which became real to all of us watching the presentation we made of pictures over the years and seeing my own children as little kids. Two of them are now in college. A lot of time has passed since this church started. And to just think about all the things that we’ve gone through over the past years. There was a lot of pain, but a lot of joy as well. And it was so exciting to celebrate that together with this community. We’re so thankful for how God has blessed over these years.

Now, the most exciting part of the worship service was the space that we moved into. We have been on the move for 15 years now. Renting halls in downtown Tokyo is very expensive, and we have been turned down by many people who would not let us use their spaces. Some of the halls we were able to find have a lot of restrictions like not allowing food so we couldn’t do communion, or not allowing children (why would a hall not allow children?), or not allowing the collecting of funds, which rules out collecting tithes and offerings. Sometimes we were not able to find a place at all and we had to meet in a park at the mercy of the weather. The few times we did that, thankfully, God protected. When rain fell, we thought we would have to cancel and then it stopped just long enough for us to gather 70 people in the park, but then it started raining again right afterward and we had to go home. There has been a lot of pain but a lot of joy as well, and it was so exciting to be able to celebrate that together with this community. We’re so thankful for how God has been blessing his church.

But now things have changed. An opportunity became available for us to move into a place 24/7 that we can use throughout the week. So we started something called the Tokyo Tabernacle Project to raise funds for it and moved into the space on June 1. The room was not quite finished. All the past week, the construction crew was trying to finish that up, get the rest of the wallpaper up, get some monitors up, things like that, and then for the church’s 15th anniversary this past Sunday, we were able to celebrate together and invite a lot of guests in to celebrate with us. We had some pastors come in who used to be on staff but have since gone out, sent out to plant other churches in Tokyo. We had the building committee up front to thank them for all their hard work. We had a representative from the building itself come and speak to us about the whole process and thank him for everything he did to make possible. We also had a video greeting from our founding pastor, and we were even honored to have the missions pastor and head of the missions committee from a church in the States to help support this project. It all smoothly proceeded forward under the fearless leadership of our pastor, Daisuke Kimura.

The building where we’re meeting, Ochanomizu Christian Center, has a number of churches that meet for worship on Sundays. We’ve been working very hard over the past few months to develop those relationships. We were honored to have pastors from the church that meets just above us to come and bless us and pray for us, to share a meal with us during the two-hour party after worship. And they also bought us a big bouquet of flowers, which we were able to put in the entryway. It’s been so cool to see how God has pulled all this together as we look expectantly to see what he’s going to do in the future.

We have other cool things to share as well. On July 1, we are launching a new book called Third Culture Kids. It was written by a missionary kid, Ulrika Ernvik, who was raised overseas. She wrote this book to help people understand the various things they need to think about when raising their children overseas in a third culture setting. There was a Japanese missionary family who went to Papua New Guinea, Yu Fukunaga, and he was so moved by this book and how helpful it was for him that he decided to undertake the task to translate it and then look for a publisher. He found us, and we agreed to work with him. This project has really been going on for a year now, and we are so proud of the results. So, this is the Japanese edition of Third Culture Kids, written from a Christian perspective. There really was nothing like this in the Japanese language before. So we’re really excited about how this is going to help families in the future. If you’re interested in learning more about this book, please contact me and check out the show notes. We pray that this book will really be a blessing to many Japanese families living around the world, whether in missions or not, even if it’s a transfer for a company. We believe this book would be really helpful for them.

I’m also happy to announce that my next book will be coming out this summer called Hidden Beauty: Seeing God in Japan. It’s about the Japanese aesthetic of beauty in hiddenness, and it’s also about seeing the hidden beauty of God in Japanese art and culture. Now, this is a project that’s been on the back burner for a while. I’m so happy it’s finally coming to fruition. We plan to launch it on August 1. I submitted the audiobook version just last week, so we’re going through the process of having that approved, and I’m waiting for proofs to come from England right now so I can make sure the covers look okay. It’s been quite a process giving birth to this book, but I’m so excited to finally be able to release it to all of you. There are a lot of stories in there that have meant a lot to people in our congregation. I tell stories of five of them in there, along with a lot of other stories as well. And they were saying, Oh, you’re finally coming out with that book, so we’re celebrating together. Anyway, I can’t wait to share it all with all of you.

This episode, I talk with Verity Hayhow, who has been interning with us for the past three months. She’s an illustrator and designer who worked with Harper Collins in London just after college and took a break from that to work alongside us for a little bit, and we are so grateful. She immediately dived into many of the book projects we had going on at the time, as well as writing and illustrating her own book called Moon Creature, which we’re going to talk a little bit about. I’m also happy to announce that since the recording of this podcast, Verity has asked to be part of our missionary team, and we accepted. Now she’s going through the process of being approved by a mission agency and raising support. So we can’t wait to see her again in Japan as soon as she can raise those needed funds. I’ll have more information about that at the end of the podcast if you’re interested in supporting her and helping her get here. So for now, let me invite Verity into the conversation.

VerityWelcome to the Art Life Podcast, and I’m your host Verity Hayhow.

RogerNice. I love it. Thank you, Verity, for being on the program.

VerityThank you for having me.

RogerSo I am excited to sit down with you and share some of the stories of what God has been doing during your time here in Japan. I would love to start by interacting with you about the Art Life Faith event we had last week that you led. Thank you for doing that. It was really well-attended, and I thought the atmosphere was great. What are your feelings about it?

VerityIt was a good time. Yeah, I was pretty nervous running up to it, but I hope people had a good time, and I had a good time talking about my work.

RogerTell us a little bit and what you shared in that time together.

VeritySo the event was divided up into two parts. The first part, I just talked about myself, my favorite thing to do. And then the second part was my second favorite thing to do, which was to engage other people in something creative. I talked a bit about where I’m from, the work that I like to make, and this project that I’m working on at the moment, The Moon Creature.

RogerOkay, we’ll be getting more into that in a little bit.

VerityWe will be. Yeah, I guess I started off by talking about why I make art and what I enjoy about it and my creative journey as well.

RogerI know a big part of what we did that evening was a workshop of making bags. Can you tell us a little bit about that and why you decided on that project?

VerityEverybody got a bag and everybody got to paint one and take one home with them. This was something I decided on doing that I think maybe you don’t usually do in Art Life Faith events. But I think part of my practice as an artist is getting people involved in creating art themselves rather than just creating art by myself. There’s something very spiritual about getting other people involved in making art for themselves. Because I think that when I’ve run events like this, people come along and they always start off by saying, “Well, I’m not creative” or on Friday, “Oh, I’m not a painter. I don’t make images. I’m a musician or I’m a director.”

RogerIt was a little scary for me, not a painter, as a musician to try to paint a bag and be like, “Oh, what if I make a mistake?”

VerityExactly. It’s this unfamiliar territory. What if I do something wrong? What if it ends up looking bad? And people always have these fears, and they always, in my experience, come away from the event feeling like they did something special, which I think then leads on to something that I believe about the process of creating art is that it responds to something deep within us. That is not necessarily about just creating something that looks nice, but also making things echoes who we are as human beings made in the image of God. And that’s why, to me, workshops are something that I enjoy running because I think they give people an opportunity to answer this call within them, whether they consider themselves a creative professional or a professional creative or not.

RogerYeah. Well, let me ask you. So I know one of the cool things about it were the conversations that we were having. I was on that side of the room, and you were at the table with the other side of the room. We had some really amazing conversations in our group together because we were painting side by side and just talking as we were painting. So is that part for the community building aspect?

VerityFor sure. I think that people start to open up when they’re making things together. They start having these conversations. Maybe it’s easier to open up when you’re making something with someone else because your attention is directed elsewhere. So, yeah, I find that you do end up having these interesting conversations with people.

RogerIt was Good Friday. It was Easter weekend. And so you were leading us on a resurrection theme. For me, the most moving story was of the actress who we talked about in the past podcast, who we’d worked with, made a film together, and what she had painted. Did she interact with you as she was doing it, or was it more at the end?

VerityA little bit throughout, I didn’t fully understand what she was painting until she had finished and she explained it.

RogerYeah, and what was it?

VeritySo this actress, she doesn’t speak a whole lot of English, and I don’t speak a whole lot of Japanese.

RogerRight. I guess that’s a problem.

VerityOur communication is pretty bare bones. But in the beginning, she was like, “I’m going to paint a sake bowl.” And I was like, “Okay, cool.” Then at the end, she shows me this painting that she’s made. And she’s like, “This is resurrection sake.” It’s an image of the sake and the cup, and then there’s some pickled vegetables on the plate. Those were also resurrection imagery. Bearing in mind that this girl, I don’t think that she’s a Christian, but she was telling us about how this sake has this resurrection imagery built into the process of drinking it. And how these pickles are stored underground. So there’s also that resurrection imagery of them being brought up into the light in order to be consumed. And she was talking about this with me, and I thought that was such a thoughtful response to the prompts of resurrection. That’s such an interesting interpretation, right?

RogerI explain this a little bit in the past episode, how she has not met with Christians much. With the idea of painting the resurrection theme, she’s like, “Oh, my goodness, I don’t know what that is.” The sake imagery you mentioned, she explained in Japanese how there’s this sake that you bury out of the light for a long time in order for its taste to grow. And then after five years or so, when you open it up, you want to warm it up. And as you warm it up, the flavor really comes out. So you have to have hidden it away in the dark, and then you bring it out and it has to be warmed up in order for the flavor to come out. It was buried in a sense, and then it’s being brought out. And so as she’s trying to interact with the theme of resurrection, that’s what she came up with. And then the other was the movie, the film that she was involved in with us making from my book, A Taste of Grace, pickles that you keep underneath the floorboards in the kitchen, and you have to go in and you have to stir every day. Otherwise, it gets moldy, and fermentation stops if you don’t keep stirring it. You bring it back out then and the flavor comes out and it’s healthy for you. And so it has this resurrection theme in the pickles itself. And it was just so cool for her to be thinking through traditional Japanese culture, and interacting with what the resurrection looks like. As she’s heard now about Jesus, really for the first time last month, she’s trying to contextualize it with what she knows and interacting with all these Christians around the table, painting her bag, talking with you about it. It was just really cool to hear her story and watch her work through that process.

VerityYeah, for sure. I think it’s also just so interesting it’s such an unexpected image, but I think it really shows how, again, she’s an actress. She’s not a painter, but she had this really, I don’t know, really creative interest. It made me start to think about this whole idea of resurrection. It was just so unexpected, and it was very special.

RogerYeah, I felt like that, too. I was getting a new insight into what the gospel looks like in Japan. It made me praise God more by hearing her story. To see this person who isn’t a Christian, who has interacted with Christians, to be trying to wrestle with what it is that Christians believe and what does that look like. It was only because of this event that she could do that, that she was put in that community. And afterwards, it was really the community aspect of it, just how she was so excited to be like, “Let me know when there’s another event. I want to come back.” And then we had a professional film director who was also here at the event, and the two of them got to meet and talk. They said, “We should do something together. We should make a film together.” And my heart was just leaping for joy to see that new friendship. I do hope they make a movie together. I’d love to see that. The film director is a Christian. And so, again, to meet more Christians, be around more community, and just to keep interacting with these themes. But It’s really all about that. These events building community, building friendships that go way past the event itself.

VerityI think they also create a far more accessible environment for people to start thinking about their faith. As creative people, but also just as people. If you stood up in church and started telling a room full of people about the resurrection, some people would hear that. Some people would understand what you were saying, and they resonate with it. Some people would just be like, this is just some American guy proselytizing to me, and they would go away and they wouldn’t think twice about it. But I think that when you create these environments for people, then I think it opens them up to this idea of resurrection through the art, because the art is this third space. It’s like a neutral space to talk and to think about these ideas.

RogerDefinitely. I was just embarrassed when comparing her bag with what I made. I was like, I don’t know how to paint a resurrection theme, so I’m just going to make a musical theme. And I made this rainbow city with a black note on top of it. Well, it’s very practical anyway. I used it for carrying my music to worship on Easter Sunday, so that was appropriate.

VerityThere you go. I made mine themed to the book that I’m writing so that when people comment on it, then I can tell them about the book.

RogerOkay, so I want to get to talking about the book. Before I do, what have… Well, first, let’s go back even further. Who are you? What are you doing here in Japan?

VerityWhat am I doing in your apartment? It’s scary. So I’m Verity. I’m an illustrator and designer from London, and I’m currently here in Japan. I’m interning with Community Arts for the past nearly three months, headed back to London soon.

RogerWe love having you here.

VerityI’ve been having a great time, been learning about this whole intersection of faith and art and how they work together. Yeah, it’s been amazing.

RogerI know you worked a little bit in the book publishing industry before you came here. We’ve had you in some book projects since you’ve been here. What are some of the projects you’ve been working on while you’re here?

VerityWell, the first one is this one with you, Roger. Roger is an author, and one of the books that he’s got coming out in the next few months is this book called Hidden Beauty, which is about this whole idea of the idea that something is more beautiful if it’s more hidden in Japanese aesthetics and how God is hidden within Japanese culture as well, that we don’t explicitly see a Christian God in Japanese culture, but he’s still there because he’s everywhere. And so I’ve been working with Roger on a cover for that.

RogerAnd that hasn’t been easy, has it?

VerityNo, it hasn’t been a straightforward road.

RogerBecause even when we both agree this is good, and then show it to some Japanese people, they’re like, No, you can’t do that.

VerityI will say one thing that I’ve been learning in my time in Japan is Japanese aesthetics have so much more nuance than people think that they do. They’re very unexpected, and you can think that you understand them, and then you really don’t, which is what I’ve been finding. But yeah, this cover has … It’s been had a lot of U-turns and going back on itself, but I think we’re getting somewhere.

RogerThank you for your patience and endurance to keep going. What about the children’s book? Tell me about that.

VerityYes. I have been very willingly roped into advising on this kids’ book, also written by Roger and illustrated by our other lovely intern, Holly. Tsunami Violin is the title, and it tells the story of this tree by the coastline in Japan. Her home, her whole life is ripped apart by the 2011 tsunami. But she, through the course of the story, she finds a new purpose, very musical purpose, and it’s a real story. I have been advising on the illustrations as an illustrator myself, also on some of the text and then typesetting things as well.

RogerYeah, that has been a huge help because I know in our first book, Pippy the Piano, we weren’t thinking… I was putting the text in. You were doing an amazing job of thinking, “Why don’t we have the text fit the image and have it not just straight lines but wave around and do interesting creative things with the words.” So, I’ve really been appreciating that.

VerityIt’s been a learning process for me as well.

RogerYeah, so let’s talk about your book, The Moon Creature.

VerityRight. The Moon Creature is this book that I’m writing and illustrating, and it tells the story of this little creepy cat, rabbit, animal. She lives on the moon. She’s best friends with the moon. When they have a big falling out, then she is left unmoored. She has to figure out her life. And the story just follows her as she makes a lot of mistakes as she figures out who she is and she figures out what it means to love another person and to be loved by another person and how she might have been getting it wrong all along. And It’s a book very close to my heart as a young person, because I think as a young person, that’s a journey that everybody has to go on. They have to figure out how to be a healthy adult with healthy adult relationships. And so, yeah, I hope that it resonates with other young people, too, when it comes out.

RogerI know it will. And I can’t wait until it’s finished so more people can see it. But you’re doing the illustration as well, right? I think the story is powerful and the illustrations, too, are just amazing. So your goal is to finish part one, right? And get that done before you go back to the UK? It takes more time than we thought, doesn’t it?

VerityIt is. Actually, writing and illustrating a whole book by yourself is so much more work than I thought it would be. Yeah, so part one is hopefully coming out sometime in the near future, even if it happens while I’m in the UK. But yeah, it’s a story in four parts. I think it might take a while, but I’m hoping to be releasing a web version and then maybe some print versions as well to be able to share it with as many people as possible.

RogerWhen this project is done, how can people find it?

VerityKeep checking my website https://verityhayhow.com/. There will be more details on there shortly about how you can access the first chapter.

RogerWhen it’s done, we’re definitely going to announce it on this podcast as well. So keep listening to future episodes and you’ll hear more about that. Is there anything else you’d like to share before we end our time together? While you’re thinking about that, I can say that one thing that I know that we’ve really enjoyed doing, especially with the children’s book, The Tsunami Violin, working together, there’s really been four of us sitting around the table meeting almost weekly to talk about the direction of the book and how much fun it’s been to not feel like you’re alone in a process, and interacting with you about The Moon Creature as well. It inspires you. I feel like each of these projects have gone infinitely better by working together, and it keeps you motivated to keep going on them and feel like you’re really, I don’t know, somehow providing a work that’s going to make a difference in people’s lives.

VerityI agree. I think Moon Creature is so much better for the collaboration aspect. I think it also is what we do as Community Arts Tokyo, is that we’re producing work together. It’s not just for us, it’s for everybody.

RogerYeah, definitely. Well, that’s all the time we have today. Thank you so much for being here in Japan, for coming, sharing your life, your time with us here. We can’t wait to see the Moon Creature completed.

VerityThank you, Roger. And thank you for having me on the podcast, for having me in Japan. I hope to be back soon, and I hope to be sharing Moon Creature with everybody soon as well.

RogerAwesome. Thank you. God bless.

Thank you for listening to the Art, Life, Faith podcast. If you’d like to give to Verity so she can join us here in Japan, please click this link or message me personally. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne.” We’ll see you next time.

Link to support Verity:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd5xLBC1jMCuBcFiQXsCul43RGAOmQ5CPrersuOcv7PrfsZcg/viewform?pli=1

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Welcome to the Art, Life, Faith podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

This episode, I have the privilege of talking with Mike Nawrocki, co-creator of VeggieTales and the beloved voice of Larry the Cucumber. Mike teaches at Lipscomb University, Nashville, Tennessee, and he came over to Japan with his family, a group of students, and another teacher on a mission trip during spring break. We all had an amazing time together making a couple of films and also doing an Art, Life, Faith gathering together. In that event, we showed a short teaser trailer from one of the films made that week, talked about the experience of making the films, including with one of the actresses. We showed some of the short films the students had made in college and then ended the evening with Mike singing some of the VeggieTale songs together with the students. We had so much fun, and I accompanied them on the piano. We also heard a lot about Mike’s new children’s animated series, The Dead Sea Squirrels, which just came out in mid-February, and I can’t wait to share that conversation with you in a little bit.

There were probably, I don’t know, 50-60 people at this event, and one person came up to me afterwards and said, “I don’t know who all these people are, but I want to know who all these people are.” It just shows one reason why we do these. It was a wonderful opportunity to make new friendships. And hopefully, those friendships will last for a long time to come.

Before we get to my conversation with Mike, I want to share a little bit about how this film project came to be, because it’s a really good example of how the arts plays a role in ministry. At one Art, Life, Faith event, I met Kei, a fashion designer and artist. And since then, we’ve often talked about gospel themes in Japanese food. He knows a lot about Japanese food. Eventually, that led into me writing a book, A Taste of Grace, which came out just last summer, full of meditations on the gospel through Japanese food. Well, when that book was released, we did an art life faith together in a beautiful home/art studio that we rented. And in that event, the owner of the venue shared a little bit about his experiences with nukatsuke, a special kind of pickling. And for those of you who’ve read my book, you may remember there was one moment where I whacked my head so hard on a low-hanging door frame. In traditional Japanese homes, the door frames are a lot lower than you expect. You need to duck when you go through. Anyway, at that event, the owner shared this story about how nukatsuke is the haha no aji, the taste of mother, and how it’s one of the most important assets that a family has. He said he was taught that as a child, if the home ever came on fire, it was his job to grab the nukatsuke and make sure it was saved and run out of the house with it, because there’s no way to replace it. If you want to hear more about that story, you can listen to Episode #47 of this podcast.

Well, I was so moved by that story that shortly after we had a church winter retreat, and I shared a little bit with the group. And during it, a young Japanese woman began to cry. After then, she came up to me and she’s like, “You made me cry.” And I said, “Yeah, I noticed that. I was curious, what moved you so much about it.” And she told me the story of how she had a really difficult time growing up with her family. There were many times that she felt isolated, alone, even bullied, and she didn’t have a lot of good memories of that time. And yet when I was sharing about nukatsuke being a way that through Japanese pickling, within a family, it’s one way that God shows his love and care for us. And as she heard that, she realized that even back then, she didn’t know God, but that God was with her, walking with her. And it seemed to redeem that memory for her. It wasn’t all bad. There was some good in her childhood. By the way, this young woman is now one of the leaders in our church in Tokyo. Her story stuck with me.

Well, at another Art, Life, Faith event, I met a young actress in her early 20s, and after talking with her for a little bit, I was like, “It’d be fun to make a movie together.” She’s like, “Yeah, we should do that.” Well, not long after that, Jesus Film Project approached us and wanted to commission us to write and make a couple of films to be able to put on their website for sharing the gospel through Japanese culture. And so it wasn’t too hard for me to come up with a screenplay because I basically just wrote that young woman’s story about nukatsuke in a short film format.

Then the next step, I heard about a group of college students from Lipscomb that wanted to come on a mission trip to make a film. I was like, I have a screenplay, I have an actress, I have a place to film it, I have funding, and now I have a film crew. It’s just amazing how God brought all the different elements together.

It was such an amazing experience with those film students. We had such a good time that who knows, the group may come back next year and make a couple more films for us. But even on top of that, there is also some interest by a couple of the students to become summer interns and stay for longer, 2-3 months next summer. I hope that happens, but we’ll see. So I share that story just to show you how making art isn’t just about coming up with a project and then making something, and then moving on. But it’s all about relationships from beginning to end, seeing discipleship happen, and even seeing people become Christians through the experience.

That’s the reason why we write and publish books. That’s the reason I give concerts and we host exhibitions. That’s the reason that I’m recording this podcast. That’s the reason we continue to invite people into our community through the different events that we do.

Let me tell you just a couple more stories about this. In our church, we have a makeup artist that I was talking with about this film project, asking her to be involved in it. And she said, “Do you need an actress?” And there actually was another actress that we did need for the second film. I said, “Yes, do you know anyone?” She said, “Yeah, my good friend. I’d love to invite her.” I remember this lunch that we had together in our apartment where she wanted to know more. It was basically a get to know each other time and talk about the film. But she wanted to know more. She said, I don’t know anything about Christianity. You’ve told me this has Christian themes in it, so I want to understand that better. Can you tell me what you’re thinking? I turned to the makeup artist and asked, “Why don’t you tell her?” I’m thinking, first of all, she’s your friend, and you speak Japanese better than I do. But also, it was a great opportunity for discipleship, for her to be able to answer the question, to try to put in her own words what Christianity is in the gospel. But she gave me this look back like, “Why are you looking at me? You’re the missionary.” I’m like, “No, you can do this.”

Anyway, she did, and they talk back and forth about it, and then she wanted to know more. So I said, “Well, actually, this is taken from Luke 15 in the Bible. It’s a story that Jesus told.” And she was interested in that. She has heard of Jesus but didn’t know anything that Jesus said. And so we opened up Luke 15 together and read through the parable of The Lost Sheep, then The Lost Coin, and then The Prodigal Son. And she was really engaged. She kept asking questions, and the makeup artist kept answering the questions. It was so cool to see that experience happening because we were making a film. Do you see? It wasn’t really about the film. It was about this relationship, these conversations happening, and the film was just the catalyst for these conversations to happen.

Through the experience, we got to know this actress pretty well, and at the end of it, she’s like, “I’ve never worked with Christians before, but this was so much fun. Please invite me again. I’d love to do this again.” And I told her we’d love to have her again. So, who knows when the next opportunity may be next year. Maybe we’ll be able to do that again. I also gave her one of my books, The Broken Leaf, the Japanese version, saying, “You may find this interesting. Here’s the other things that I’ve been talking about, the gospel through Japanese art and culture, and how I have no right to talk about these things.” I do a whole introduction in the Japanese version that isn’t in the English about what right do I have to talk about this and in a humorous way. Anyway, so the conversation continues.

The other experience I’d like to share with you is how when we were trying to plan the filming for the movie that was going to happen later that week, we also decided to plan a little bit of the Art, Life, Faith gathering that was going to happen, and it ended up turning into this media fest where the students were showing one another the work that they made and talking about it. Then we rehearsed with Larry the Cucumber, with Mike Nawrocki, with various VeggieTales songs. I’m accompanying, and he’s singing Larry, and another student’s singing Bob the Tomato, and another’s Junior Asparagas, and the rest. It was just so much fun. When I asked the students later what the highlight of their trip was, they all said it was gathering in my apartment, overlooking the city, seeing all the lights of the city, all the people out there, knowing that they’re not Christians, and here we were talking about these kingdom themes and how through the arts we’re going to bring it displayed to all these people. And they said they really enjoyed hearing from each other what they had made. It was like this great, encouraging atmosphere of sharing one another’s work with each other, to be inspired also in their own work like, “Oh, what’s the next project I want to do? Maybe I want that person involved in it.” Sometimes I forget how powerful those connections are because that’s my daily life here. I’m always surrounded by artists or making things together and just love encouraging one another to make really high-quality art, but also to talk about the gospel through the art that we’re making.

It’s just so cool to be here in the city of Tokyo, where there are so few Christians and to be able to see how God is building his church and sharing his gospel and seeing lives change through the arts. There’s a lot more I could say about that. But I really want to share with you this conversation with Mike, and especially about his new series, The Dead Sea Squirrels.

RogerMike, thank you so much for being here today.

MikeRoger, thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to be with you here in Tokyo.

RogerYeah, so we are looking out the window of my living room where you can see along the river here in downtown Tokyo. We had an Art, Life, Faith event last night. We were going to do here, but there was so much interest we had to move it to another location, and that was basically because of you!

MikeWell, I’m honored. What an event. It was so cool to see the folks there and to get to share what we did. I’m sure we’ll talk a little bit about that. But this whole trip for me and the students that I’m with has just been so fantastic.

RogerSo tell me about that. Why are you in Japan right now?

MikeI am a professor at Lipscomb University, and we have a missions trip here through our film department. Another leader and I, another faculty member, brought 12 film students to Tokyo to work on filming a couple of narrative films that you wrote. So that’s been wonderful.

RogerThat was fun.

MikeAnd then also doing a documentary. And it’s just been such a great experience. I mean, I’m so proud of the students. They’ve just done really wonderful work. All the principal photography is done. We still have a lot of work to do in the editing bay, but they’ll be two short films. They’ve gotten a chance to obviously experience the culture, meet people, and be on a mission in the field that they’re studying and be able to serve others through the work that they love doing in film.

RogerYeah, I’m so grateful they came here and did that with us. The teaser trailer we showed last night, it was amazing, just the quality of it.

MikeOh, my goodness, yes. I was off in a different area the day that they shot that so for me to see that, I was just blown away, too. I was just so proud of them and just the types of images they were able to capture. And then just the facilities that you all provided, the traditional Japanese house that we filmed in, and the Japanese actors that were there. It was all just amazing and very magical for them.

RogerYeah, those actors were great. On Monday, we filmed A Taste of Grace, which is going be about a three-and-a-half-minute film, something like that. Friday, we filmed what we’re calling The Lost Sheep, about a sheep that goes wandering, but the sheep is actually a bicycle, and how the actor finds it in the end and brings it in. Both are based upon themes in the Bible. I’m really looking forward to seeing more people drawn in to the Bible, perhaps for the first time through these films.

MikeYeah, and our students are so excited about that, the fact that they can create something that’s going to just have a potential impact on others. They’re very interested in sharing their faith, and that’s just a wonderful opportunity for them.

RogerYeah, let’s talk about the event last night a little bit because one of the things I thought was cool was for the students to be able to share a little of the work they’ve been doing up to this point. They can tell people, “Yeah, I had a film screening in Tokyo.” Perhaps they can use that language?

MikeYeah, it premiered in Tokyo.

RogerBut yeah, it was really neat for them to share a little bit about their work and their time here. People seemed to really engage with them over that.

MikeYeah, they loved it. I think you had four students share their films. We have one animation student with us here, so she had a little animated short that she played, which was just adorable about a couple of beavers. Then a few other students shared films that they have worked on just in the context of their school work at Lipscomb. They’re talented students, and they’ve got great hearts. For them to have that opportunity to share with an audience. They were speaking in English and being translated in Japan. Just that experience for them was just…it just blew their minds, and they loved it.

RogerYeah, I love, too, what one of the actresses said who was up there saying how she happens to be a Christian. The others involved were not. Just how amazing the experience. It was her first opportunity to work as an actor with Christians.

MikeThat’s wonderful.

RogerThere are so few Christians here in the film industry. For her to say, “It was different, and it was rewarding, and it was encouraging.” She wasn’t sure quite what words to use. It was really interesting.

MikeThat was really touching. The other thing that Tyler shared with me, the other leader who was on the shoot that day, when you were opening up in prayer, a couple of the actors, probably who weren’t Christians, he was saying the older lady there, the older lady actor, she was just looking around as people were praying. When he finished, Tyler said she shared with him that that day was the 80th anniversary of the firebombing of Tokyo. I’m going to break up a little bit, but just how much she appreciated the fact that we’re friends now, and just that obviously horrible event, and the fact that we could be in a room working together and just communing together as friends was just a wonderful thing.

RogerYeah, it really was a special moment because she asked me, “Can I say something?” “Sure, of course.” Then we weren’t quite sure where she was going with this. “Well, 80 years ago…” “I was like, eighty years ago? Why are you talking about that?” But it was moving. Just interacting, too, with her. There were a lot of conversations that happened before the filming about the content. She was trying to understand what it meant. She was interacting with me over the script and saying, “You wouldn’t really say this about pickles. Why are you saying this?” I said, “Well, that’s actually the point because it’s a metaphor for something else. It’s a metaphor for us and how God takes care of us in our brokenness and our darkness And so by the way you use the language, you want to make people think, ‘Wait, we’re not talking about food? We’re talking about something else?’” And we went back and forth with what she was comfortable saying. So I think she really was drawn in by that. And then on Friday with the other actress, we did a film was based on the parable of the lost sheep. Jesus tells the story of the shepherd who leaves the 99 in search of the one. And then, so all of Luke 15, which then goes with the lost coin parable, and then the The Prodigal Son. We read that together before, while we were waiting for the film crew to get ready. And it was the first time I think she had ever read the Bible before. Opening the Bible, and putting it in front of her, and she’s reading it, and then we’re interacting with the story, and she’s like, “Oh, I see. I didn’t know that this was what it was about,” and it was a really good discussion.

MikeThat’s so wonderful. To me, that’s so amazing because you hear people going on missions trips and sharing their faith, and you get this idea about preaching on the streets and doing that thing. But to go over and just be able to do what you do as an artist and interact with other artists and share your faith that way is just an incredible opportunity.

RogerYeah, God really gives us opportunities through the arts, in Japan in particular. I think that the arts is a great inroad into people’s lives. We love seeing that and love seeing how God continues to bless our efforts in that.

MikeThat’s wonderful.

RogerLet’s talk about VeggieTales a little bit, if that’s okay.

MikeSure.

RogerI have always been amazed at how famous VeggieTales is in Japan.

MikeAnd I’m finding that out. I knew that we had some of the episodes dubbed in Japanese, and the Japanese Larry the Cucumber happened to be my favorite foreign language dub of Larry. I’d heard a number of other Larrys in other languages, and the Japanese version was by far my favorite, the best that I heard, the Hairbrush Song in Japanese, as the kids say, totally slaps. It was really great. But being here and hearing that, just the popularity of it among the people that I’ve met so far has just been fantastic. I just would have never known that.

RogerWhen I travel around giving concerts in small churches, I shared this last night as well, but how it’s very hard for churches to provide children’s ministry because they’re so small. Most of the people are older, and when kids come, they’re like, “Oh, no. What are we going to do? We’re all in our 70s, and now we have some kids here from the neighborhood.” But something that every church has is a VCR. And I think your distribution strategy of, Well, let’s get this into VHS and get it out there was perfectly suited to Japan’s needs at the time.

RogerEven the smallest towns I’ve been to…very rural parts of Japan. And the VeggieTales VHS is right there.

MikeOh, my goodness. And did they ever… Did DVD follow or is it still VHS?

RogerI’m not sure. I think it’s still VHS, actually.

MikeThat’s incredible.

RogerChange is hard. But it was just the fact that you worked so hard to put this product into a medium to get the Christian message out there, and then how God blessed that by having it distributed throughout this country, which has so few resources in Christianity, is just a tremendous gift to us. So thank you so much for doing that.

MikeOh, my goodness. I mean, it’s an honor and it’s truly humbling. I just remember thinking all those years, because it’s animation, you’re in your animated studio and you’re making, I call it making the donuts. You’re making the show and then you’re sending it out there. But it’s been so amazing for me to see just the impact that it’s had in people’s lives. I meet a lot of now college-age kids who grew up on VeggieTales and tell me what it’s meant for them. God’s word, when it goes out, does not return void. And it’s just been amazing to be a part of that. And I’m so honored to know that I’ve had the chance to do something that has been so well received all over the world.

RogerWould you be willing to share Larry’s voice with us a little bit?

Mike“Sure. If I don’t blow out your microphone, I don’t know if you got a compressor on this baby or not. But yeah, there’s Larry right there.”

RogerThat’s awesome! Thank you, Larry, for being here also. But I don’t want to take too much of your time, so let’s go into what your current project is right now. Tell us about that.

MikeSo I’m really excited. We just launched. I left VeggieTales full-time in 2016. You mentioned the home video market. VeggieTales started on VHS and moved its way into DVD. The home video market was very strong for a number of decades. But in the mid-teens, people just stopped buying home videos, by and large, or at least not enough people did which brought an end to that business model. I left Big Idea in 2016 and started working on a new series that I had in mind for a few years. It started with the bad pun, the Dead Sea Squirrels. One of the lines that we drew in the sand very early on with VeggieTales was to never depict Jesus as a vegetable. We were irreverent in many other ways, but we just wanted to draw the line there. I started thinking about, “What other vehicle could we have as a show to be able to tell more New Testament stories, more gospel stories?” That title popped into my brain one day, and I started to form a world around it. When I left Big Idea, I started to develop that as an animated series.

But then a friend of mine who was in the publishing industry suggested, “Hey, have you ever thought of an early reader series with this?” I hadn’t, but I thought it was a great idea. I went away, did some research, and then I worked up a pitch to Tyndale Publishers. They loved it, and I started writing the books. Each book is about 8,000 words, so they’re ideal for early readers, from when kids first start reading in kindergarten up through about fifth or sixth grade. The books were doing well. In the meantime, I also went back to school to get my MFA to be able to teach at the university level. I did that and then started working at Lipscomb University with my good friend Steve Taylor, who brought me in. Steve and I had worked together on a number of projects for VeggieTales. And so went in, began teaching, and then had the opportunity to create a pilot based off of the first book. It turned out great.

From there, we were able to raise the rest of the funds for a full 13-episode first season based off of 12 books that I had written. It tells the story of Merle and Pearl, an old Jewish couple from Galilee, who lived in the first century. Merle has it in his brain that he wants to take a little trip down the Jordan River to the Dead Sea because you can’t sink. He and Pearl get on this raft and spend the day in the sun and in the salty water. Of course, discover it’s a hot, and they seek out shade in a cave. They get lost in the cave. They’re salt-encrusted and dehydrated and that preserves them for 2,000 years in that cave. Flash forward to present day, a little boy named Michael, 10 years old, is with his dad, who’s an archeologist. He’s at a dig in the area, and Michael stumbles across these dead squirrels, and he thinks that they’re cool. So he smuggles them home back to Tennessee and sets them up on his windowsill so they don’t stink up his room. It rains that night, and they rehydrate, desalinate, and come back to life.

So they help Michael as he’s going through things that 10-year-olds go through in the modern day with flashbacks to the first century. Michael’s dealing with a problem with a bully at school. He’s plotting revenge on getting back at the bully. But the squirrels will say, “Hey, we have a story about that,” and we go back and hear a song called “Do Unto Others,” which is Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount. They’re able to plant those seeds, and that works its way through the story. It’s an opportunity to tell those gospel New Testament stories in a way that’s really helpful for kids in the modern day. Then later in the series, we actually share the full birth and death and resurrection gospel message through the story as well.

Yeah, just really excited about the series and its launch.

RogerYou’re the voice of Merle, is that right?

Mike“I’m Merle, yes. I’m Merle the Squirrel.” He’s not as famous as Larry yet.

RogerHow can people watch this show?

MikeWe are on a streaming service called Minno, the number one Christian streaming service for kids, gominnow.com. We did a deal with The Wonder Project, if folks are familiar with the House of David, which is out now on Amazon. Eventually, we’ll be under their umbrella within Amazon, but they sub-licensed us out to a company called Minno, where we’ve got great friends. In fact, they stream VeggieTales, so all that content is also available there. They’re just wonderful folks. We released February 14th with our first three episodes.

RogerCongratulations! That’s pretty recent.

MikeIt’s very recent, and we’ve been adding two episodes every week. In the next two weeks or so, all 13 episodes will be out. We’ve been hearing great things, great feedback from folks. On the 15th, the day after the release, we had a really wonderful premiere in Nashville, where about 700 folks showed up and lots of kids. We showed the first three episodes and had just a really, really great reception. Super excited to see where the show is going to go.

RogerYeah. Would you say it reaches the same audience? If people love VeggieTales, they’re going to love Dead Sea Squirrels?

MikeYeah, I think so. That’s what I’ve heard from a lot of people. It’s a different type of show. VeggieTales was an ensemble cast of vegetables. Every episode was a different story, like a short film with the beginning, middle, and end, and you could watch each of them of a la carte. Squirrels is different in that it is a story that spans 13 episodes. It’s got these great little cliffhangers that hopefully keep you wanting to watch and see how that first season resolves. Then there’s enough threads there to keep you going into season 2, that type of thing. I think nowadays, what people are drawn to about streaming, I think it fits into that format really well.

RogerCool. Well, I can’t wait to see it.

MikeThank you.

RogerAlso, you have a podcast you want to let people know about?

MikeOh, yeah. It’s The Bible for Kids. It’s a podcast that I do. Trisha Goyer is my current co-host. The idea around our podcast was, back in the day, if folks wanted to hear more about great resources for kids, faith resources, they would go to their local Christian bookstore. In the States, they were everywhere. In fact, that’s where we got started with VeggieTales in Christian bookstores, initially. But by and large, most of them are not around anymore. That’s happened to a lot of bookstores. We wanted to provide a podcast for parents who are looking for those resources for their kids. We talked to a lot of authors who have new books coming out, musicians who have projects coming out for kids, filmmakers. Just Any of those types of projects that want to pass on biblical values to kids, we’re interested in talking to authors about that.

RogerThat’s awesome. Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

MikeRoger, this has been so wonderful. Thank you for being such a gracious host here in Tokyo. We’re just over the moon about our time here with you all.

RogerLoved having you here. I hope you bring the students back. They really were a joy to have here.

MikeThank you. We haven’t left yet, and they’re already talking about coming back. So thank you so much.

RogerAwesome. God bless.

MikeGod bless.

RogerThank you so much for listening to the Art, Life, Faith podcast. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne.” We’ll see you next time.

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Welcome to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

This is the third in a series of conversations I’ve shared with you from Lausanne Congress 4, which took place September 22–28, 2024 in Seoul, South Korea. Because it was the 50th anniversary of the Lausanne Movement, it was the largest gathering yet, with over 5,000 people in person and another 2,000 online, plus over 200 nations were represented. I had so many amazing conversations, and I’m so glad that through these three episodes, you can get just a little peek into what God is doing around the world.

DavidMy name is David. It’s nice to meet Roger, my friend again.

RogerWhere do you serve?

DavidI serve in the Sahara, region of Africa that comprises 15 countries. We are targeting Unreached People groups in 15 countries from Gambia, Senegal, Niger Republic, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibuti, and Mali.

RogerAre you a pastor?

DavidI’m not the main pastor of the church, but I assist in pastoring, and I’m a missionary.

RogerGreat. Do you do something in the arts as well?

DavidYes, I’m a musician. I specialize in producing indigenous resources for Unreached People groups. I play the local instrument called the kora. I play the ngoni. I play the guitar.

RogerI think I’ve heard you play one of those traditional instruments at a previous GCAMM conference. Is that right?

DavidYes, I brought my kora to GCAMM in Nairobi. I also played in GCAMM in the US.

RogerI was at both of those events. It was beautiful. Thank you. And so what brought you to Korea?

DavidI was invited to be part of the Congress. The work that I do needs more people. I need to be connected to people who are also doing the work that I’m doing. So I pray to God that I would be able to see people from Chad, people from Niger, people from Mali who are probably doing some of the things that I’m doing so I can collaborate and learn from them.

RogerThat’s one of the key themes of this whole congress, collaboration, isn’t it?

DavidYeah, collaboration is key. My ministry that I work with is Declare Global, and that’s one of the things we are doing. If you are going to really declare the gospel, it must be culturally relevant to the people you are reaching. And that’s one of the key things that I’m also learning from here.

RogerBeautiful. Thank you so much for sharing.

DavidThank you for having me.

RogerSo I hear you have a story. Could you please share it with me?

AttendeeI grew up as a pastor’s kid using arts and ministry in different forms: singing and acting as a tool to reach out to people in evangelism. And then later on, I served in Cambodia in a cross-cultural setting. And I realized that using arts cross-culturally has to be different in our approach than when I was in the Philippines using arts and reaching out to people. And I learned that I should be more of a learner. I’m not going there to teach them arts but to learn their arts. So I learned to dance their dance, learn their music, and appreciate their arts. I realized that it connected us, and it was a pathway for me to build relationships with them and have meaningful conversation about life and other spiritual things that led us to talk about the master artist who is God. Some of them came to Christ, and it was a great way to reach out to people for the gospel. Arts is a pathway for the gospel to reach the unreached for Christ.

RogerDefinitely. You’re a missionary from the Philippines to Cambodia?

AttendeeBut now I’m back home to mobilize Filipinos to go for missions, to be engaged in missions.

RogerThat’s so great. Please send some to Tokyo. Send them to my location.

AttendeeWe have people in Japan.

RogerAwesome.

AttendeeActually, we don’t need to talk about Japan or mobilize for Japan. Even if we don’t talk about Japan, I think God is really doing something after praying for Japan. People will just come to us like, “I’m interested in Japan” even when we didn’t say anything about Japan.

RogerWell, send them on!

AttendeeWe have people. We actually have a long-term worker there, and there are people who are on the process of going to Japan.

RogerGreat. Well, thank you so much.

AttendeeThank you.

MattI’m Matt Menger. I am the Global Ethnodoxology and Arts Coordinator for SIL.

RogerWhat does that mean?

MattSIL is mostly a linguistics organization that does a lot of Bible translation and things like that. But we also have the Ethnomusicology and Arts Department. I wish we could just call ourselves the Ethnodoxology Department. But we work with all of the locally meaningful forms of artistic communication around the world, anywhere that there’s Bible translation going on, and coordinate with local musicians and artists and dancers and people telling stories and all that stuff to work with them to get scripture into more forms of communication.

RogerYeah, it’s very cool. Both of us were just in the seminar, talking about ethnodoxology and the things that are happening around the world. It’s really exciting. Is there anything you’d like to share about that?

MattYeah, I’m just excited to see the amount of interest. I think in the session that you and I were both just in, we had over 50 people, and most of them I’d never seen before. That’s really exciting to me to see more people involved with churches and other things. It’s not just cross-cultural workers anymore. There’s more organizations that are aware of this. Several conversations I’ve had this week with music foundations and others in the Christian music world have never really thought about ethnodoxology before, and they’re starting to ask questions. That’s just really exciting to me to start to see that interest grow where it’s becoming a little more mainstream.

RogerYeah, I think so, too.

MattI feel like, and I may misquote him, but Jaewoon Kim has a term that he calls multicolor worship or things having the color of the multicultural, but they’re not truly multicultural. I feel like that’s a recurring theme here this week at Lausanne as we also try to worship together with people from over 5,000 people from over 200 countries and how many different worship traditions and different flavors of Christianity arehere. Jaewoo’s thought, I forget where I read that, and I hope I’m quoting him correctly, but the idea of so many people experiencing the color of the world. It’s a big question in the world today with urbanization and with cities.

RogerThe way I really see it in my context is it gives the artist permission to explore and be creative and think what is possible rather than thinking they have to adopt what they’ve been told or what traditionally has been done.

MattYeah. Another thing I heard from artists this week that I met with was just the need for more acceptance from the church and the need to be better understood and supported by the church. Sometimes they need to do commercial things to make a living, and the church doesn’t understand why it’s not all free. But I think there’s a growing recognition. I don’t know if there’s a solution yet, but there’s more recognition that the church and artists need to have a better relationship.

RogerI’m sitting here with Daniel Kim, who is a seminary professor and a pastor and an artistic director of theodrama. Thank you so for talking with us. I’m curious, since you live in Korea and Japan, and it’s only two hours away, there’s been a lot of talk at this conference, especially last night. We had a big presentation on the history of the church in Korea and the bad blood, literally, between Japan and Korea. What is your take on that? How can the Korean church reach Japan?

DanielOkay. I’m a Korean, so like any Korean, we have memories. Not that I was born in that era, but my parents have told us about this. We hear it everywhere in the churches and as a nation. It is not just Korea. Many nations have suffered under the colonialization of Japan and Japan’s imperial power and their military tyranny and so forth.

RogerI’m so sorry, on behalf of Japan, my home.

DanielI don’t want to just go on and on, but I think it’s pretty much understood that we’ve been the victims of that.

RogerIt wasn’t that long ago.

DanielNo, it wasn’t. There’re people alive now that remember it. We naturally have this trauma. Yet the Bible says that we must forgive our enemies. We must bless our enemies and pray for them. Japan is in dire need of the gospel. All the resources of the Korean churches have to be poured out into Japan. But why is that not happening? Certain churches, like Onnuri Church, on an annual basis have the Love Sonata, and they send armies of people.

RogerYeah, they’re the biggest church in Korea. Is that right?

DanielIt’s one of the largest churches. It’s not the biggest.

Roger70,000 people or something?

DanielI’m not sure it’s that big, but we’re talking tens of thousands. But they have tremendous resources. They have a publishing house, and they have so many networks. It’s one of the really, I would say, good modern churches here in Korea. Yet, many Korean churches are still hesitant about Japan.

RogerWhy?

DanielWell, because of the history. Yet, the Lord’s word is very, very clear that we must, especially when we look over to Japan, we know that the Christian population is less than 1%. We’re sending thousands of missionaries out all over the world, and we have missionaries sent to Japan, too.

RogerThat’s what they said last night, that Korea is the second largest mission-sending country in the world.

DanielBut we’re not that enthusiastic about Japanese evangelism yet. How can that happen? I’ve been thinking about this because it can’t just be verbally. It can’t just be because we have missionaries as agents of Christ, there’s got to be certain means that will be a connection that will touch the hearts of the people, really connect. Now, let’s say just for the sake of argument, if we were to take a bunch of artists from Korea and we meet a bunch of artists from Japan and they start dialoguing. Before long, when you start singing together and dancing together and articulating together and join the common projects, all this hostility, it fades into the background. And Christ’s love, I think that’s why they call it Love Sonata, it’s like a love song. They’re singing love songs to one another.

RogerYou think arts is that connection point?

DanielYes, I believe that creative arts is the natural cultural bridge to mission.

RogerThank you so much. God bless your ministry. It’s so exciting what you guys are doing.

DanielThank you so much.

RogerI can’t wait until I get to see a performance.

DanielThank you.

RogerGod bless.

[Music of musicians walking down hallway]

RogerThat was rather spontaneous, wasn’t it?

AndyThat was a special moment right there.

RogerYou just never know what you’re going to run into when you’re here at Lausanne #4.

AndyIt’s great to be here.

RogerTell me, who are you and what are you doing? Where do you serve?

AndyHi, I’m Andy Game, and I’m serving in Japan and from Japan into Asia, really looking at new media that will be engaging for the young generation.

RogerNow, we’ve known each other a long time, serving in Japan. We move in the same circles and want to see Japanese become Christians, specifically through the arts. Your realm is media. What have you been getting from this conference? You were telling me before that you’ve been able to be in some discussions, and maybe there’s some thinking that needed to be tweaked a little. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

AndyYeah, it’s just great to be here because we’ve got so many people who are working in media and tech, and also there’s a lot of conversation around AI, and what will that be for the future. We’ve had some great sessions in the afternoons where we’re really looking at collaboration. What does it look like to come together? It’s actually been a little bit low tech. We’ve had all these sheets of paper that we’ve been had lying on the table to help put all the ideas there.

But it’s been really great to just meet people from different parts of the world. I’m excited to see how we could really grow together in the coming years. I think what we would really love to see from this is a fresh expression of the gospel that would really be done in an Asian voice that would really communicate the gospel in a way that would really connect with hearts and minds of younger generation.

RogerSo not just translation, but collaborating together? Coming up with new ideas and creating together?

AndyWe get so many people who come to me saying, “Can you just translate that?” If I go back to my team and ask them to do that, I think they might scream at me. The good conversations that are shaping up here are really the ones where we’re talking about how could we co-create together. How can we bring the best experience, the creative ideas, some of the initiatives and campaigns that have been seen in other countries.

Take the very expressive and vibrant culture here. Everyone knows K-POP and BTS, right? But also coming from many Western nations. But we’d love to build out relationships into the coming years that we could really see co-creation that could really give a fresh expression to the gospel in a vibrant way and an exciting way.

RogerYeah, definitely. Well, thank you. It’s good to see you here. We’ll see you again in Japan.

AndyWe’ll see you again in Japan.

RogerI’m sitting here with Mary Katherine, who I briefly met and got to hear from at the Ethnodoxology breakout session yesterday. Thank you for being willing to sit down for a longer conversation.

Mary KatherineAbsolutely, I’m happy to be here.

RogerTell me a little bit about what you do.

Mary KatherineI’m a visual and performing artist. That’s my marketplace job. I spend a lot of time in the secular world with non-believers in the arts. But I also work as a global arts strategist with an organization called Global Strategy Forum. We’re a think tank and action tank working in 12 spheres of culture, of which arts and entertainment is one of those spheres. I’m one of their global arts strategists, looking at ways to incarnate God’s Kingdom in this sphere globally and to bring, hopefully, human flourishing and point people to Jesus.

RogerOkay, that sounds really exciting. Can you help flesh it out for me? What does that look like?

Mary KatherineOur members, we get together. Our think tank is our R&D. We’re doing research and development. We’re talking with Christian futurists. We’re speaking with people that have done research in these different spheres of culture, like arts and entertainment. We’re coming together and saying, “Okay, how can we give a Christian voice, given all this information that we have, how can we give a Christian voice into these different areas, these different issues or mega trends.” How do we give a Christian voice into that sphere? What are some strategies, some projects, some initiatives we could implement around the globe that could bring glory to God, ultimately. Once we’ve created strategies with our members, we also are looking at partnerships, who are the partners globally doing a good job? Who could we collaborate with or catalyze? Who could implement these different strategies globally?

RogerThat’s great. At the end of this session here, Lausanne was announcing about the collaborative action that we’re all going to be signing tomorrow and how important that is in filling the gaps that we’re seeing in the spread of God’s Kingdom around the globe. Are there parts of the world that you focus on, or is it just global at this point?

Mary KatherineIt really is global. Based on partners. Being at Lausanne, for me, has been creating partnerships, networks, getting introduced to people I didn’t even know existed in different parts of the world. I feel like for me, sometimes there’s gaps, there’s regions where there’s gaps, and I don’t know anyone. I feel like the more people that I know that are in the arts world or in the entertainment media sphere globally, then I have more of an opportunity to see, okay, where are the actual gaps? Who are the people who can fill those gaps?

RogerYeah, that’s so needed.

Mary KatherineWhat I find everywhere I go, there’s people that don’t know about another organization. One organization of Christians doing in the arts don’t know who another organization is, or they don’t know who’s working in Asia if they’re in Africa. I feel like what God wants to do is bring us all together so that we can not only know what’s happening in other areas and be encouraged by it, but also look for opportunities to work with one another and partner.

RogerI love it. I know your heart is to collaborate. How can people contact you?

Mary KatherineYou can contact me at admin because I’m also the administrator for Global Strategy Forum Admin, admin@globalstrategyforum.com. You can learn more about our work at globalstrategyforum.com.

RogerSo thank you so much. God bless.

Mary KatherineThank you so much. I appreciate it, Roger.

RogerSo I’m now sitting here with Dr. Nelson Jennings, who was a missionary back in the day in Japan. We’ve known each other for quite a while. I’m so glad that I got to connect with you here. What do you think of this conference so far?

NelsonWell, it’s actually my first Lausanne Congress to attend. Because I teach missions, I include the Lausanne Movement. In understanding contemporary Christian missions and especially evangelical missions. It’s just interesting to be a part of this Congress for many reasons, because it’s the 50-year anniversary of Lausanne. It’s here in Korea, where I’ve had a lot of very close connections over the past several years, and how digital this Congress is. But just, of course, people from over 200 countries, 5,000 people assembled, 2,000 more taking part virtually. It’s just quite the event to be a part of and appreciate all the preparation, involved, which I know a lot of the Korean side of things for the preparation. It’s just interesting and heartwarming.

RogerYeah, there’s so many volunteers and staff here. I can’t imagine having to put all this together. But it’s interesting. You said you studied this a little bit. Why is Lausanne important?

NelsonIt’s a good question. I mean, Lausanne began in the early 1970s, largely as a reaction to trends that many people were alarmed about that were developing in the World Council of Churches. Billy Graham and John Stott and others wanted there to be more of an evangelistic church planting focus that was reclaimed, and thus Lausanne began. Lausanne has, over the past 50 years, incorporated increasing arenas of mission-related interest. There’s an ongoing, not controversy I don’t think, but discussions within those involved in the movement about keeping evangelism and church planting at the center while acknowledging that God’s mission is far-reaching. Thus, the different areas of concern about what mission means, how Christian churches and agencies are to be involved in Christian mission. There’s a wide scope of interest that has developed within the Lausanne Movement, definitely. That’s the one reason why it is important.

RogerWe’re sitting just under where the workplace ministry is happening, and that is a very large ballroom full of people. I do wonder if the past congresses have had so many people from the workplace.

NelsonWell, I think that is a striking feature of this congress, to be sure. I think it’s relieved some people involved in Lausanne to hear that sending missionaries and having unreached people groups as a central focus is a part of Lausanne. Because some people, when they see the emphasis on workplace ministry and see the other emphases, whatever they might be in social justice or whatever, might sense that, Oh, the center of mission’s concern is dissipating a bit. I just think it’s incorporating more of what Christian mission involves while keeping a central focus on unreached peoples and the need for people, whoever we are, wherever we are, to hear and believe the good news of Jesus.

RogerYeah, that’s good.

NelsonIt’s more holistic, rather than techniques about how to evangelize by getting into certain ways. It’s more like, how does it affect all of life, including business? I think one feature I’ll mention, too. The Lausanne Movement can give the impression that the global church is here. There are representatives from many different churches and Christian organizations that are here. This does not represent the entire Church of Jesus Christ. I take a rather wide view of who we are as the worldwide Church of Jesus Christ and various traditions they’re in.

I think perhaps a bit more modest self-understanding of who the Lausanne Movement involves, both in terms of evangelical, charismatic, Pentecostal groups, as well as there are many, many churches and agencies around the world who fit those categories but have no idea what Lausanne is about.

RogerThat’s interesting.

NelsonThis is a representative group of a sizable portion of the worldwide Christian movement.

RogerThat’s interesting because I have heard it described as the umbrella under which all other umbrellas exist. It’s the overarching, but you’re saying it doesn’t quite . . .

NelsonNot quite. Let’s not downplay the importance and the wide scope of the Lausanne Movement, but let’s not over-extend, really, who it represents.

RogerAll right. Well, thank you so much for your time.

NelsonMy pleasure. Great to be here.

[Music of people singing in a breakout session of artists]

RogerYou were just listening to a breakout session of artists at the Congress being led in worship in different languages. Next, I’d like to have a longer conversation with a friend of mine, Younhee Deborah Kim, who is a Korean missionary serving other parts of the world who I’ve become friends with over the years. She leads Arts in Mission Korea, and her specific vision is to train Korean missionaries how to incorporate the arts and missions to the rest of the world.

Younhee has this wonderful example of how when she was serving in Africa and working with a group of women with fabric. They didn’t see their fabric as anything special. It’s just what they were used to. She said, oh, but it’s so beautiful. It’s so colorful. And through the workshop, convinced them to try making various things like jewelry, bags, hairbands, and souvenirs. And through it, they rediscovered beauty within their own culture. And also through it, found new ways to praise God. Without further introduction, here’s my conversation with Deborah.

Now we’re sitting here outside the Songdo Convencia of the Lausanne Congress. I’m sitting here with Deborah Kim, and I wanted to have a longer conversation with you. So thank you for being willing to do this.

YounheeThank you for having me here.

RogerI really want to thank you for the time that you spent with the interns. We had two of our summer interns, Garner and Rebecca, come join you for a week?

YounheeI think they spent four or five days. Yeah.

RogerAnd you took them to some tourist places, maybe?

YounheeYes. A little taste of Korea on the first day. You asked me to meet them, so of course, I can do that. And they were really sweet. They’re lovely girls. I greeted them and I showed some art exhibition, photography, because one of them is a photographer. So, I wanted to show them a photography exhibition. I invited them to nice café. And the café is a gallery café.

RogerRebecca took some beautiful photos while she was here. I don’t know if you got to see the results of that because then they took that back to Seto, near Nagoya, Japan, and had an art exhibit there.

Younhee“Seasons of the Soul.” I know. That was just so impactful. People were very moved by that whole exhibit and relationships were built. I think this is a very good way to interact with different cultures because they didn’t spend that time as tourists. They are artists, and then they actively interact with the different cultures. Then they got the idea, and then they got inspired, and then they made something new.

RogerYeah, that’s such a good point because there’s this fear that if you’re going to send people over for mission trips or something like that, that they’re basically like Christian tourists. Are they really doing any good and all that. But I think just the beauty of how they were able to interact with you, see the beauty of Korean culture, but also use that for ministry in Japan. And relationships were built, and people were brought into the church in Japan through that. It was just… Yeah. Thank you so much for doing that, for sacrificing your time.

YounheeNo, it was really a pleasure. I liked their attitude. They wanted to learn. They wanted to be inspired by a new culture, and then they just didn’t want to waste it. They wanted to do something more than that. So I like that. I like that idea. We really enjoyed our time together, and then we became friends.

RogerThat’s so cool. So can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

YounheeI’m Younghee Deborah Kim from South Korea. I’m working as a Director of Arts Mission Korea, which mobilizes and trains Korean Christian artists for God’s Kingdom and cross-cultural missions. Usually, I offer a seminar or trainings to encourage Korean Christians to use the artist’s talent and also learn why art is important and how to use art in a mission setting. On the other hand…

RogerYeah, you’ve done a lot of traveling, haven’t you?

YounheeYeah, because I’m also staff of Inspiro Arts Alliance, which is an art mission team in OM, Operation Mobilization.

RogerThey make a good magazine, too, don’t they?

YounheeYeah, it’s called Vivid. Very high quality. My role is Ethnodoxology Consultant and Trainer in Inspiro Arts Alliance. And we have a lot of short-term projects, and we offer different types of training for artists or non-artists. Now, I do cultural research and also work with local partners on how we can develop our workshops or training to be more culturally relevant. Basically, in the heart language of the people, how do you connect that more with what the Bible teaches, rather than importing it from somewhere else, especially Western culture? They have their own artistic expressions, their art forms. For me personally or as a team member, I equally encourage them to use their own artistic language or artistic expressions.

RogerYeah, that’s great. We just had dinner together, and you were sharing how you’ve been to Tanzania, right? Can you tell us a little bit about that?

YounheeI worked with the local partners or local pastors, and I asked them, “Do you need any art project or art workshop?” And then, “Yeah, it would be great.” They invited me to come. I had several art workshops and seminars for women and for children.

RogerWhat was the workshop you did with the women and the children?

YounheeI helped them to see their cultural beauty. Also, mostly, I wanted to use local materials. I found out their African fabric has very vivid colors, and they’re so beautiful. I encouraged them to use that local fabric. I encourage them to try making something new rather than just making clothing. So they made some different sized bags and jewelry and some fashion items.

RogerAnd how did they respond to that?

YounheeWell, first they had no idea what they were doing. “I don’t know how to do it.” But you know what? The first 10 minutes, I just waited. And then they started making something new. And then they found that, “Oh, I can do this. I can be creative. I can make something new.” So that was a good experience. And also one lady said, “Well, first, I didn’t like your idea because it’s just plain clothes. It’s just plain fabric. There are lots of good things from outside the country.

Roger“Outside is better.”

YounheeYeah, but then she realized, “Oh, our fabric is also beautiful. Now I can see it’s beautiful.” That was an eye-opening moment for her.

RogerYeah, it’s so interesting that it took someone from the outside. You had to come from Korea in order for her to be able to see the beauty of her own fabric that she’s been around her whole life.

YounheeYeah. I mean, that was also a learning moment for me as well because usually people think they know their culture. “Oh, I know my culture very well.” But when I ask a question in a specific way, and then they realize that, “I don’t know about my culture.” That always happens.

RogerThat’s beautiful. Just seeing the beauty of your own culture. It’s so important. I’d like to talk a little bit about the Congress. All these people are walking by us. You can hear everyone having conversations around us. So much great fellowship. So many great things going on. I want to specifically talk about the various art elements that we saw. A lot of people have been asking me what my opinion was of the virtual artist that was up there. Let’s see, I wrote his name down: Patrick Bezalel, the virtual reality artist. I’ve actually never seen anything like that. He was up there on stage with . . . what do you call those things?

YounheeThose goggle-type things?

RogerYeah, that. Goggles, right? He’s moving his hands. I think he had special gloves on that could see where he was painting. It was up on the screen that was I don’t know, like 30 feet tall. It was a really huge screen. You see this guy dancing around on stage. It’s an amazing artwork, which ended up being Christ on this tree of the cross. There was light coming out from it. It was beautiful. It was on fire. It was like, vivid glowing fire. I’ve never seen anything like that.

YounheeIt was amazing, wasn’t it?

RogerIt was two songs, I think, that he did that. What else did you notice about this conference related to the arts?

YounheeThere’s also the drama team. They did a short drama and also spoken word. They mixed different types of art forms in drama.

RogerIt made the Bible readings just that much more interesting. What else has struck you about this conference? Has it been good for you? Are you glad you’re here?

YounheeOkay, so for me personally, one of the struggles is that the praise time . . . all the songs are in English, right? Only in English. But this is an international conference. How many countries came here?

RogerA lot. I don’t remember the number.

YounheeMore than 220 countries.

Roger220? Wow.

YounheeThat means there are more than 200 cultures here. So I hoped that . . . I mean, the music is excellent, the band is great, and all the techniques and musical experience is good. But what if all the songs and languages and expressions were diverse?

RogerIt is interesting to think what it would have been like if they had had various instruments from around the world and various musical styles from around the world.

YounheeYeah, I mean, it’s not easy to get 200 languages at the same time. I know that. But at least maybe we can try. Okay, let’s make four or five bands representing different continents. So we can have an African continent worship band and Asian and Latin American and North American and European and then Océanean. And then we can feel at least five different continents represented. And then it can be more diverse.

RogerIt’d be easier to feel the international presence here.

YounheeOf course. For me, the life verse is Revelation 7:9–12. Every nation, every tribe, every people, and every language standing together in front of the throne. We will sing and dance together to worship God. I can’t wait. What will it look like? We cannot imagine, but we can imagine in part because of that cultural diversity. This is one of the complaints. It can be better. They can do better.

RogerYeah, I understand. Well, thank you so much for taking this time with me.

YounheeThank you for having me. And I really appreciate what you are doing in Japan because I know it’s not easy to do that work, but you’re an artist, a great artist, and also you are doing arts ministry there. So I do appreciate it.

RogerThank you so much. God bless.

Thank you for listening to the Art Life Faith podcast. As we say in Japan “Ja, mata ne.” We’ll see you next time.

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Welcome to the Art, Life, Faith podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

I’d like to continue in this episode what we began in the last, reflecting on the Lausanne Fourth Congress that happened at the end of September 2024, which I had the honor of attending. Now, these events don’t happen very often. The previous one was in 2010, 14 years ago. This one was by far the biggest, with 5,000 people from over 200 nations, and I’m still trying to process all the material that was there and all the relationships and new people that I met. So in this episode, we will have a longer conversation at the end with Doug Birdsall, who was chairman of the Lausanne Committee for 10 years, as he reflects on Lausanne and its purpose and where it has come from. But first, I’d like to begin by introducing you to some of the people that I met. Here are just some of the conversations I had with people there.

RogerPlease introduce yourself and where you live.

Attendee 1I am Pastor Philip from Bangladesh.

RogerWhat brings you to the Lausanne conference?

Attendee 1I think Lausanne is a great movement. I already attended Lausanne Cape Town in 2010, and this time I’m here because the main topic is collaborating. This is my desire to collaborate with different people.

RogerGreat. It’s interesting. You went to the previous one, too. How would you compare the two so far?

Attendee 1That time it happened in Africa. Culturally, it’s a little bit different because we really enjoyed the arts and culture in the African context. Now this is in Korea. There is a big difference of cultural contents.

RogerPlease share your name and where you’re from.

Attendee 2Well, my name is Jamshetu. I’m from the capital city of Pakistan, Islamabad.

RogerAwesome. What do you do there?

Attendee 2Well, I’m running a ministry with the name of MAM, Music on Mission. We are trying to reach children and youth through music.

RogerWhat are you hoping for in this conference?

Attendee 2Well, I like to meet like-minded people and to learn from their experiences and, of course, the networking and collaboration. When you come to the other countries, you see different people with different gifts and different blessings. It’s always encouraging for the people who are serving. You get ignited. You get refreshed. And you get charging in your power bank to work effectively for the kingdom of the Lord. I feel that I’m getting refreshed here because I’m watching so many enthusiastic people for the ministry and people are using their talent skills for the glory of the Lord. It’s really encouraging.

RogerNice. Thank you so much.

Hello.

Attendee 3Hello.

RogerNow, I’m not going to ask you what your name is or where you’re from because you’re wearing one of those white name tags. Can you tell me what that means?

Attendee 3For those of us who don’t want to have our picture taken, for the security of our ministry, we’re identified with these white lanyards and a little sticker on our name badges that say no photography, just so that when people take our pictures accidentally those pictures don’t go public or just don’t take pictures at all. Mostly that’s for the sake of security issues within our ministry that we’re serving in closed countries and things like that.

RogerNow, we’re standing here in a seminar room. Can you tell me what the theme is of the talk that’s just about to happen?

Attendee 3Oh, yeah. This is the Islam track. We’re all divided into discussion tables talking about different issues in Islam.

RogerI see there’s a lot of people here.

Attendee 3There is. It’s pretty packed. Yeah.

RogerThis conference covers people in restricted countries across the globe, right?

Attendee 3Yes. Even in my little table of six people, there’s different contexts in Central Asia, the Persian world, university ministries, but all within Islam.

RogerYeah. And you told me just before we started recording that one of the things you’re hoping to get out this conference is really to connect and be able to collaborate with others. Is that right?

Attendee 3That’s right. We have Christians and really top experts from all over the world talking about the Great Commission, trying to figure out how to push forward the goal of the Great Commission and mission. And so I’m here to really hear some of the answers to that question.

RogerYeah, it really is phenomenal. The people who are here are just amazing.

Attendee 3Yes, I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s been a great time.

RogerWell, thank you. Thank you for sharing.

Attendee 3Thank you.

RogerWhat is your name and where do you serve?

Attendee 4My name is Jarvis. I was born and raised in Ghana, but now I’m in Canada serving there in a church and also with the denomination in church planting and church health.

RogerOkay. What do you do with the church?

Attendee 4I currently serve with the Free Methodist Church in Canada as Senior Director of Church Health and Church Planting. But as a musician and artist, my music is always going with me wherever I go. I do a lot of singing and worship. I also bring people into my Ghanaian culture with my music. So that’s what I do in Canada.

RogerThat’s cool. What brought you to the Lausanne congress?

Attendee 4In 2016, I was part of the worship team that led worship at the YLG conference there, the Younger Leaders Gen conference. I’m not sure if I was nominated by somebody there, but two people nominated me. Anyway I have some connection with the Lausanne Movement, so I’m guessing that may have been the reason.

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

Attendee 4Thank you.

RogerPlease tell me what you’re doing here at the Lausanne Movement.

Attendee 5I’m a volunteer. My name is Abel. I’m from Nigeria, but I came in from Germany. I’m a volunteer with the videographer team.

RogerYou just had me record something here. For what video are you making right now?

Attendee 5The videographer team is doing videos for post-Lausanne. In the next couple of years, we want videos that are evergreen, expressions of God through the Lausanne movement with vision statements and some of the statements for the Great Commission are what we are recording for posterity.

RogerGreat. You’re trying to expand the awareness, too, of what Lausanne is about?

Attendee 5Yes, definitely. Lausanne is the global church, and the Great Commission is our collective goal. It’s something that all of us should be doing. We are supposed to be disciples of all nations, spreading the gospel throughout the world. That is the aim, and we want to contribute our part to doing that.

RogerThat’s awesome. Thank you.

Attendee 5Thank you very much. God bless you.

RogerWould please let me know your name and where you serve?

Speaker 6My name is Joel, and I come from Rwanda. I serve at my local church as a deacon and a worship leader, but I also serve in the Peace Plan Initiative as a volunteer.

RogerOkay, now what’s the Peace Plan Initiative?

Speaker 6The Peace Plan Initiative was started by Pastor Rick Warren from Saddleback Church, and it’s about equipping servant leaders to go for the Great Commission.

RogerOkay. What is the situation like in Rwanda? What can you tell us about the church in Rwanda?

Speaker 6Well, the church is growing, and yes, they are being requested to do more at this moment. I like this collaboration that is happening because I believe that there’s a huge gap in unity, but I also see many people rising.

RogerYeah, I see that around the world.

Speaker 6Yes, I see many people rising together to really collaborate and work together for the Great Commission in Rwanda. It’s healing because the past has been a bit hard, but I see the church doing a lot of things in all spaces, education, health, and reaching out to the whole man with love, with God’s love.

RogerThat’s awesome. Thank you. We’ll be praying.

Speaker 6Yeah. Thanks.

RogerIt truly was an honor to meet all these people from countries across the planet. I think that’s something the Congress did really well, representing the world and fellowshipping together and tackling various themes and problems in the world today. How do we see evangelism expand? You could especially see that around my discussion table in the plenary sessions, where each person was from a different country in the world.

One of the things that we kept hearing time and time again was started by one of the plenary speakers who said that the world today is not post-Christian, but pre-revival. And then that became one of the themes that was repeated over and over again throughout the week. And personally, I really appreciated this optimism about the future, that the church is continuing to grow and that the gospel of grace is reaching more and more people.

Okay, so there’s one more conversation I’d love to share with all of you, with Doug Birdsall, who was the chairman of the Lausanne Committee for 10 years. I came to know him at the same church on the North Shore of Massachusetts, and also he previously served as a missionary in Japan for many years, so we have a lot in common.

He’s just such a kind and generous person. And I thought, who better to help us process the Lausanne Fourth Congress and to help us put it in context of where we where it come from.

Thank you, Doug, so much for being on the program.

DougThank you, Roger. It’s really a pleasure to be with you.

RogerI’m really especially happy to talk to you about the Congress that just happened to help me process it. I mean, there are so many people we met. There’s so much information. There’s so many themes that were in the Congress. But before we get to that, I want to start with one of the sessions there celebrating the first 50 years of Lausanne. I’d love for you to talk about that a little bit.

DougSure. Well, the evening that we celebrated the 50 years of Lausanne, I was asked by one of my colleagues, a friend from the Philippines, what she thought Billy Graham would say if he was there, or if he knew that there were 5,000 of us who were in Seoul celebrating the 50th anniversary. And I said, well, I don’t know what he would say, but I know what he would think. He would be very surprised. Billy was actually ambivalent about an ongoing movement.

RogerReally? I didn’t hear that.

DougYeah, he was. Billy Graham, as a person was a crusade evangelist, he never wanted to compete with any established entity. After they would hold a preaching campaign somewhere, they would dissolve the corporation, and whatever fruit came from that meeting was to be enjoyed and cared for by the local committee. So with the Lausanne Congress, he was planning a 10-day event. He never imagined that there would be an ongoing movement. So it was a surprise to him. But it was interesting. I also shared that shortly before he died, when he was interviewed by Newsweek Magazine for a cover story, which they entitled Billy Graham and Twilight. Towards the end of that interview, they asked him what he thought might be his most enduring legacy. Well, of course, he’s known for his crusades. He’s known for Decision Magazine. He was known for helping to establish Christianity Today. Of course, they established the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. There were so many things that he was a part of in one way or another. He was friends with presidents and prime ministers and kings. He was really a towering figure. But in response to that question, he said to them, it just might be the Lausanne Movement.

Well, they hadn’t done any preparation. They weren’t that familiar with the Lausanne Movement. But it’s very interesting that Billy Graham himself had that opinion. The only way that I know that is that Billy Graham’s assistant, David Bruce, called me and told me that. And when he told me, I said, did he really say that. It was a surprise to me. But I had the privilege of meeting him after I became the leader in 2004, and he was a source of great encouragement. So to be there in the Fourth Congress, and each Congress has its own flavor. It has its own context. It’s meeting in a certain time in history. They build one upon the other. But Lausanne, essentially, is a global network of trusted friends across organizational, geographical, theological boundaries, people who are committed to the extension of the gospel, the whole church taking the whole gospel to the whole world. That was the vision. And as you’ve intimated, there are many, many organizations, thousands of them. There are many, many networks, hundreds of them. There are significant global networks, perhaps dozens of them. But I think Lausanne has been used of God in a special way, largely because of the towering influence of both Billy Graham and John Stott, who was also ambivalent about Lausanne.

He didn’t want to come to the Congress in ‘74. He had to be persuaded, both by Bishop Jack Dain and by Billy Graham, who both went and visited him and called him before it eventually came. But probably John Stott…the movement would not have happened without John Stott and Billy Graham and gave leadership to the ongoing movement. And Gottfried Osei-Mensah of Ghana became its international director. But it does provide this place we can get together and talk about both the proclamation and the demonstration of the gospel. We can talk about theology and strategy. Those are really the twin pillars of the Lausanne Movement. And once again, we met in Seoul.

I was the leader for the Third Congress in Cape Town. And oftentimes, I said to our leadership team, which started as a team of five and grew to about 120. I said, we do not want to compare ourselves with Lausanne One and Two. We want to learn from them. But it was said of David, he fulfilled the purposes of God and his generation, and then he died, and he was buried, and he saw corruption. That is, he rotted. Well, there’s a sense in which we did our best, and we had a certain set of challenges and circumstances in 2010 that were different from both ’74 and ’89 and 2024. But the amazing thing is that in each of these congresses, when you bring together, whether it’s 2,500 or 4,000 or 5,000 people, and the Holy spirit is present, and you have people who are eager to learn from each other what’s happening, what are the opportunities, amazing things happen. And I often said to our team also that the fruit of Lausanne grows in other people’s trees. Movements are not interested in counting their members or their money. They’re trying to see what influence we have together for the gospel.

RogerYeah, definitely.

DougThat’s the history it was on.

RogerAll right. So help me process now this Congress in particular. I mean, there’s so many people they met from all over the world. So many themes were discussed. What do you see as the vision for each Congress in particular? Most of the people listening did not have the chance to be able to go to Seoul. What is the Lausanne Movement about, specifically, in these congresses?

DougSure. Well, Billy Graham shared the fact that as a preacher who God used around the world, he had met people from every part of the world, and he had met many of the greatest leaders. They had been involved in his preaching campaigns. He had started Christianity Today, which was really a forum for people to discuss the great ideas before the church. And then he said, in the crusades, we met the people. We had the magazine with the ideas. We needed to bring them all together. And that’s really what 1974 was all about. The whole church taking the whole gospel to the whole world. Let the Earth hear his voice. And by virtue of the fact that it was Billy Graham and John Stott, two, I’m going to say maybe once in 500 years figures at the same time and had a trusting relationship. And then the people that they brought, there were just so many really brilliant people there, including a person like Ralph Winter, a breakthrough thinker in unreached people groups, Samuel Escobar, Rene Padilla, and Orlando Costas, recapturing the social responsibility of the Church, which we had lost.

There was a great Protestant liberal divide. More conservative Christians like us, evangelicals, focused almost exclusively on the proclamation, the salvation, and forgot about the incarnation. So that was a great contribution of the First Congress: unreached people groups, the Lausanne Covenant, and social responsibility. The second Congress in Manila brought together Pentecostals, and Charismatics, and evangelicals in a new way. That was another phenomena. We had been walking parallel to one another but not walking together. And again, God used some great people there, J. I. Packer, for one, and Jack Hayford, for another, representing different schools who really embraced each other in every sense of the word. And then the third Congress in Cape Town was a renewal the Lausanne Movement, a revitalization. You may know that the Lausanne Movement almost died in the ’90s. There were no major events for about 10 or 15 years, but I think one of the great contributions of the Lausanne Congress in Cape Town was the Cape Town 2010 Commitment. We live in a new world, and much of the old Christian world is post-Christian. And so we had to have not a Lausanne Covenant or a Manila Manifesto, but a Cape Town commitment.

We’re making these commitments, and it was written in the language of God’s covenantal love. That was really, I think, a wonderful gift of that Congress. And of course, it renewed relationships. At Seoul 2024, I think there was a real emphasis on, in a sense, getting the job done. A lot of talk about the gaps. Where is the work undone? Where are the opportunities? And so maybe it was a bit more, shall we say, practically focused than the previous. Those are differences. And it’s obvious that when we find another one, we look back in terms of what was done, what was strong, what was weak. And we look ahead, what are the challenges and the opportunities? So you wouldn’t want them to be cookie cutter replicas. You come to the same party, but they will naturally be different. So Seoul was the largest Congress, 5,000 people. That created some great opportunities. It also creates some challenges logistically. But perhaps those are some of the highlights, some of the distinctives.

RogerSomething you said before we started recording was the fact that there were so many, not just people represented there, but so many movements in so many countries. And Lausanne has always tried to not manage these movements, but rather be a catalyst for what are the things that keep putting the vision out there. What are the things we need to be talking about? How do we need to bring people together? Is that something you saw at this Congress?

DougWell, I think that I didn’t see that as much, perhaps, as I might have liked, Roger. I think that perhaps there was more of a commitment to, let’s organize, let’s strategize, let’s close the gaps. I think Lausanne had spoken in terms of we’re taking on the mantle for, finally, a comprehensive, coordinated, well-sustained effort, something like that. I’m not quite sure of the exact language. That, I would say, is a bit new to Lausanne. And I think that that needs to be evaluated carefully, because I would say that as a missionary and as a mission leader who has been involved for some time. I’ve always gone to Lausanne events, large or small, thinking I’m going to meet some really interesting people, and I’m going to get some very high-quality information that’s going to help me as a leader, help the organization for which I’ve been responsible. So we’re not Lausanne Japan. We were a mission in Japan, but I benefited enormously from what was going on. And if we had more time, I would tell you about the result of Lausanne 2 in Manila.

I took a 12-country tour to try to understand what are the implications for a mission organization like ours. The impetus for that came from the Congress. It’s still working itself out in our mission all these many, many years later. So I think that Lausanne is perhaps best when it’s providing ideas and providing the arena, literally, in this sense, the convention, there were the 5,000 people, where people come together. And rather than us trying to coordinate it all, it’s a matter of we’re creating the environment in which people will meet over lunch and in bigger sessions and smaller sessions. I think that’s where Lausanne is the best. And then leaders, in particular, take it back to the organizations which they are leading. And that’s why I think it’s important to get the right people in the room so that a person who has new material has somewhere to go with it, as opposed to, I went unattached, and I left unattached. You don’t really join Lausanne. Lausanne does not have any members. We talk about the fact that Lausanne doesn’t have delegates. Nobody sent them. Lausanne has participants and volunteers. That’s what’s the nature of the movement.

RogerThat’s so well said, because that’s certainly the experience I had at this Congress. There are artists around the world that I got to meet that weren’t part of the networks that I usually am part of. I was like, Who are these people? I want to know these people. I was so thankful that Lausanne brought them together and look forward to the next opportunity to meet them and talk with them.

DougYeah. And you see, it’s interesting because there were some very significant artists who were there, and there are artists networks. I think there may be an artist network in Lausanne, Byron Spradlin, who is a very large organization. But if his organization, and Byron is a very good friend, but if he hosted an international gathering, it’s like, oh, well, the thought is, is he asking us to come to help promote his organization? But when you come to Lausanne, there’s a sense of like, no, Lausanne doesn’t plant churches or start seminaries or mission organizations. And so, we were able to come as a particular individual, part of an organization, part of a network, part of the theological stream, but realizing what a feast. And the fact that was on made a special effort to make sure that artists were connecting. And there’s a sense in which we’re just going to trust God that out of that room, there will be musicians, poets, painters, sculptures, architects that are going to do things and say, it’s interesting. We met for dinner in Seoul, or we went to a session. That’s where the really good stuff happens in my observation, my experience.

RogerDefinitely. I love the meals I had together. There were other artists I really wanted to connect with that were spending a lot of time in the workplace forums. They said that, I I really want to connect with the business people around the world and make…Because arts, for it to succeed, really does need to be connected to the business world. It’s really cool to see that happening as well. What about going forward? Where do you hope to see Lausanne go in the years ahead?

DougWell, Lausanne has made a real intensive, intentional commitment to developing younger leaders. But under the leadership of Nana Yaw, it’s not just younger leaders. It’s like, how do we help each generation where they are? How do we help them learn from one another so that the older people are still being sought out for their experience and wisdom, and they have the joy of encouraging younger leaders and seeing them do new things. I think that’s a very important part. I would hope that Lausanne would strengthen its theology working group and its strategy working group, those who have historically been pillars of the movement. And I think we’re facing some very significant issues, theologically, when it comes to a matter of human identity, the questions having to do with the sexual identity and artificial intelligence, those are very complex problems, and they need really brilliant, Godly people working together to help all of us, because my children and grandchildren and great grandchildren yet to be born, they’ll be dealing with some of these issues. And so I think, especially people who are working in the university world, you would want to go to Lausanne and say, what are we saying about these issues. Identifying the issues and then bringing together the best minds and the people of greatest courage and character, that’s where I think we really need help.

RogerRight. Yeah. And Lausanne still, it really can play that role, right? Because it’s a global network…

DougYeah, it’s a trusted broker. And it’s trusted because of the fact that it has a generous spirit. I hope it has a wise spirit, but also the sense of we’re here to help others. They have a trusted broker of ideas and relationships like Lausanne is really a gift. We received it, and it’s important for us to steward it and to pass it on.

RogerThank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

DougThank you, Roger. I’ve enjoyed this. It’s been nice to see you again.

RogerYeah, it’s good to see you again.

DougWe couldn’t meet at your house or my house, but this has been very nice.

RogerGod bless.

DougOkay. We’ll see you. Bye-bye.

RogerYou’ve been listening to the Art, Life, Faith podcast. If you’d like to read the transcript from these conversations, you can find it on my website, www.rogerwlowther.com. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne. See you next time.”

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Welcome to the Art Life Faith podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

In September, I had the honor of attending the 4th Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism in Seoul or Incheon, South Korea. The Lausanne movement celebrated its 50th anniversary with 5,000 people from over 200 nations. There were so many people!

The Lausanne Movement has significantly shaped Christianity since it was started by Billy Graham 50 years ago in 1974. And there are so many powerful moments that I want to share some of them with you in this and some upcoming episodes.

One of those powerful moments for me was on the Thursday night of the conference when we had a kind of musical presentation of the history of Christianity in Korea. It was really well done, top notch in quality. It was almost like a Broadway show with professional singers and choruses. They symbolically led us through every stage of the growth of the church in Korea, from its founding by missionary Presbyterian missionaries, and then to this wildfire that spread across the nation into the power giant that it is today. But also some of the current challenges it has. In fact, one of the most moving parts of it was toward the end when they talked about how, yes, the church is big and strong now, but that’s also led to some of its problems, that some of the struggles for power and the pride have led many young people today to see the church as irrelevant. And they were actually seeing a decline of young people in the church. And so we need to pray for Korea. And then a Japanese woman came up and prayed for the country. Now, most of you probably know about the oppression the Japanese people had over the Korean people for a long time, and that was actually part of the reason for the growth of the church. And so, at the very end, to have a Japanese woman praying for the country, that God would continue to work mightily in Korea was just such a fitting end to that time.

One of the biggest things I learned from that evening is how the spark of Christianity which spread across the nation started in Pyongyang, which is, you know, the capital of North Korea, where Christianity is now outlawed. So there we were not too far from North Korea where we were meeting for the conference. And we can’t go. No one can go to Pyongyang. And the center of where Christianity started on the Korean Peninsula is now outlawed for Christianity. And that pains us, right? So much has changed in the past 100 years.

Some of the best times for me at the conference were to meet with other artists. We had two artist gatherings at the Congress one was an artist breakout time where we all gathered around tables in a room, I guess there were probably 60 of us there, and discussed challenges facing us in the arts and missions today. Around our tables, we would talk about that and then share from each table. And you could tell from the comments that there was a lot of emotion behind what people were saying. Unfortunately, the time was only 45 minutes and I really wanted it to be longer. And then we all had to rush off to something else. Two days later, we gathered again with a smaller group of artists and talked more about it.

The arts were represented in the congress in a number of ways. First, the Broadway-like musical I told you about before with the presentation of Christianity in Korea. Also, there was an artist who was a virtual reality artist. I’ve actually never seen anything like it. He was standing up there with goggles on his eyes and painting in the air. And then we could see what he was painting on the digital screen behind him, which was a very tall screen. So it was pretty powerful in what he was doing. We also had a number of dramatic skits during the conference, and of course there was music.

What was especially fascinating to me were two artists who were working up front doing live painting during the plenary sessions. They would take the theme for that day and represent it visually for all of us. And then after that, that painting was moved out into the lobby area where people could see it. They did this every single day. Well, after that very last plenary evening, I was able to talk with them a little bit for this podcast about their experience at the conference and to share a little bit of their story.

RogerSo I’m standing here with Bryn and Alexis, who’ve been painting these amazing paintings up here in the front of this hall. And so I want them to kind of share a little bit with all of you about what they’ve been doing up here.

Bryn GilletteTake it away, sister.

Alexis NewsomHi, everyone. Yeah, so I’m Alexis, and Bryn and I have been here. We have been brought into the Lausanne family per se, through different channels. And Bryn has been the artist here for 10 years, and I was invited in earlier this year. So we have now known each other for just a few months. And this has been such an unbelievable week and such an unbelievable picture of collaboration. Yeah, so Bryn and I, we’re both artists, but we are artists of such differing styles.

BrynOn the spectrum of styles, they don’t really get a whole lot wider. I’m not hyper-realistic and representational, but I definitely err on the side of the representational figurative work.

AlexisYes. And I…

BrynFairly small…

Alexis…typically paint very large, very contemporary artwork. Abstract artwork.

RogerTotally.

BrynYou’re doing what I want to do.

AlexisWell, you’re kind of doing what I want to do.

BrynI need more of your work in my work. That’s why I think the Lord brought us together.

AlexisAbsolutely. I think that has a big part of it.

BrynWell, we’ve been joking all week as we have experienced working together in real time, side by side for the first time. We’ve been collaborating up until now on the 50th anniversary painting. But it was only with us handing the work off to each other and then, but not in the studio at the same time. So this was the first real time together. And our kingdom math, our kingdom collaborative math, became one plus one equals seven. But we kept turning around and being like, oh, my goodness, what you’re doing just so enhanced this and feeling like the Holy Spirit was the third undeniable partner with us.

AlexisYes. We’d be standing there. It’s such a crazy dynamic of standing there side by side with another artist and even passing off brushes and passing off colors and switching sides or being like, that’s amazing.

BrynI’ve never seen it. Like, can I try that?

AlexisI’d paint something and come back to the same section and there’s a new, better addition. And it’s…it’s beautiful.

BrynWell, we talked about that. Like, when you do artwork on your own, you’re the master of your own little universe. Like everything answers to you. And so a couple of the things we’ve debriefed and just realized made the collaboration easy because we were like, why does this feel so easy?

AlexisYes.

BrynAnd I think a big part of that is that when you’re already used to collaborating with the Holy Spirit, you’ve already learned to surrender control. Like, it’s not your universe, it’s his. And you’re trying to serve the work. You’re trying to serve the Lord as he prompts. So there’s that already, that call and response. Like, it’s a give and take dance with the Holy Spirit and coming alongside another master and another deep disciple of Jesus Christ who knows how to dance with the Spirit. Lexi’s already doing that with the Lord. And it’s so natural. And I’m drinking from the same well, and I’m doing it. So we’re both collaborating and uniting that way. So it’s not hard to turn and then be humble before her and be attentive to her and surrender control to her because there’s…I just feel like that that’s what we’ve been learning about collaboration. And the honor is really important. The fact that I honor her capacity.

AlexisRespecting and coming into this and coming into the…whatever it may be, the situation, the painting, and coming in with a spirit of humility and as was spoken about earlier in the week, just saying I need you and understanding that you do need others and other people need you. And it’s absolutely a partnership between each other and with the Lord.

BrynYeah, like if we’re going to reach seven in the kingdom math, like I can bring one…

Alexis…and I can bring one..

Bryn…but I need you if we’re going to reach seven because that’s the way the Lord designed it.

AlexisYep.

RogerThank you. That’s such a beautiful picture of what we all are hoping for in the movement here. So thank you so much. It’s been a blessing to us.

AlexisThank you so much, Roger.

RogerOn the next morning, the very last day of the conference, they did a beautiful display of what we’re all trying to accomplish through the Lausanne Movement. And that was they worked with this broken globe. We didn’t really know what it was till it was finished, but they ended up putting together this like 5-foot diameter globe of the earth together up on stage. It was broken in all these pieces. They put the pieces together, then they painted in the continents and the ocean, and then they painted over the cracks with gold. So that ancient Japanese art of kintsugi where you bring the broken together through gold to bring healing, to bring beauty into the brokenness. And to see that visual representation on stage in the last day was so powerful. I wish you all could have seen it.

Well, I wanted to end our time together in this first episode about the Lausanne Congress with a conversation with Victor Nakah. He and I were at a missions conference together in Chattanooga, Tennessee, of all places, right after our trip to Korea. And we were waiting for an event to begin in a park. So we sat down on a park bench and just talked a little bit about it.

Victor is the International Director for Mission to the World for Sub-Saharan Africa and has an important voice for what happens in Mission of the World around the globe. He is from Zimbabwe but currently lives in South Africa. During the missions conference in Tennessee on Sunday, he gave us an important reminder that all of us in the US and in Africa are among those foreign nations, those faraway gentile lands, that Israel constantly prayed for in the Old Testament. And his words really struck me because sometimes we in America think of the US as kind of a center for Christianity. But he powerfully reminded us of how we are brought into the family of God as outsiders, how we’ve been adopted as his children and invited into his family. In other words, we’ve already seen evidence of God’s desire to see the nations come to him. We’ve seen it in America. We’ve seen it in Africa. We see it across the globe. He will continue to make good on his promises. So Victor was on the theological committee for Lausanne, helping to form the Seoul Statement. The previous two congresses also had statements like the Manila Manifesto and the Cape Town Commitment. You gotta love the alliteration there. Victor was kind enough to sit down with me and interact a little bit about this statement and also his experience with Lausanne.

RogerSo I’m sitting here with Victor Naka in a park in Chattanooga. We are here for a missions conference at First Presbyterian Church, and I wanted to ask you some questions about the Lausanne Conference that we were both part of. Can you tell me just a little bit about your experience there? Yeah.

VictorThank you, Roger, for having me. I co-chair the Lausanne Theology Working group, and it’s a group of global theologians who were working on what then became the source statement over a period of four years. But I’ve been involved with the Lausanne movement for the last 20 years.

RogerWow.

VictorAnd my first kind of active involvement was in 2010 when the Congress was held in Cape Town in South Africa. And I was in the theology working group with Chris Wright and others. Really, I was the youngest, so I was learning. I say to friends, I was carrying their bags when we went from one meeting to another.

RogerSo there have been various statements over the years: the Manila Manifesto and Cape Town Commitment, for this one, the Seoul Statement. What were you all trying to encompass? Was it building upon the past? Was it something new?

VictorWell, obviously any document that Lausanne comes up with builds up on the previous documents so that there is consistency in terms of theology and the vision mission of the Lausanne movement. But the difference with the source statement is in the name. It’s not a commitment, it’s not a covenant, it’s a statement. And you can see how that is emphasized right throughout the statement itself, you know, beginning with the gospel.

RogerRight.

VictorSo it’s a statement, a statement that tries to identify theological gaps that the global church needs to wrestle with as we work on the Great Commission. And these theological gaps were identified as part of the listening process in the Lausanne movement. You know, the same process that produced the state of the Great Commission is the same process that helped us identify these theological gaps, and then we started working on them. But it’s a statement. It’s not a covenant. It’s not a commitment.

RogerYeah. I was very impressed by how clearly the gospel was displayed in the opening pages of it. Can you summarize what the major gaps were that were identified?

VictorYeah, if I can remember all of them. So we obviously started with the Gospel because we realized that, you know, globally whether we’re talking about global north or global south, there are all these distortions of the gospel. There are many gospels. And that’s why we thought, if we are to talk about fidelity to the gospel, fidelity to the Scriptures, well, we must begin with answering the question, what is it? You know, what is the gospel? And so the gospel is the first one right at the top.

Another issue that is in this statement is to do with how we read, study, and interpret Scripture. And we’re asking the question, is there an evangelical hermeneutic that unites evangelicals? Because we feel like, you know, all our different differences are really to do with how we read and study Scripture. So there is a section on evangelical hermeneutics. And then we have all these very hot issues around identity, sexuality, and technology. And the theology working group was very much aware of the fact that what we were going to end up with in this statement are conversation starters, as opposed to this is the final. Because how can you get the global evangelical body agreeing on anything, right? Especially on these issues, you know, that have divided churches, issues that have resulted in splits in denominations. So they’re conversation starters. And in one sense, as soon as people received this statement, that began to happen.

RogerYeah, I heard a lot of conversations happening about it.

VictorSome distancing themselves from this statement. Others not happy with the way the sentences were constructed. And I think that was the objective behind this.

RogerYou know, one of my main impressions, just about the conference in general, was the way it felt like there were so many things happening around the world, so many movements, so many nations leading so many different ways. It didn’t feel like, in some ways it didn’t feel unified because there was so much…I don’t know if chaos is the right word…but definitely very diverse in what is happening. And I’m still trying to process it all. Can you help me process it?

VictorWell, yeah, I don’t know if I can help, but I think the emphasis on polycentric mission helps speak to that. The fact that it’s no longer a mission or missions from one region of the world to another. We no longer have one who sends and the other who receives. It’s from everywhere to everywhere. Even when we talk about Africa, the African church is not waiting to send missionaries. We have already done that. Perhaps we need to organize better, train better. So it’s already happening from everywhere to everywhere. And even, you know, when we talk about unity in diversity, there’s a sense in which we’re quite happy to celebrate the diversity. But what’s more complicated is the unity. What is it that unifies us as evangelicals? I think there was a sense at the congress that perhaps this broad church has reached a point where there’s need to revisit the fundamentals, the essentials of the faith that unite us. Are we still united around those essentials or fundamentals and the non-essentials? To what extent have the non-essentials seeped into the essentials box and they need, you know, to refine that?

But what I found interesting, I think, is the need for that is being manifested over things we’re fighting over issues of identity, issues of technology. I mean, we realize, for example, that the global church needs a theology of technology so that we’re not dealing with issues, but we are providing broadly what the Bible would help us think about as we think about technology. So a theology of technology that is all-encompassing. But we’re right at the beginning of doing that. I don’t think we’ve arrived yet. And when we’re talking about issues of identity and sexuality, we realize that perhaps the real need is to revisit our doctrine of humankind. We need a robust anthropology that speaks to and helps us engage with what society is grappling with. So we kept going back to the fundamentals. What are these fundamentals of the faith? What are these robust theologies that we need to revisit? Perhaps they need to repackage the same, but repackage in a way that millennials and Gen Zs can understand and process.

RogerYeah, it’s so good to be having these conversations because I know, like, for example, this past summer we had five summer interns come, undergrads from the States, and it was so different. I felt the difference between interns in previous years that this generation really understands social media and technology in ways that I’m always playing catch up.

VictorOh, yeah.

RogerAnd so to have these conversations allows them to have a voice and say, well, here’s how I’ve been impacted in positive and negative ways. I really appreciate that.

VictorYeah. One of the things that I’ve appreciated is at times how the world, the secular world generally tends to be way ahead of us as believers. Because the secular world in business has talked about peer mentoring, I think, for the last 10 years, where you have a millennial, a young leader mentoring an older leader into the world of social media because they understand, understand social media better and they’re helping the CEO understand how do we use it and where should we be careful. I think it’s the same thing with us. We need to find ways to allow the younger generation to have a voice. I mean, one of the things the Lausanne movement talks about a lot is what will the church look like in 2050? Well, most of us are not going to be there in 2050, so why not allow the millennials and Gen Z’s, those who are going to be there, to have a voice and perhaps influence how we’re going to get to 2050?

RogerThat certainly was what I saw as the beauty of the Lausanne Congress. To be able to create unity, you need to have relationships. You need to be talking about these things together to be together and to be able to bring people from all over the world of all age categories. We had a Gen Z at our table. In fact, she was the table leader, the group discussion leader, and she was amazing.

People keep asking, was it worth it? Going all the way there: was it worth the money? Was it worth the time? And I have to say yes.

VictorOh, yeah, yeah. Well, especially when you consider the fact that this doesn’t happen often. The Lausanne movement is not the only one that tries to bring together the global church. And so any opportunity to meet with more than 5,000 leaders from 200 countries at least. What an opportunity. I mean, when people talk about a taste of heaven, right? In terms of diversity and unity, the fact that we actually came together, just that by itself is good cause for celebration.

RogerCertainly is. I can’t wait for the next one.

VictorOh, yeah.

RogerThank you for all your hard work preparing for this.

VictorIt was my pleasure.

RogerThank you.

VictorRoger, good to talk to you. Thank you, brother.

RogerSo I think you can see from this short conversation that there’re so many things that were talked about at the conference and that we could talk about in this podcast, and I’ll be sharing some of those in the episodes ahead. Something that Lausanne did really well at the Congress was to represent the nations of the world at my discussion table at the plenaries. We had eight people from eight different countries, and in every mealtime and every seminar and everything that I went to, I was always talking with people from all over the world. So, what was clear coming away from the Lausanne Congress is that God is working around the globe and he will continue to do so. He is building his church, and he is spreading his kingdom across the face of this planet for the sake of his glory.

Thank you so much for listening to the Art Life Faith podcast. As we say in Japan “Ja, matane. We’ll see you next time.”

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Are you a college student? If you are, have you ever considered doing an internship somewhere in the world with a missions team? In this episode, we’re going to talk a little bit with two interns who spent some time with us this summer. Internships are a great way to see what God is doing around the world. But I do have to warn you, they can be a bit dangerous. And I don’t mean in the sense of that you may get sick or physical harm, but rather they may impact your life in ways you never expected. For example, just this week, we had an intern start a three-year term with our team, who was with us for two months last year.

This summer, we had five college students come from around the United States, and because of a gathering with Mission to the World missionaries from across Asia that happened right in the middle of the summer, we decided to split their time. So their first half was spent in Tokyo, and then the second half some of the interns went on to Nagoya, a city a couple of hours south of us with our teammates who run an art gallery there.

We had so many great events. We had some creative art nights where we rented a ballet studio as an open space to gather artists from across the city. It was a time to talk with one another other, hang out together, and make things together. We also had our ongoing monthly Art Life Faith gatherings. One of the interns, Rebecca, spoke about a book that she’s writing, and it was really moving how she shared some of the hard things that she’s experienced in her life, and it gave us a chance to invite some people in our network who have been experiencing something similarly hard. It was a way to discuss these things openly and build deeper community. We also gave lots of concerts and performances here and there. We also held two charity events to raise money for Noto Help, a Christian relief organization that’s working in Ishikawa, the area where that terrible earthquake struck on January 1. The first event was a classical concert where we invited numerous musicians from our network to perform.

Last month, we did a bigger event where many people were involved, called TOGETHER. In the event, we brought together various types of art genres that don’t usually go together. For example, we had Japanese manga and American jazz. Vanessa, one of our interns, shared a little bit about a manga book that she’s writing. She showed her work on the screen, which was at a very high quality. And even though she is just learning Japanese, she worked really hard to speak in Japanese about her time as an American in Japan and how she’s been impressed and changed by Japanese manga. That was paired with a Japanese woman, a pianist, who just got back from her internship in Memphis, Tennessee. She shared about being impacted by American jazz, American gospel music as a Japanese person.

That time was then followed by another set where we had combination of fashion design and western dance and the Japanese koto. The fashion designer handmade the costumes for both the dancers and the koto performer on the theme of butterflies. Then there was a seven-movement work through each of the days of the week with a different theme for each one. I have some great pictures in the show notes, if you want to see. This was followed by another set where we combined the Japanese art of nihonga, where minerals are crushed and attached to paper with an adhesive. While one Japanese artist was making nihonga, another next to her performed the Japanese Art of Tea. I was next to them playing harpsichord music from the 1500s, which is the time when nihonga and the the Art of Tea were developed. So it was an interesting contrast with this western music and Japanese art forms from the 1500s. We ended the whole thing with a live painting by a Japanese artist, who painted with glue on a blackboard though we couldn’t see what she was doing. And then at the end, she threw glitter on, and the whole theme of the event TOGETHER came out in bold letters across it. And then this banner came down in the back, made by this church in Memphis, First Evangelical Church, bringing together people in America and people in Tokyo for the people of Ishikawa. People were invited to come up and collaborate by adding to the work.

And, we had these really cool T-shirts made that said TOGETHER on it, which we were selling in order to make money for the charity event. Half the proceeds of the T-shirts went to the people in Ishikawa. There was also an art gallery where various artists showed their work. And there was ways that people could then interact with those artists, get to know them, and find out how to purchase their work. By the way, if you are interested in buying one of these T-shirts, we still have some leftover for sale and can send them to you. (Please contact us at info@communityarts.jp.)

An event like this is a great way to bring together Christians and those who are not Christians. Church members may not feel comfortable inviting their friends to a worship service, but to invite them to an art event like this, where their church community is going to be, is just a great way to do it. And a lot of the relationships built there last for a long time. They remember who they met, and who they want to meet again. And it leads into other things. In fact, I remember an event, one of the artists at the end, who threw the glitter, actually met her husband at an event like this a number of years ago. And so that just goes to show you. It’s about relationships. It’s about community building.

Another thing about this event that’s kind of cool was that it was an unveiling, a kind of dedication of the space, almost a blessing of the space that we were going to be using from then on many times in worship as Grace City Church Tokyo, right next to the imperial palace, right downtown. Most of the church members had never been there before. By coming to this art event, it was a way to kind of get to know the space that we’ll be using many times in the future, throughout the summer and into the fall.

We left the very next day to go to Ishikawa for a relief trip. Man, I wish I could have taken all of you with me. It was a very moving experience. The first day we spent working on an old home in the city of Wajima, which is one of the cities that was hurt worst by the earthquake. 97% of the homes were badly damaged in the earthquake. Most of what we were doing was trying to clear out the large debris and carry it to the street where it could be carried off in order that the owners could go to the next stage of being able to fix the house. The owners, the family, guided us what they wanted done. They live in a temporary home nearby but want to move in as soon as they can get their house fixed.

We fixed the home in the morning and the early afternoon, and then we went downtown. Wajima is famous globally, actually, for the fire that spread through the area downtown, especially the arts district. Wajima is famous for its pottery. We saw a whole area of melted pottery all over the ground. As a team, we prayed over that area. We prayed for the recovery of the area, and we prayed for those grieving over those that were lost.

Then we went to the busiest intersection downtown, the place with the most cars are and many people walking by. There was a famous scene on the news, here in Japan at least, of a building that fell over, a tall building, almost completely intact. It just fell over on its side, you know, 90 degrees. We set up our music right there at the base of this building, pretty close to the stoplight. And it was, you know, it felt a little bit strange. It was noisy. There were all these cars going by, and none of them could be used because they hadn’t been fixed yet. And it was just like, what are we doing here? But we set up and started to play, and magical things started to happen. I mean, the cars, they could have gone up to the stoplight, but instead they were stopping right in front of us, rolling down the windows and listening. And then finally, when they had to drive off, they would call out, “Ganbatte kudasai! Arigatou gozaimasu!” (“Keep it up! Thank you for being here!”). And they’d call out both sides of the window to those of us who are just watching on the other side. And then to the performers.

My son Coen played the Japanese koto, and I played on mostly Bach on a keyboard. And one of the interns danced. And throughout the time, oh, I don’t know, hundreds of cars went by. It was a really busy intersection, and we were worried when the police came by, but they didn’t stop us. They just watched and listened and then went on. And, like, every 15 minutes, they came by to check on us again. But they never did stop us, which was really cool.

We had one man came up to us and ask, what are you doing? And so we explained, that we just wanted to bring beauty to this downtown area. And he said, “Oh, let me go get my food. I’ll be right back. Don’t stop.” Apparently, he lived in a temporary home not too far away, and he got his dinner, because it was almost dinnertime, and brought it back and sat on the sidewalk to listen to us. And we saw a lot of couples walk by and stop. By the end, we had this ring of people on the sidewalk listening to the concert. And then a TV crew came by who videoed us, watched us, interviewed us, and they said they were going to broadcast us in Tokyo and then nationally throughout the country. So that was kind of cool.

The whole experience was just very moving, with this like, you know, cello in Sarajevo-type feel this event, in the destruction to bring this beauty. It made me think about the concerts I’ve heard about in the news in the Ukraine, of going down in the subway stations and giving concerts because that’s the only safe place that people can gather. It’s just…you wouldn’t expect music to be useful or beautiful in that kind of situation, you know, in the devastation. And at that busy intersection: people are busy. They have busy lives. They’re going places. And yet to be come across these unexpected encounters with beauty on a sidewalk at the base of a building that fell over. It was just so moving for everyone involved.

Anyway, there are so many more stories I could share about our time up there. We also partnered with a church, a local church up there, and gave a concert in a preschool in order for him to build relationships in the community. We also did a BBQ children’s festival, where we did hand painting, games, a story time, and gave concerts at the church.

There’s so much more I could say, but I think I better just stop there and let you hear from these two interns themselves.

RogerI am sitting here with two guests, Anna Gardner and Jack. Would you say hi to our listeners?

GardnerHello.

JackHi.

RogerHello. We’re so glad you are here. This summer, we had five interns working with us, artists from the United States, here for the summer. And I invited you two to talk a little bit, to share stories of what has been going on this summer. But maybe a good way to start is for y’all to introduce yourselves a little bit. So, Anna, who are you?

GardnerWho am I? Oh, I’m a child of God. I don’t know. I am born and raised in Alabama, but right now I’m living in Nihonbashi, and it’s actually my last day in Tokyo.

RogerIt’s so sad. Your last day in Tokyo. And so how long you been here?

GardnerLike, almost two months. I’m going to Nagoya, so I have, like, one more month of the internship left.

RogerVery cool. And, Jack, who are you?

JackRaised in sweet home Alabama. I am also living in Tokyo but just got here about two weeks ago, and so I’m here for about three and a half months holding down the fort over here, I guess.

RogerAwesome. Thank you for doing that. Let me start by just asking you, what does it look like to be an intern here in Tokyo? What kinds of things have you been doing?

JackYeah, Roger, this is not our first rodeo. And, yeah, so what have we been doing? Well, working with Community Arts, we do a lot of events and things around the grand old city of Tokyo. Maybe doing some dancing and some guitar playing…

RogerI would like to see that…

JackNo, you do not. But, yeah, there’s such a range of things, because art is such a range. Like a spectrum, in a sense. It has gone from formal organ and dancing events to just, like, almost busking in the streets, you know, with a guitar or something. And so, yeah, what are we doing here? Sharing the gospel through something that God created, which is art, and showing people that we’re creating art because we serve a greater Creator.

RogerYeah. What about you, Gardner? Why are we doing all these activities?

GardnerThat’s such a good question. I was actually asking myself that when I came last year and trying to honestly justify to myself, like, why is it okay for me to go be a missionary in an amazing city like Tokyo. Because that just seems like a gift, not a mission trip, to come to such a beautiful place. But I think, to me, what I have mostly experienced is that dance and art and fashion and all of these arts that we use are a bridge. A bridge not only to connect people, but to connect us to God and to allow us to share the gospel. I can’t speak Japanese, but I can dance. And that is a beautiful thing as a college student, to be able to share the gospel through an art form. And I think it’s so much deeper because it connects to something that’s a part of everyone, which is a longing for something more and a longing for heaven. And so that, to me, is what I’ve experienced the most: connecting with other people in the city of Tokyo through dance, through the arts, and then talking about God through the arts.

JackSo, yeah, something I was kind of thinking about when you were saying that is, you know, when you watch a movie, it has you know, the speaking, and it has the visuals, and has the music in the background. And when those movies are translated into other languages, the only thing that they change is just the talking, maybe the subtitles or something, but the music doesn’t change. The visuals don’t change. It’s just the language, but it’s still conveying. You need the music to convey that emotion. And so, in a sense, that’s kind of what we’re doing. We’re just, in a way, it’s like we’re giving this soundtrack to life and the visuals to show God’s love just through the arts.

RogerYeah, definitely. I mean, art is a kind of language, right? It’s communicating something. Even if you’re watching a show with no words and just listening to the music, you are hearing. It’s affecting your emotions. But it’s more than that, too, right? It’s like how many ways we’ve been able to connect with new people by having you here these past couple months. Just like all the different things that have been going on, new people are being brought into our network. There’s more people that are being brought into deeper relationships through the things that are happening. They’re like, oh, now I see what this community is about. I love it. I want more. That’s exactly what we’re wanting to communicate. Have you seen that? What kinds of stories do you have from your time here?

GardnerI feel like I have so many stories, it’s hard to tell.

RogerI feel like you do, too.

GardnerEvery week, we meet on Fridays and our team gets to talk about what God has been doing that week. And that is the most beautiful thing because you don’t really hear that in America of, oh, yeah, what has God been doing in the lives of non-Christians in your life this week? That’s not as common where I’m from. And so I’ve seen God just use people, simple ordinary people, to connect through the arts to Christ. Our friend Rebecca, she shared her story at an Art Life Faith event. And even from that moment, I just saw so many people come and connect with Christians about deeper issues, like family relationships or depression or suicidal thoughts or deeper matters that no one’s going to talk about on their own. But because we had this Art Life Faith event, I met so many people that maybe I had already known, but I was able to have a deeper relationship with because of this event or, you know, that’s why we have events.

JackYeah, exactly. It’s like a door gets opened to something that you don’t get to talk about very often. And we went to a university close by and got to, in a sense, perform for what we were told was a small class, which ended up being about 200 students.

GardnerIt was so big.

JackI was like, you know, walking into little classroom, oh, there’s a million kids here. These are all college students. And I, we got to dance and play hymns. This was an introduction to Christianity class, and so they were kind of familiar with some Christian terms, Christian songs, Christian hymns, Christian poems. It’s funny looking out over the sea of students, and no one seems to care. No one’s asking questions. No one’s engaging. And then we get their written responses at the end, and we see so many hearts being touched by what we’re saying. I feel like God called me here and students were saying, I wonder if God’s going to call me somewhere. Gardner said something about not being perfect and that that’s okay, because only God can be perfect. And if we were perfect, then we would be God.

I don’t think there was a student who didn’t talk about that. I think all of them had something to say. Like, “I guess I don’t need to be perfect, but I struggle with that.” And so it was cool to watch them open up. And I think it was only because we were singing and performing for them that they felt comfortable to open up.

GardnerLike, we were so uncomfortable up on that stage that it made them comfortable, which is such a weird thing.

JackYeah, I thought we did awful. Not we, I feel like I did awful.

GardnerNo, I thought I did. I definitely did awful.

JackBut the Holy Spirit spoke louder than we did and opened up a lot of conversations after. And I feel like God was really in the midst there. And so again, a door was opened through the arts.

RogerYeah, definitely. I have a good picture of you singing, playing the guitar in front of everyone. I’ll put that up in the show notes because I think it’s pretty cool, to give an idea of the event.

JackYeah, you can’t see in the picture, but I’m shaking.

RogerIn front of the sea of people? The stadium of Tokyo Dome?

JackOh, man. Oh, no.

GardnerAnd also, there was another concert that I really, really enjoyed because it was a collaboration. It wasn’t just a bunch of American college students performing. We had a concert called TOGETHER. What is it? In Japanese?

RogerTomoni?

GardnerWe had this collaboration between a bunch of artists in Tokyo that we knew and some that we didn’t. Some first time meetings. But I’ll let Jack tell you about his act. But my act was dance with my friend Kanako-chan. We both wore butterfly costumes that were designed by a Japanese fashion designer from our church. And then we danced to koto music played by a woman from our church as well. And it was the most beautiful thing, because even though we couldn’t collaborate very easily. I don’t speak Japanese. I mean, I’m trying, but it’s not great. Even without the language, we were able to communicate through our faith and through things that we saw God doing in each other’s artwork and things that we saw in each other’s thoughts and ideas and creations. And that was so beautiful. And not only that, but we got to perform it on a stage and show people that God isn’t just American. God isn’t just Japanese. God is so much bigger than we could ever imagine. Yes, it was beautiful for us, but it was also an opportunity to share that God is big and God is real.

And all of us are up there saying that we believe in God on a stage, unapologetically, but also in a beautiful way. And so that was one of the most beautiful parts of the internship, I think.

JackAbsolutely. I think y’all’s dance, specifically, was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. It really got me choked up just watching it, and so again, also for people maybe who don’t know about koto—I didn’t know what a koto was a while back until I saw some American kid named Coen playing it—

RogerMy son, yeah.

JackIt’s like a traditional Japanese instrument, the coolest thing ever. And the dance was like, it was like you were a reflection of each other. You and Kanako, sisters in Christ, separated by, you know, worldly borders. But it’s like, that was shattered, and you guys were…Yeah, it was just, I don’t know, it was beautiful.

My bit, my part…Usually I was wearing all black and rushing around the stage to move things.

RogerYeah. You’re a great stagehand and videographer, of course.

JackYes, yes, thank you. I got to play piano for Mayuko. She did this, like, invisible painting. She painted with glue while I just played a six to eight minute rendition of Come Thou Fount on the piano, dynamically increasing and decreasing as she was getting more energetic or kind of going into finer details.

GardnerIt actually made me cry, y’all’s collaboration. It was actually so beautiful.

JackI’m so glad. Thank you. And kind of like the climax of the song, she threw glitter at this painting, and it revealed an incredible drawing of Christ, and it said TOGETHER over it, and I didn’t know what that was. I honestly couldn’t see it from where I was. She was just putting something on a black canvas, and then, boom, there it was. And so I was trying to keep playing the piano while I’m, like, stunned, you know, at this amazing artwork I’m seeing. I don’t think a single person wasn’t just blown away by that. And that was the last one of the night. What a way to close it out with a bang, honestly.

RogerYeah, definitely. I’m just thinking, as you’re telling these stories, thinking about the different people who have come into the Grace City church community as well through these events, like those in the past. When I’ve spoken to that classroom and some of those students have come to Grace City, they’re just interested in wanting to know more. And then through the other events, too, people have been coming. And, like, one of our Friday mornings, when we were talking about how have you seen God work this week, and there was a story of one young woman who was going through a kind of hard time in her life, and she was invited in by a friend who’s a Christian. And then just meeting you all there in the youth group was so exciting for her. It just drew her into the community, like this is so much fun. I like this. I want to be part of this more.

That young person was in junior high. This other person was in high school, and we’ve been trying to invite her into the youth group for a long time, but she’s never been very interested. But suddenly, with you all here, she’s like, oh, this is cool. I like this. It just gives so much energy to what we’re doing, and it makes everything so exciting. People ask if it is really helpful to come for a little while, and then leave again. How is that helpful? It gives so much energy and, like, excitement to the ongoing things that we have going, so to be able to pull people into that and then those relationships continue long after you’re gone.

GardnerThat’s actually something I was thinking so much about in my questioning about, should I come? Should I come back? And I talked to your wife Abi a lot about this last year and this year, but one of the things that made me want to come back is the fact that when Americans come, we are so open that it allows other people to have the freedom to open up about their faith, about their life. And to me, that’s really uncomfortable, because I feel like it should be Japanese people opening up to other Japanese people. But right now, it’s not like that. And maybe one day it will be. But there’s also such a deep beauty in these silly little interns coming from America and talking in our loud, annoying, noisy way and giving others the freedom to really be free in Christ when they come to church. And while that makes me a little uncomfortable that it can’t just or doesn’t naturally happen with Japanese people, I feel like we’re, in a way, helping that become more natural just by being our awkward selves and not being afraid to be who we are.

RogerYeah, definitely. There’s this image here around church that it’s a duty or something like, obedience is the main thing. And I’m thinking specifically of one family who had been coming, and then they kind of fell away, and they haven’t been coming recently. So we invited them to Rebecca’s talk at that art gallery that we did, and they were a little bit uncomfortable because it hadn’t been around the community very much lately. And then Rebecca afterwards, invited them to Sunday, and then sat with them, and I’ve never seen that woman smile so big before. It was like she was like a completely different person. And then I talked to her husband for a long time and had a really good conversation. I was like, that is why we did that event on Friday is so that they could have this joy today on Sunday. And all the people are saying, “Welcome back! Welcome back!” Their concept of an obedience duty thing turned into a place of joy, a place of community, a place of fun like we want it to be. So thank you all for that and so many other times. I’m trying to keep people’s names anonymous for sake of privacy. Like, I want to tell you all their names…

JackI’m just trying to remember that as well…

RogerYeah, yeah. On Friday mornings, we say their names and pray for them that God would continue to work in their lives. So let me ask you. The reason I’m specifically talking to both of you is because you were here last year as well. Why did you come back this year? I think there’s a lot of people when they go on missions trips, they want to see what God’s doing around the world and like, oh, I’m going to go to this place and that place and do a different country each time, a different city. But y’all came back. Why did you do that?

JackWell, in all honesty, the first time I came is because I kind of felt specifically called to Japan in the first place. And that was just from my university and meeting some Japanese students, asking them about their religious background, learning that there was not even a thought behind whether there is a God. You know, I never thought about that before, although it was so interesting. And so I found myself looking up, what does Christianity look like in Japan? And then finding an incredibly low statistic and then being like, what’s stopping me from going? That’s stupid. I’m a college kid. I can’t go. And then, you know, now I’m in my second trip here, so God has a way, but why come back? I guess at its root I love Japanese people. I was very surprised. I love the people of Japan because God loves them more. And so I want to keep coming back because I’m seeing this growth.

I can’t name names. I want to, but so many people just, it’s like their eyes keep getting opened, and I’m getting the front row seat to that. And so why would I not want to come back to this incredible view that God’s, you know, this performance, in a sense, God is making an incredible performance, and we get the front row seat. And so, of course I want to keep coming back to see that.

RogerThat’s awesome. And you are very well-loved. People have been mentioning your name for months before you came back. Like, oh, he’s coming back. Jack’s coming back. And I remember, you arrived, I think, Wednesday night, something like that. And then Friday morning, we did our first, “So how have you seen God working this week?” And you’re like, “Oh, I have a story.” I’m like, “What? You’ve been here one day. You can’t possibly have a story.” And you’re like, “No, no, let me tell you Roger.” And you told us about the coffee shop that you went to a lot last year. And then when you came back this year, they’re like, “Oh, Jack’s back.” And it was so funny because, you know, all these non-Christian staff people at this coffee shop were so excited that you’re back. And I think one of the regular customers recognized you too and invited you out to dinner or something. Just to be able to build on those relationships is so important here in Japan. You haven’t just burned out, you know, or gone somewhere else. But that kind of commitment is really important to Japanese people.

JackYeah, it was wild. She basically said, “Welcome back! Long time no see.” And then she was like, “Do you want that honey cinnamon latte?” And it was like I never left. It was awesome.

RogerThat’s amazing.

JackSo good.

RogerYeah. What about you, Gardner?

GardnerThere are so many reasons why I came back, but probably more surprising is that I came at all in the first place because I just… Long story short, last year I decided to go on a missions summer internship somewhere with Mission to the World. I didn’t know where. I just told them to place me somewhere, and they put me in Japan. And I said, “Why? I don’t speak Japanese. I had never even thought about ever going to Japan.” But while I was having this conversation, there was actually one of my friends, a Japanese exchange student, was living at my house with me over Christmas break as I was making the decision to go or not to go. And she said, “You should definitely go.” And she actually convinced me that I should go. So I came to Japan last year of all places.

RogerI paid her to do that, actually…

GardnerOh, right, right. I’ll have to introduce y’all someday.

RogerI’d love to meet her.

GardnerBut she had recently become a Christian. Or actually, when she convinced me to come, she wasn’t yet a Christian, but she became a Christian three months later, and then I left for Japan two months after that. And so while I was in Japan, I had the opportunity to meet several people who were Christians in Japan, Japanese Christians. And there’s actually this couple who live in Fukuoka, a Japanese wife and a Korean husband. I would say that they’re the reason why I wanted to come back, the biggest reason, because I saw them living in Fukuoka, which is a place where they don’t have a single church and they don’t have a church community. They don’t have any Christian community, but they are being faithful to God by raising a family and living as Christians among their friends and neighbors in Fukuoka. And whereas, while they really hope to one day have a church, to have a family in Christ in Fukuoka, they have said goodbye to everyone in Tokyo that they know and all the Christians that they know and moved to this place to raise their family and hopefully one day to be a part of a church.

And I was both heartbroken and so encouraged watching them because their love for the Lord is so evident, but they also are very honest about their struggles, and that allows their friends and the artists around them to see that there is a different way to live. And it was literally the most beautiful thing, just living with their family. Their kids are so cute, and because of them, I realized that there really is a need for Christians. Like, I knew the statistics, but that’s when it hit me, is that in this huge city, there’s not one church that they can go to that believes that Jesus is Lord. And so because of that, I came back, and I actually came back to that city first, and it was, like, the most beautiful thing. They still don’t have a church, but they’re hopeful that one day they will.

RogerYeah, that’s powerful. And it reminds me, too, I want to move into talking about this amazing trip we took over the weekend where there’s very few churches. It’s one of the least churched areas of Japan. We went and stayed in this church where the closest other church in the denomination is a three-and-a-half-hour drive away, if you can imagine. So it’s not like, which church should we go to this morning? It’s like, well, this one or the one three-and-a-half hours away, you know? And on really bumpy roads. So, this past weekend, in response to the huge earthquake that happened in Ishikawa on January 1, there was a lot of devastation. And our church has been sending up teams in order to respond to that. And we had the special privilege to be able to go up this weekend as a group artists. What were your impressions of that trip? Tell me a little bit about it.

JackIt was really encouraging for me, actually. In spite of the destruction, in spite of the toppled buildings and the bumpy roads, there was so much joy. We met at the church, and they started with a devotion and prayer and sent us out. And, you know, we worked with other Christians, and I just ended up just talking to a guy as we were, like, shoveling debris onto a tarp. And he was just, he’d been doing this for a while now, helping out with destruction, and he was kind of a pro at it. But you know, there’s kind of that thought of, you know, if you’re around destruction for so long, it can be really depressing because of the idea of, like, when will this end? How can we fix this? But he was so joyful, and his joy was so contagious too, like, the people that were living there, and it was so beautiful to watch them smile.

RogerJust to emphasize your point. Like, this is July 4. The earthquake happened January 1. They told me that only 3% of the homes have been fixed so far. 3%! That’s 97% of the devastation that is still there. And so, yeah, to be able to have this joy…

JackYeah. And it was like, the people, we were helping out some people in their home, which was pretty messed up from the earthquake, and watching them smile as we were leaving, and they were just so thankful. The lady with the cane was struggling to keep up with the van as it was pulling away so she could wave goodbye, you know, like, it was hard not to tear up.

GardnerShe makes me want to learn Japanese so badly.

JackOh, I know. Yeah, she was awesome. And she was a trooper. I don’t know. It was encouraging just to see this joy that we have because of Christ is contagious to these people. And my prayer is that if we weren’t able to really have a one-on-one conversation with them and tell them, Christ is our savior, that someone in the body of Christ will later share the gospel with them, and they’ll be like, this is the joy that I felt that day. And they’ll remember the smiles we had and maybe the contagious joy that we were able to spread hopefully and see the body of Christ and the Holy Spirit working.

RogerThat family was not Christian. They are friends with Christians who belong to the church, so it was interesting for us to witness in that way with this Christian group. Noto Help keeps coming back day after day after day. We were only there for one day, but every day this Christian relief group is coming back and asking what can we do today? How can we help fix this house? I think it’s a great testimony, and they loved having us there.

JackThey did.

RogerEspecially your accordion playing.

JackI was just thinking about that. I was gonna say, I found an accordion in the midst of the garage, and I was like, can I play this, please?

GardnerWe put on an improv concert at the end. Yeah, I forgot about that.

JackI played Come Thou Fount, on guitar this time.

RogerYeah, and Gardner, you danced around the debris, surrounded by broken things.

GardnerIt was a real Cellist in Sarajevo moment.

RogerYes, it was.

JackOne last thing I was gonna say, and then I’ll had it over to Gardner, I promise. I think of art as a constructive thing. Like, you’re creating something, you’re constructing something, in the midst of all this deconstruction, all this, you know, rubble and things, and we were able to construct something. There’s whole modes of therapy that are devoted to this, for people that feel like their lives are crumbling apart and everything is destructive. They can construct something through art, through music or something. And so, in a way, that’s kind of how I felt going into Ishikawa, is we’re creating something in the midst of all of this deconstruction.

RogerYeah, definitely.

GardnerIt was also, I think, so beautiful to revisit this family that I met last year. And I remember being so disheartened last year when I met them, saw their church. I think there were maybe four members other than their own family, and all over the age of 90, probably. So the church was literally dying out when I saw them last year. And for me, that was so disheartening as a missionary to go and see this family working so hard. And it just felt like they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. They’re in the middle of nowhere, 3 hours away from anyone in their denomination, and they’re working so hard. And for what? It was so difficult to see that last year and this year, I felt that there was such a big change. And it was so beautiful to see just a couple more people and just a little bit more joy. And just, I felt the change from last year that the Lord has been at work. And this passage that you actually spoke on was so powerful in that moment. You spoke on Ephesians 3 that talks about, “so Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know that the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

And then it continues, of course, to “To him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think.” I just think that was like the verse of the weekend. Honestly, through all of our conversations and literally everything that happened that weekend, I felt like we saw God work abundantly and deeply. And maybe the buildings were not rooted firmly, but we have a firm anchor in Christ, and maybe your house may fall or your entire city be burned down, but we have hope in Christ, and we have something far more abundant and beautiful that is not on this earth. And that was really beautiful. So thanks for preaching on that passage.

RogerYeah, I remember we had a kind of kansou where the pastor had us go around and just give our impressions of the time, and he was telling us how encouraged he was by us being there. When we first arrived late that first night, he seemed a little cold to us, or a little stressed, I guess. But by the time we left, I felt like we were best friends. He’s like, please come back. He was just so encouraged by our time there. And I remember there was a non-Christian family in the community that I had lunch with. We did this BBQ festival, and talking with her I was really curious what would draw her in. She’s like, I just really love the pastor and his wife. They’ve been such an encouragement to me. And so to see this pastor as he’s pouring into people in his community and giving everything he has, and then we’re able to come in as these outsiders and encourage him to give him strength to keep going, I think was really strategic and important.

And then we gave a concert. And you danced, Gardner, and the news.

JackOh, yeah, that was interesting…

RogerYou want to tell that story?

GardnerYeah, you know, I was dancing, so I don’t really know what happened with the news.

JackWell, I saw her talking to, Rebecca, but I didn’t know who was she was talking to. People with fancy cameras came walking by, and I was like, oh cool, they’re taking a little, you know, photo shoot or something like that. And then Rebecca walks over after she’s been talking to this lady for a while. Yeah, you’re gonna be on Channel 4 News in Tokyo tomorrow. And I was like, what? So, yeah, they thought it was super cool. And they were just walking around the area and happened to see that. So they got a cool story out of you guys.

RogerWe were trying to decide after fixing that home what to do. We wanted to bring beauty to this devastation. Where should we go? So first we went by, which has become world news of the whole downtown area of Wajima was burned to the ground just completely with a very hot fire. And so, we visited there first, and we’re like, should we give a concert here? And I talked to the security guard who was keeping people out of the devastation. Can we give a concert here? He’s like, “uh, sure, why not?” But as we talked about it, we’re like, well, we don’t really play for dead people. Like, there’s nobody here. It’s all devastated. And so, then we ended up going downtown to the major intersection cross section of Wajima, where there’s a huge building. It was really tall, and the whole thing just fell over intact. Like, completely horizontal.

Jack90 degrees all the way. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.

RogerYeah. And we’re like, well, this is downtown. A lot of cars are going by here in front of this building. How would this be? And we started setting up.

GardnerI changed into a dress in the car.

RogerAnd the police came by. I’m like, “Oh, no, they’re not gonna let us do this.”

JackThey kept going by.

RogerYeah, they just kind of looked at us and kept driving by.

JackThey drove by like five times.

RogerThey kept driving by just checking us out, but never stopped to tell us not to do anything. And so we started giving this concert at the base of this fallen building in downtown.

GardnerYeah, your son on the koto.

RogerWhat was most encouraging to me was that time one van stopped, not at the line, you know, when the light turned red. He didn’t go all the way up to the line, but stopped in front of the performers just to watch, and then the light turned green. He still didn’t want to move, but then he’s like, oh, I guess I have to, because there were a lot of cars behind him. So he rolled down his windows and he started yelling something to you. And he held up his thumb up. You could see the excitement on his face.

To be able to bring that joy and that creativity, that art, that beauty, to downtown Wajima, the most devastated city in that whole peninsula, I thought was really meaningful.

JackYeah.

GardnerThe only word I caught from him was “steki!”

Roger“So beautiful.”

JackI heard “Ganbatte!” like, “keep going,” you know? It was awesome.

RogerAs he drove off, I’m like, okay, I guess we’ve chosen the right place because hundreds of cars were driving by as we were performing.

JackNot a few of them were just craning their necks to see what was going on.

GardnerI was so nervous, partly because the ground was really hot and I was trying not to burn my feet while I was dancing, but also because these cars are driving by. Normally when we’re doing dance or koto music or piano for you, we’re just trying to create something beautiful, not something that will be beautiful in the 10 seconds that it’s seen. And so it was a little bit of a challenge, but it was also so cool to see how even catching bits and glimpses of the piece, people would start coming back. And so I saw a couple of people that were in cars, and they went and parked somewhere and walked all the way over, which is impressive in Japan, to actually spend the time and money to park.

RogerYeah. And there was one guy who was sheltering who, his home was destroyed, and he was in a shelter nearby, and he’s like, what are you all doing? Well, we’re just trying to bring beauty here. And he’s like, oh, great, let me go get my lunch. I’ll be right back. He went home and he got an obento lunch and then brought it back, and he was sitting on the sidewalk eating and watching the concert.

JackI love it. As much as it was cool, I’m sure, dancing and performing, it was also just cool, like, sitting there watching it, and just seeing all the people stopping and getting their phones out, recording and, like, talking to their friends, like, wow, this is so cool. It was awesome.

RogerYeah, it was so cool. Well, we’re almost out of time, so what would you say to people who are considering an internship in the future? Should they. Should they consider Japan? Why? Why do an internship for a summer?

JackWell, of course, I would recommend it heavily. I think it depends on if you really feel like God’s calling you to do this, and if that’s the case, then absolutely. I think for people that maybe they just want to visit Japan, think Japan’s cool or they want to go overseas or something, they may not really get a lot out of it. But if you feel like you want to see God working, if you want to see lives changed by the great commission, then absolutely. If you want to see worship, you know, personified by these artists and their performances, and you want to share the gospel, then absolutely. But if you just want a cool trip. No, because it is work. But it is so beautiful. And so I do recommend it. Absolutely.

RogerAwesome.

GardnerYeah. I definitely agree with what you said. It’s not just to come be a tourist, right? I think the most beautiful part was just getting to dwell in the city and live here. I really think that God will be glorified whether or not we come, and he will make himself known whether or not we come. But the fact that he uses us is the most incredible thing.

RogerIt is amazing, isn’t it?

GardnerI remember praying when I first arrived in Japan this summer. I was so sort of, like, had this conversation with God about, like, I don’t feel like I’m equipped to be here. Like, I feel like there’s so many more qualified people that could have come. Like, why am I here? And I really just felt the peace and assurance that was very uncomfortable, but really wonderful that, yes, there’s so many more better equipped people to come, but if you’re willing, come and God will use you.

RogerThank you so much. And thank you, both of you, for coming and pouring your time in this summer. It’s really been an amazing summer. I look forward to seeing how God continues to use these relationships, to build these relationships that you’ve helped start and grow during your time here.

So people can follow you, I’m going to list on our show notes your websites, and also an article that Gardner has written. You can also get their newsletters and see some of the artwork that they’ve done here. Jack’s music. Gardner’s dancing. Thank you so much for your time.

JackYeah, thank you.

GardnerThanks, Roger.

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My family and I live on an island that’s part of the reclaimed land of Tokyo Bay. It’s at the mouth of the Sumida River, which flows down from the heart of Tokyo. And this is a very interesting place, one reason why we chose to live here.

This island is where the fishermen used to live that went out into the bay to catch the fish. And when they brought it back, they would give the best of it to the Imperial Palace. But then the rest they would take up the canal to Nihonbashi. Now, if you come into Haneda Airport in Tokyo, you know a little bit about this bridge because there’s a huge replica of it in the airport where all of the stores and restaurants are. And the reason is because that was the commerce center of Tokyo.

Nihonbashi literally means the “bridge of Japan.” You know the phrase all roads lead to Rome? Well, all roads in Japan lead to Nihonbashi. It was the center of five ancient roads, highways that went out throughout the country. And even now, when you’re driving and you look at a sign and it says such and such kilometers to Tokyo, it’s telling you exactly how far it is to Nihonbashi.

And further afield, if you go around the world, Paris or Sydney or somewhere like that, and it says Tokyo is 7,300 miles that way, it’s telling you how far it is to Nihonbashi. When Tokugawa united the nation of Japan, he made this place the main exchange ground for so many different things. Like one of them was the arts. As an artist, I really like that part. Ningyocho is right next to it.

“Ningyo” means doll. So “doll town,” it’s the place where all of the kabuki theaters and puppet shows were. I know it pretty well because the pastor I used to work with, who planted the church where I work, used to live in Ningyocho. And so we had a lot of meetings there.

Nihonbashi is also where the first department stores of Japan were invented. Mitsukoshimae is a subway stop that’s near there. Mitsukoshi is a very famous department store. It’s the first department store in Japan. And shortly after that, many other department stores were built.

When I’m describing Nihonbashi, I’m telling you like, this is my front yard in a sense. I bike through there all the time. And you always have all these men in their white gloves, kind of ushering in the cars to get into the parking lots to go to the mall. It’s not really what you consider like an American mall. It’s a very high end Japanese mall.

Another thing that Nihonbashi is known for is a financial district. It’s where the big banks were made. The Bank of Japan, the First National Bank, and the Tokyo Stock Exchange is in Nihonbashi.

But what I want to talk to you about today is that it’s also the center of where sushi was invented, the kind of sushi that we know today. You have to understand that for a long time, and today too, Tokyo is the biggest city in the world. And that was the main cultural exchange place. So many different people, 1.2 million people in the 1700s. And with all these people wandering around, they needed to eat. They needed to eat quickly. And so, because it was a fish market of raw fish, it made sense that they’d want to make a fast food with the fish with mouth-sized bites to give to people in order to be able to have a quick lunch. So I think it’s funny, you know, when I travel in America, often I’ll see sushi in gas stations or airports. That sushi is not quite the same as the sushi that we have here, but it does serve the same purpose. It’s fast food. You’re going through somewhere, you get it, you eat it quickly, and you’re done. And even now, I’ll often eat sushi as fast food. If I’m rushing to something, I’ll grab it from a convenience store and eat it. It’s not too bad.

However, the other day I had an important meeting, and we ate lunch at a sushi place in Nihonbashi. And it was amazing. Not like what you get in a convenience store or gas station or a supermarket. Very high end. And yet it wasn’t that expensive. So when y’all come visit us in Japan, I’ll have to take you there. It’s pretty good.

And by the way, the other interesting thing to me about sushi is the wasabi, or horseradish, the green spicy part put between the fish and the rice. The center of the farming of wasabi comes from the Izu Peninsula, which is a mountainous region, the closest mountainous region to Tokyo. Our church has gone there for a retreat, and so I know the area pretty well, running through all the farmlands. Wasabi comes from big leafy plants that grow right in the middle of the cold, rushing mountain rivers. And so when I think wasabi, I’m thinking the sound of rushing rivers and cold mountain rivers. And so there’s always this fresh, clear crispness of mountain streams brought into my mind in the hustle and bustle of the city. It’s kind of a neat combination.

So every Sunday, I bike from my home where the fishermen used to live through Nihonbashi, and I’m thinking about all these things to the place where we meet near Tokyo station for worship. It’s very close to where we live, and it’s very close to the culture of Japan and the culture of Tokyo.

And so what I want to do is help people taste the answer to the question, “How does this help us see the grace of God?” About a month ago, my book, A Taste of Grace came out, and the purpose of that was to help people taste the message of the gospel, how God loves us and cares for us in a world which is really, really hard. There are so many expectations put on us, and I see people torn apart by that time and time again. Families fall apart. Communities fall apart. This world is hard.

It’s really only the message of the gospel that gives us the freedom and hope that we need to live in abundance. That despite our brokenness and our failings and our mistakes, that God is working to redeem us, to sustain us. He has our best interests in mind, and he is building his perfect kingdom through us, through everything we do, everything we say, everything we make. Our pain, our suffering, is not without meaning. God’s message is not amorphous. It’s clear, it’s distinct, and it’s for us.

And when I eat sushi in Japan, I sense this so deeply, and I want Japanese people to sense that as well. So in the book, I ask the question, “What is the gospel according to sushi?” And you know, when you ask that question, you get some really interesting answers. So for this episode, I’d like to share with you from the audiobook version of the book, A Taste of Grace. This is the chapter on sushi. Please have a listen.

Every meal in Japan begins with one word.

“Itadakimasu.” (“I humbly receive and eat.”)

There is so much meaning in this one word! Literally, it expresses thankfulness both for the people who prepare the food and for the plants and animals which are the food. At each and every meal, we receive the life of another. For one to live, another must die. Sacrifice resides at the heart of every meal.

Perhaps no food in Japan is more deserving of the sentiment of itadakimasu than sushi and sashimi. You watch as the chef cuts the fish right in front of you. Sometimes you even see it alive first, swimming in a small tank in the restaurant. Unlike beef, pork, or chicken, it is actually safe to eat as soon as the chef slices it, creating what I consider an intimate connection with the sacrifice of the fish.

The kind of sushi most often enjoyed around the world today, also known as nigiri sushi or Edomae sushi, developed in the early 1800s within walking distance of my apartment in Tokyo. Roadside stands began placing bite-sized pieces of fish on top of hand-molded balls of rice mixed with vinegar. The pairing with wasabi, or Japanese horseradish, happened almost immediately. We find the birthplace and largest production of wasabi in the mountain river streams of Shizuoka Prefecture, just south of Tokyo.

I can’t help feeling fascinated by the close attachment of sushi to the history, land, and sea of Japan. Sushi expresses in a microcosm the value of contrast in the culture, the strong tastes of vinegar and wasabi against the relatively mild fish and rice. And when I eat sushi, I think of Jesus on the cross. The clean flesh of the fish, his sinless sacrificial body. The vinegar, his bitter drink. The sharp taste of wasabi, his agony. The sushi chef bears witness to the beauty and bitterness of Christ’s sacrifice for the world through every serving.

Sushi gives a delectable reminder of the gospel, humbling us in thankfulness for Jesus’s sacrifice while encouraging us to celebrate him with every meal.

Itadakimasu.

I humbly receive and eat.

You’ve been listening to the Art Life Faith Podcast. If you’d like to hear more examples of how we taste the grace of God through Japanese food, please check out my book, A Taste of Grace, just released. And after reading the book, would you consider leaving a review? It’s a huge blessing not only to me, but to those who are trying to figure out what this book is about.

As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne!” We’ll see you next time.

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When you walk out of an airport and enter a country that’s foreign to you for the first time, one of the things you might notice is the different smell in the air. And, you know, often these differences come from the food. Food is so closely tied to the identity of a nation which plants you in that place. And cultures are practically defined by their food. Think of spaghetti: Italy. Fish and chips? England. Tacos? Mexico. Curry? India. The list goes on. Obviously, these are only just a few examples.

There are many kinds of foods in each country, and you can find these things in the restaurants as well, right? If you go to an Italian restaurant, you’re going to find spaghetti. In fact, it’s going to be called an Italian Restaurant. The nation and the food are almost synonymous with each other. Now, in the process of becoming a missionary, we are taught to be attuned to cultural elements that can be used for contextualization, for talking about the gospel. So what does the gospel look like in this culture?

Since food is so closely tied to culture, it makes sense to ask the question, what does the gospel look like in this culture’s food? It’s the clearest entry into the ways of thinking of a people. And so I wrote a taste of grace to answer this very question. What is the gospel according to Japanese food? And, you know, when you ask that question, you come up with some pretty interesting answers.

Now, we’ve talked a lot in past episodes about the Japanese aesthetic of finding beauty in brokenness, and I’ve written quite a bit about this as well. My book The Broken Leaf looks at many examples of this in the traditional Japanese arts. In the tea ceremony, the leaves must be broken for the flavor and the aroma and the color to come out. In kintsugi, broken bowls are repaired with golden cracks, and the bowl is more beautiful and more valuable and stronger for having been broken. In the Japanese incense ceremony, the tree must come under severe distress in order to produce the kind of wood that releases a pleasant aroma when heated.

And we find this same aesthetic, beauty and brokenness, in Japanese food. We find it in natto fermented soybeans, Japanese pickling, tsukurani, and so many others. But in this episode, I want to talk about how we see it in Japanese rice cakes called mochi. Now, mochi nowadays can be bought very cheaply at the supermarket, and it is also made in a lot of household machines. But one of my strongest memories from my early years in Japan is the sound of mochi being pounded the way it historically used to be made, with a big wooden mallet.

And this sound is very much ingrained in the memories of everyone who lives in Japan, which is one reason why we have mochi pounding ceremonies every year. As I meditated on mochi, I was amazed at how it led me in worship of God and Jesus sacrifice on the cross. And so here’s a chapter on this from the audio version of my book, A Taste of Grace, released just one week ago on May 27. Have a listen.

The sound of laughter fills the air, along with a distinctly sharp sound of pounding.

Thud. Thud.

The woman next to me turns and smiles. She sports a bright red and white headband and a festive blue, white, and red coat known as a happi, which sounds joyful in English as well as in Japanese. She points to a large wooden mallet the size of a sledgehammer as she encourages me to take a turn.

“I don’t think that . . .” I begin to say, but stop. I can tell by the look on her face that I’m not going to be able to back out of this one. I pick up the mallet, surprised by the weight of it and roughness of the texture, and turn to face the big wooden mortar filled with hot steaming rice.

A man crouches next to the rice, ready to turn it over with his hands between each of my hits.

Don’t hit his hands, Don’t hit his hands, I repeat over and over to myself as I raise the mallet over my head. Or any other part of his body.

Thud. Thud.

I had no idea that mochi-making was such a violent process. In order to make these common Japanese rice squares, the mallet needs to come down hard, hard enough to crush and compress the cooked rice. Every single kernel must be pounded, over and over again.

Hours later, we all suffer from blistered hands and sore backs.

Strangely enough, the source of mochi’s “strength” is in the pounding. The source of its endurance is in its “suffering.” Mochi keeps for a very long time without spoiling. Two little pieces have about the same number of calories as an entire serving of rice. In the cold winter months, this durable food source keeps the body warm.

We often feel like mochi, pounded over and over again by brokenness in this world. Broken relationships. Deceased family members. Unrealized dreams. Sickness. Grief. Our physical bodies naturally pass out to protect ourselves when wounded or in pain or when we hear horrific news. Our emotions and psyche sometimes go numb when faced with an overload of traumatic events. Nothing good can come from pain, we often think. Yet, if perhaps like mochi, pain and suffering can transform us into something stronger, experience shows that the very things which hurt us can actually help us grow.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2–4)

We obviously don’t want to face trials of any kind. We don’t want to suffer. Suffering comes nonetheless, and God brings hope into these times by working through the brokenness to shape us into people who are “mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

It’s a fact: comfort does not change us for the better. Just the opposite. It can ruin us, making us unable to change or grow or empathize with others. We must experience brokenness to be reshaped.

I think of Job, a man in the Bible who lost everything—his children, his health, his property—but came to a place where he knew God better and became a blessing to his friends.

“I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.” (Job 42:5)

I think of many men and women in the Bible pounded over and over again with trials of many kinds that gave them their endurance and strength. I think of the persecution of the early church and the growth that came through it.

God wants good things for us. He does not allow the pain and suffering of this world to be meaningless. By his mysterious power and grace the crushing produces endurance; the pounding brings strength. Adversity prepares us for something greater. Trials push us to know God and rely on him more deeply, to rely on his power rather than our power, to look to him rather than look to ourselves.

Jesus trusted God yet died so that we may trust God and live. He received beatings and suffering for our iniquities so that we may be healed. The hands and feet of Jesus were literally pounded onto the cross for our sake, and the sound of it echoes all the way from the cross to the people of every tribe and nation.

“It was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” (Hebrews 2:10 ESV)

This life and even our own hearts may try to pound us into the ground, but in the hands of God, our process of suffering merely transforms us to be more like Jesus. Not only that, but he understands what we face. He empathizes with our trials. He experiences our pain. He shares in our suffering.

Here, on this day, as I pound this mochi and eat the fruits of our labor, I have hope, because I remember how, by God’s grace, my suffering is not my destruction.

Thud. Thud.

May the pounding on Jesus, and the sound of the gospel, reverberate in our hearts and around the world.

You’ve been listening to the Art Life Faith Podcast. If you’d like to hear more examples of how we can taste the grace of God through Japanese food, check out my book A Taste of Grace, just released last week, available in webstores wherever you get your books. Ja, mata ne! We’ll see you next time.

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Welcome to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast, and I’m your host Roger Lowther.

Well, it’s here! The day has finally come. The launch of my next book “A Taste of Grace” is right around the corner, coming this Monday, May 27, on Memorial Day Weekend. I’m so excited to finally be able to share this book with all of you.

Now, this book has really been a long time in coming. I began writing it in 2020 during the lockdown as part of a series of finding beauty in brokenness, along with my other books “The Broken Leaf” and “Aroma of Beauty.” During that year and the years since, we all desperately needed to hear the message of how we could find hope in our suffering.

“A Taste of Grace” continues this series by looking specifically at the beauty and brokenness we find in Japanese food. Most of the stories come from our early years in Japan as missionaries, when we were encountering many Japanese foods for the first time. And some of these stories I hope you’re going to find pretty humorous. And others, I hope you’ll find thought-provoking, food for thought per se. Now, it’s taken me a couple of years to get this book out to you because it has gone through so many different versions during that time. But I’m pretty happy with the finished product, so I guess it was worth the wait. And I hope that many will find it as an encouragement for many years to come.

There’s really two reasons that I wrote this book. One is so people could feel the presence of God, not just on Sundays, not just when they pray, but every day and every meal. Food gives us energy to keep us going, and it’s a wonderful way to connect with people around the table. Eating is certainly at the core of almost every single event that we do here in Tokyo. But food is so much more than that, so much more. It’s no coincidence that the Bible starts with food in the Garden of Eden and ends with food at the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. Food is one of the primary ways that God continually shares his love and care for us. That’s one reason why the sin of taking the fruit from the forbidden tree was so destructive. And that’s also one reason why the imagery of heaven is so often described as gathering around a table, and especially as the Wedding Supper of the Lamb.

You see, food is not just food. It’s not mere stuff. But through food, God is communicating his love to us. And this book explores how he does that and what that looks like. So, I want people to feel the love of God, to feel his care for us. But also, I wrote this book specifically for Japanese people. There’s an incredibly strong image here in Japan that Christianity is a Western religion. In fact, that image is so strong that for different Christian events and holidays, churches often feel like they need to celebrate with Western foods. In one of the conversations sparked by this book, I was talking with a Japanese woman, and she’s like, “After Christmas worship, we wanted to go out and eat as a group. One woman stopped and wanted to eat sushi. Another said, ‘No, you can’t eat sushi on Christmas. This is a Christian holiday. We need to eat Christian food.’ And so they went back and forth, ‘Wait, sushi isn’t Christian?’ and ‘Wait, what food is Christian?’ ‘Well, bread is. We have to go to a bakery.’

Just to emphasize this point, one of the biggest bread companies here in Japan is called Yamazaki Bread Company, started by Japanese Christians after World War II. They always have an ad on the back of our quarterly missionary magazine, a full-page ad that shows a picture of a Western-looking white girl eating their bread. So the image is very strong. Bread is Christian. Rice is not. But what I’m hoping that people will see is that it’s not only bread that’s from God, but rice is God as well. God is intimately sharing his love and care for people through the foods that we eat every day here in Japan. In fact, God is intimately working through all the cultures of the world, to share his love through all the foods of the world. And so I believe, too, that even if you as a reader are not interested in Japanese food or culture at all, that you’ll be able to taste the gospel in new ways through this book.

And so, this book is launching this coming Monday, Memorial Day. And if you’re at all considering buying this book, can I ask a special favor? If we can get enough people to buy the book on the day of the launch, it’ll move into a bestseller status, especially on Amazon, not that I’m pushing Amazon. Wherever you buy your books is great. But if we can get the book into the bestseller status, then it becomes more visible to everyone. And once it’s more visible to everyone, then even people who aren’t searching for that particular book, people who’ve never heard of me, people who aren’t listening to this podcast. It allows that message to reach a much broader audience of people.

And so I encourage you to at least consider buying the book on launch day, if you’re willing, and then after that, to leave a review, because that, too, is huge in helping people find the book and learn what it’s all about. And so that’s what it’s all about, to get the message far and wide to larger groups of people than I could possibly meet with in person. In the past, I’ve seen my book spark so many amazing conversations and build new relationships. And I’m hoping for that with this book as well. It’ll be out in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

In this episode, I’d love to give you just a little taste from the audiobook edition. This is going to be about utage or the Japanese form of feasting. We just celebrated the cherry blossom viewing season here in Japan, and so I use this imagery to help us see the Wedding Supper of the Lamb in new ways, to help us see this amazing future that God has in store for us. Please have a listen.

Outside my apartment building, we sit on mats by a river that flows through the center of Tokyo. A gentle wind rustles the pinkish white petals of the cherry trees, which float down around us like snow. Laughter fills the neighborhood with the joyful sounds of hanami cherry blossom viewing.

A dizzying array of foods spreads out before me as each person arrives: karaage fried chicken, deep-fried potato korokke, sushi, onigiri, tsukemono pickled vegetables, fruit, various kinds of sake. One friend brings something a little more elaborate—a portable gas stove on top of a cart bearing a large pot of oden soup. My wife brings asparagus wrapped in bacon and homemade chocolate pudding.

The Japanese word utage means “feast” or “banquet.” More than physical nourishment, the word conveys connection and community, happiness and blessing through celebration with food.

The Japanese word for “taste” (“ajiwau”) includes broader and deeper connotations of experience than the English equivalent. Japanese expressions such as “taste the beautiful colors” or “taste the music” or, on the darker side, “taste suffering” sound strange in English.

At heart, homo sapiens exist not just as “knowing people” but as “tasting people.” The Latin word sapiens for “knowing” can also mean “tasting.” By tasting, we learn not just about the world, but about each other as well. For example, those first moments after birth build a crucial bond between mother and child through breastfeeding, and we can not leave out the importance of a kiss. Mealtimes together as families, friends, or coworkers create essential opportunities for connecting and sharing stories.

When we eat together and provide food for one another, we fill our table with compassion, kindness, connection, acceptance, and love. We build relationships with each other and with God, and we experience a foretaste of the abundant and eternal nourishment of God in heaven.

“Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” (Revelation 19:9)

All our best banquets give but a small taste of the wedding supper of the Lamb that awaits us. Will this glorious celebratory banquet occur in some large banquet hall made of stone? Or perhaps in the cozy setting of an upper room? Personally, I imagine it might take place outside, on mats laid out by the river that flows through the middle of the city as the wind of the Holy Spirit gently rustles the blossoms of the tree of life. Petals float down around us like snow. A dizzying array of the best foods, from every tribe and nation, spreads out before us as each person arrives. Laughter and joy overflow.

The aromas of this incredible banquet already begin to waft through the air of our waiting world. Can you sense them?

You can read the show notes for this episode at my website, www.rogerwlowther.com. Thank you so much for listening. As we say in Japan, ”Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

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Welcome to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast, and I’m your host Roger Lowther.

Just the other day we hosted a Zoom call for our friend Satomi Suzuki to help raise money for her upcoming artist residency. She’s a visual artist and a writer here in Tokyo, but she’s about to head to Ocean Springs, Mississippi. And so in advance of her departure, I asked if she wouldn’t be willing to have a conversation with us.

RogerWell, I’m sitting here with Satomi Suzuki, and this person, I don’t know why it’s taking me so long to introduce y’all to her. She is an amazing person. She’s been a long-time attender of our Art, Life, Faith gatherings, and she’s so caring, giving to other artists in the room who haven’t been coming very long or who are younger. She has a very caring heart. She is a writer and a visual artist, and you can see that in many of the works that she does. She has published books. She has gallery showings with her paintings. She has been writing lyrics for worship songs that we have at Grace City. It’s so cool that we have many new songs introduced at our church because she’s been writing lyrics for us. And Satomi really is a pillar of Grace City Church. She leads the prayer ministry at the church. Once a month, during COVID, she was doing it online and did an amazing job. Now we meet in the back of the sanctuary before worship every week. And she’s just a help in so many different ways.

Anyway, I’m very glad to have you here, Satomi.

SatomiThank you so much, Roger. It’s too much big compliment to me.

RogerNo, no, no. It’s not big enough. It’s not big enough.

SatomiThank you.

RogerYeah, I really want people to get a little picture of who you are and what it is that you do. So you’re a visual artist. And I remember I went to your gallery showing last year, and there were so many people there.

SatomiOh, I’m so grateful for that.

RogerAnd they were so happy to be there, too.

SatomiThank you. Thank you so much.

RogerAnd just the way that you cared for everyone that walked in the room. I wonder, can you tell me a little bit about how would you describe your art to our listeners?

SatomiThank you. I really like to draw, but I want to express my image of something like God’s love. I want to express something important we can’t see always, real beauty we can’t see.

RogerSo there’s a beauty that we have that we can’t see ourselves, that God sees in us? Is that what…

SatomiYeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right.

RogerI mean, that’s… As I look at your artwork, it’s so colorful. You know what I mean? Bright colors and lots of colors. And use the image of flowers a lot and oceans. So the beauty we see in nature, I see a lot in your artwork. And so you’re saying that also helps us understand the beauty that God sees in us as his creation?

SatomiYeah, yeah, yeah. And I just like to draw and using colorful stuffs. And there is a wonderful thing. Art is so free, and we don’t have rules when I draw, so I can feel more freedom.

RogerThat’s good to hear. There’s actually in organ music, there’s a lot of rules. People come up to me, they’re like, “You can’t play it that way.” I’m like, “Why not?”

SatomiYeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, I don’t know. Even I don’t know the rules of the visual art. So yeah, might I should to know the rules of the visual art?

RogerWell, I think you clearly know what they are.

SatomiHope so.

RogerYeah. Well, I want to ask you, too. You put out a children’s book recently called I Am An Apple. Can you tell us a little bit about the story of that?

SatomiSure. As you know, I’m still an English learner. But when I was learning English, I like this idiom, “You are the apple of my eyes.” And this word is really interesting as Japanese because you are the apple of someone’s eyes, really important to me. So I wanted to express that the apple, the main character is apple, and the apple finds himself. And we always want to know real identity. And if someone says, “You are the apple of my eyes” to someone, it’s really wonderful. And I wanted to express God’s love through the apple.

RogerIt’s beautiful. It’s exactly like you’re saying what you’re trying to say, the message in your art is what you’ve put in the book as well. Just this poor apple. He’s around other vegetables, right? And he’s different. He’s like, oh, he doesn’t know what his identity is, but in the end finds it and the intrinsic beauty that he has.

SatomiYeah. And if someone asks you, “Who are you?” can you answer exactly? I’m always thinking those kinds of questions. But if I could say, God is loving me. It’s really great.

RogerThat’s such an important message that people understand how they’re loved. I heard someone say, actually at church just a couple of weeks ago, we had someone come through and share about their ministry and said that in Japan, a lot of people don’t feel loved, that it was something like 50% or something like that, compared to Americans, where it was a much higher percentage. Is that one reason that you are trying to express that as a Japanese artist, as a Japanese person living in Japan? Is it a message that’s really important for people to hear?

SatomiRight, right. Exactly. And I wanted to share that beauty is not one style. So even if you think yourself, I am ugly, but God says, You are so beautiful because I made you.

RogerYeah. I mean, I’ve found… It’s just amazing to me how the words of others really impact us so deeply. If it’s a kind word, we feel encouraged. If it’s an unkind word, it seems to last like 100 times more powerfully than the kind words for some reason. And so I feel like we really need that encouragement, that message that you’re telling, because we forget, because there’s a lot of unkind words that people say, and we can’t seem to knock them out of our head. And so the more people that are sharing, this is God’s love. He sees you as beautiful. You’re important. He gives you your identity. Not what others say, not even what we say about ourselves. We may have a very low image of ourselves, but that’s different than God’s eyes, where he’s like, “No, I made you. You’re important to me. I love you.” I really appreciate how your art speaks that.

SatomiThank you.

RogerI know soon into your journey of becoming a Christian, you went to Israel to learn more. And then you joined Grace City Church soon afterwards, which is the church that I work at. And you told me that I was the first person that you met at Grace City?

SatomiYeah, I remember you talked me about… Actually, my name is Satomi. It’s really Japanese common name. Then I hated that. But Roger said, “Oh, Satomi? It’s a beautiful name.”

RogerIt is a beautiful name.

SatomiOh, really? Well, thank you. So I was so surprised, and my heart became warm.

RogerOh, good. I’m glad we could encourage you. And then soon after that, you started coming to all the different art events we did, and then became a part of the artist community.

SatomiBecause Roger and Abi are always so welcoming. So I can easily join and enjoy the time with people. So I really appreciate that.

RogerWell, thank you. So then soon after that, I know you joined what we call the Samurai Project here, which is training to learn more about the Bible. It was like a part-time job, right? You’re paid a little bit, and you attend classes all day, and then you do an internship with a church. So now you’re going to Mississippi for this artist residency. You’re going down to Ocean Springs, right on the coast. A beautiful place. I wish I could go to. Tell me what your are hoping for in that residency?

SatomiActually, this is super unexpected opportunity for me. So it doesn’t feel like real still. I hope I can meet many people, Christian people. Actually, I don’t have exact what I want to do, but I want to draw, and I want to get so many inspirations from their place and people.

RogerYeah, I know you’re going to be spending a lot of your time in an art gallery that just opened up, a husband and wife. And she is a floral arranger making decorations for huge parties and weddings and all sorts of events. I know that’s going to be an amazing experience. And connected to a great church there and all the people there. And there’s this amazing artist community that I got to meet last year when I was there. I’m so excited for you to meet them because I know they’re going to be a huge encouragement to you as well. There’s a number of potters and a lot of visual artists. It’s just such a beautiful place. So I’m really hoping it’s going to inspire you to be able to go to different places and draw and paint and create a lot of work and sell a lot of work.

SatomiThank you, Roger. You always give me so many hopes.

RogerWhen I saw your gallery exhibit last year, it really struck me that Ocean Springs would be a good place for you to be because of some of your themes of flowers and trees and ocean and sunlight. That’s exactly what that place is. I do pray that it’s going to be a good time for you. Rest and inspiration, and that God will be close to you during that whole time. Do you know yet what your hopes are for the fall when you get back?

SatomiI always want to live as an artist in Japan. In the world, it’s maybe difficult to live as an artist, but I want to live as an artist because God gave me the gift as a talent and because when I draw, I feel so much joy. I want to spread and I want to share this joy with people through the art. I want to share my artworks more after autumn, after this year. I hope this summer will be my jumpboard of my life to the next step.

RogerVery cool. And you were telling me before we started recording that you think your next exhibit in Japan will be probably in January after you get back and make a lot of work here. I’m hoping you’re going to sell a lot of what you make in Mississippi. It’s going to be hard to get it all back here.

SatomiYeah.

RogerSo how can people see your work? How can people buy your work? How can people hear your story?

SatomiYes, through my website. And I write a blog, but all in Japanese, so you can see my website or Instagram.

RogerOkay. And that website is www.satomisuzuki.info. If you go there, you’ll see her artwork. Also, there’s a place where you can click Contact. If you do, and I encourage you to do that so you can get updates from Satomi and hear in her newsletter—which is in English, her blog’s in Japanese, but her newsletter is in English—so you can hear about what she’s doing down in Mississippi and her journey going forward.

SatomiYeah.

RogerThank you so much for sitting down to record with me today.

SatomiThank you so much, Roger. And thank you so much for the listeners, being patient of my English.

RogerYour English is great. Thank you. Well, during your time in Mississippi, I know you’re going to have a lot of practice.

SatomiYeah, I’m so thankful.

RogerAnyway, thank you so much.

SatomiThank you for having me.

RogerI hope you’ve enjoyed these conversations with Satomi. Now, if you want to support her residency, she actually has quite a bit of money to raise. Her budget is very low. I’ve seen the budget. It’s $6,000, the very bare minimum of what she needs. And she’s raised $2,000 of that so far, but still has another $4,000 to go. And so if you’re interested in supporting her, I encourage you to go to the show notes for this episode at www.rogerwlowther.com and there you’ll see links about how you can give to her. Before we sign off, I wanted to give you just one more picture of her heart and her vision as she shared it in the Zoom call earlier this week.

SatomiI always want to express God’s love and beauty of God, but we can’t see it. So I want to express it always. Ten years ago, I became a Christian, and at the same time, I started to draw. So I believe drawing is a gift from God. And when I draw, my heart is filled with joy. If the artist doesn’t share the artwork with anyone, the artwork is unfinished. The artwork wasn’t born yet. So I think sharing art is so important as an artist, and I want to share my joy and beauty of God to many people.

So that is what success means to me, that my artwork will be a bridge that connects non-Christians and the gospel.

RogerThis 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.”

Satomi’s Instagram account

GIVING
US citizens may give a tax-deductible gift toward Satomi’s residency through the following link:

https://mtw.org/projects/details/community-arts-tokyo

(Please send a note through Satomi’s website so that we can designate that money toward her, as a number of projects are going through this account.)

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Welcome to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast, and I’m your host Roger Lowther.

I want to give y’all a brief report from our relief trip to Ishikawa Prefecture last weekend, responding to the needs from that enormous 7.6 magnitude earthquake that struck the region on January 1, 2024. I led a youth team of 3 adults and 7 junior high, high school, and college students from my church, Grace City Church in Tokyo. It was basically a mini-missions trip, which for many of them was their first experience to do anything like this in their entire lives.

Man, it was a really long day. We left the cabin where we were staying in Nagano just after 4 AM and drove just over 3 hours through the sleet and slush, actually kind of dangerous conditions, to get to Uchinada Bible Church, the church in Kanazawa City that is serving as the largest base for Christian relief work in Ishikawa. This Christian effort is called NOTO HELP, which is a combined effort from Christians all over Japan. Noto is the name of the peninsula in Ishikawa where the earthquake damage is the worst.

After receiving a short orientation, we received special shirts marked NOTO HELP, which proved essential for getting by the roadblocks into the peninsula where the damage was worst. I guess they don’t want people traveling up there just to see the destruction. From there, we drove to the city of Nanao, where NOTO HELP has their warehouse with all the supplies people are sending from all over Japan. From there, we split into three different teams.

The job of Team 1 was to organize the warehouse. NOTO HELP’s warehouse in Nanao City has been receiving supplies from churches all over Japan. We created an inventory of the new donations and organized them: blankets, blue tarps, adult diapers, toilet paper, and so many other things. One youth commented, “I counted 5,418 masks! Just in the regular size! Not including small size, sort of small, or oversized…I’ve never seen so many masks in my life!”

The youth also made 122 variety bags full of essential items like toothbrushes, toothpaste, wet towels, soap, little heating pads to warm your hands, and these bags will be handed out later at shelters. They also made small cards for each of the bags with the NOTO HELP logo and messages like “We’re praying for you!”

Three of us headed to the largest shelter in the region, which housed over 750 people after the quake. Now almost two months later, 173 people still live there waiting for temporary housing or to find another living space. We received permission from the director of the shelter to give a concert and set up in the lobby just outside the doors to the main room where everyone could hear us. My 14-year-old son, Coen, played the koto, the traditional Japanese harp, and I played the grand piano. Many people stood in the hallway or sat on chairs to watch and listen. Those who walked by paused for a bit to listen or comment, “Beautiful!” or “I wish I could play like that” or to just wipe tears from their eyes. One woman told us the music was so deeply moving that it gave her peace. “Thank you for today,” she said. “Because of you, I’m going to sleep well tonight.”

Outside the shelter, there were 20 temporary toilets lined up next to a big pool. You were supposed to fill a bucket with water to flush afterward. One of the youth was carrying a bucket up the stairs to the toilet when an older woman began to come down. Afterward, she remarked how she just couldn’t imagine living that way. She couldn’t imagine how they expected older people to carry a bucket of water upstairs, somehow hold it in one hand while opening the door, and then somehow get in without spilling any. Even the simplest things like using the toilet are challenging after an earthquake, she realized. We learned how many older people don’t drink water often enough to keep from having to use the bathrooms much, which leads to other kinds of health problems. Anyway, the plan is to shut down this shelter at the end of March and move everyone into temporary housing that is currently being built.

The third team from our youth group went to Suzu City, another 2.5 hours north up the peninsula. Most of the buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged by the earthquake and the 6-foot tsunami that followed. We brought 60 cases of water to a medical clinic, a shelter in a school, and a private residence. Many sections of the road were impassable due to landslides, requiring the trucks to frequently use hastily made alternate routes.

On the way back, my 18-year-old son Eastin found a clock in the destruction. It stopped at the exact time the tsunami had hit at 4:49 PM. He stood there and looked around, trying to imagine what it was like on that day. It was very moving. It’s much different seeing the destruction on TV and seeing it in person, you know?

By the time we all got back to the cabin around midnight, we were so tired I can’t even tell you. But God really blessed that trip. During our worship time together the next morning, on a Sunday, it was great to hear the youth process their time. One youth commented on how everyone knew we were Christians by what was written on our shirts, and on the jacket of the guy from the Salvation Army as well. He wondered aloud what that would look like in Tokyo. How do we make our identity known as Christians in Tokyo? How do we show the presence of God in Tokyo? That led to a very interesting discussion as well.

Quick story: In the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake 13 years ago, we became good friends with a local family participating in our relief efforts. Their daughter, then in third grade, is now 21 years old and recently became a Christian through their ongoing relationship with our family and the church community. She joined us on this recent relief trip to Ishikawa, excited to help as her parents did 13 years ago but also to share her new faith in a God who is with us even in disasters.

It was a really powerful trip, and there’s a lot more I could share about it. You know, March 11, the anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that struck the northern part of Japan is right around the corner. There are events planned up north to remember that day and the people lost, so I’m going to make the ebook versions of my books Aroma of Beauty and Pippy the Piano absolutely free through Amazon on that day, March 10-11. This goes for the Japanese version as well as the English version. These books tell the stories of how God worked after those terrible disasters. If you’ve already bought a copy of the paperback, hardcover, or audiobook, thank you! That means so much to me! Well, this is a great time to pick up the ebook as well, completely free. If you’re studying Japanese, it might be fun to pick up the Japanese version as well and try to read some of it. If you do get one, it would be a great help if you would rate it and leave a review on Amazon so more people can find the books.

In our last episode, I told you a little bit about the trip Tsumugu and I took to Fukushima for Christmas concerts. Tsumugu played the “tsunami violin” made from debris from the tsunami. The sound post of that violin was made from one of the most famous trees in Japan, the Kisseki no Ippon Matsu, the “Miracle Pine Tree.” In one of the concerts, I played a piano famous in that area, the Kisseki no Piano, the “Miracle Piano.” And then, right next to the broken nuclear power plants, I played what is now known as the “Fallen Organ.” It was such a powerful trip in so many ways, and I think I will never forget the people or events from that trip. If you want to hear more about it, you can listen to the previous episode, Episode #55 of the Art, Life, Faith Podcast.

This episode, I would like to share with you a conversation I had with Tsumugu just before our trip to Fukushima, which I already told you about in the last episode, so here you’ll hear us talk about our feelings going into it. It is also just before the Art Life Faith event in December.

I first met Tsumugu when he was only 15 years old. He had just entered high school and was volunteering in Ishinomaki in the area where the earthquake and tsunami had hit. I heard him play, and was like, oh man, I need to bring him down to Tokyo to perform in our next conference. He did and did an amazing job. Well, he recently graduated from the Berklee School of Music in Boston, which many Japanese consider the best jazz school in the world because of some very famous Japanese jazz artists who graduated from there, and he moved to Tokyo where we reconnected just a few months ago.

Here is our conversation.

RogerSo I’m sitting here with Tsumugu Misugi, who is going to be doing an Art Life Faith event for us tonight. Thank you so much for sitting down for this podcast.

TsumuguThank you for having me here. I’m very excited to be here today.

RogerYeah, well, you’re not the only one. I mean, I’ve been getting emails from a lot of people from far-off places that are coming tonight to hear you and hear you’re going to have to share.

TsumuguYeah, I heard that people coming from faraway places. And I’m very honored to be given this opportunity to share. And I hope that I make the trip worthwhile for them.

RogerI’m sure. Well, I mean, you live this dream life, I would say, for so many. You’re, what, 26 years old, and you are accomplished in composition, writing scores for video games, Korean dramas and Japanese films, live performances with orchestras… I want to hear from your own words. It’s pretty cool.

TsumuguYeah, I would say it’s not a normal life for sure. I’m very blessed to be able to live just writing, making music. I write music for video games. I write music for TV, drama, films, and mainly for orchestra context. But yeah…

RogerI remember you showed me a picture of your home studio that you had to live a little bit outside the city in order to be able to get a place where you could record. It looks sci-fi with all these monitors and equipment. And there you are, recording yourself on the violin. It looks pretty cool.

TsumuguIt’s a really cool space that I’m very proud of. I’m very blessed and honored that I have the opportunity to work in a space like that. It’s also a space that I’m in more than 10 hours a day. So I just wanted to make sure that I am the most inspired when I’m in that space. So I had to go a little outside of the city to find a place where I could make music 24/7. When a composer, you don’t have office hours.

RogerIt’s very project-based, right?

TsumuguDeadline-based. Yeah. When you’re working on a couple of projects at a time, that means you’re writing overnight and sleeping during the day. It depends on where the client is in the world because of time zones and everything. You have meetings at like 3:00 in the morning. So yeah, I’m very happy about my studio currently.

RogerYou said you didn’t always… We were talking before we started recording, that your very first recording space was an abandoned church.

TsumuguYeah. I got into this line of work. I mean, I’ve been playing music my whole life, but I started writing music for film and video games during COVID. And at that time, I was looking for a space that I could make into a studio without getting disturbed by my dogs at home.

RogerOh, yeah. That would be a problem for recording.

TsumuguYeah. I found a church that was abandoned because they had to stop service during COVID and couldn’t get enough money to last through COVID. It was an abandoned church, abandoned floor in a building with just a bunch of chairs for the congregation. I set them up. I stacked the chairs to make it look like an acoustic panel Looking back, it’s definitely not the best sound, but it worked. I’m still very fond of the music that I wrote in that space. It was a very strange working environment, but that’s where it started.

RogerI imagine you having these bedsheets over it as well. Or some soundproofing blankets?

TsumuguYeah, I would try to pull the curtains from the windows. Imade it work. But yeah, I recorded violin, I recorded cello in that space. I wrote probably my first few scores in that space.

RogerThat’s really cool. All right, so what projects are you working on now that you can tell us about, that you’re allowed to?

TsumuguCurrently, I’m writing music for a video game that’s being produced in Singapore. We are targeting to release a beta version for Tokyo Game Show next year in September and a full release to the public at the end of the year. I’m not allowed to say the name of some of the projects that I’m working on, but I’m writing currently for a couple of Korean dramas. And I also did orchestration and violin recording on a movie called My (K)Night that came out in Japan two days ago.

RogerAwesome. I can’t wait to see it.

TsumuguYeah, it’s in theaters right now. So if you have time.

RogerVery cool. All right. So a lot of people try to imagine what video game music is like with Mario Brothers. Is that what you’re talking about, or what music are you writing?

TsumuguYeah, I think that’s what a lot of people grew up with. I think that’s… It’s really cool music. A lot of that came because of the limitations of the gaming consoles and devices that they had, the technology at that time.

RogerIt was analog, right?

TsumuguYeah, but now we have the technology to basically put in audio files and program them into the game. A lot of the music that I write for video games is orchestral or hybrid orchestral, so a mix of electronics and orchestra. That’s where you get huge, epic, orchestral scores for music. That’s the, I guess, the genre of gaming music that I write.

RogerThat’s awesome. You said that there’s a little clip of something that we could play.

TsumuguYeah, this piece of music, when you first start out, I think a lot of people have this question, “How do I become a film composer? How do I become a game composer when there’s no game or a film?” I went through the same questions and I realized that the first thing I had to do was to prove to people that I could write music. This piece of music was really what started everything for me. It’s called She Comes From the Stars. It was a random name that I came up with because I had no film, I had no game. But I just thought I just had this image after I wrote the piece. I didn’t have to title before, but just of this heroine just zooming through the cosmos. I think we can play a little bit of that.

RogerGreat. Let’s have it here.

[PLAY: “She Comes from the Stars”]

All right, so now might be a good time to jump back when we first met up in Ishinomaki in the disaster area soon after the tsunami had hit, and you were working up there. And then I invited you to come down and perform in one of our conferences. And what, you were 15 at that time? Is that right?

TsumuguI think so, yeah.

RogerYou played the guitar in a style that I have never really heard someone play, at least live before, in that way. It was pretty darn cool. So anyway, I just want to play a little clip here for our listeners.

https://youtu.be/VVj9P68C-RI?si=oi84jwmlJ2wlWuwyMan, it’s so awesome. I love hearing it again. I think it was the highlight of the conference. To have this… Well, you appear to be this child prodigy, slapping away the guitar and just not playing the way normal people do. You were saying you were just having fun with it, right?

TsumuguYeah. I mean, growing up playing classical violin and music was always an extremely serious business. Going to church as a kid, my friends would be like, “Hey, let’s go to dinner after service.” I would ask my mom, “Hey, can I go to dinner with this friend?” She would be like, “You can make a choice. You can play or you can go home and practice for your competition next week.” That was the childhood that I had. So guitar, I picked up way later than violin, but it was my escape. It was where I learned that, “Hey, music can be fun.” I think that’s why I gravitated towards that side of playing guitar, which was just slapping the strings and slapping the body and things like that.

RogerYeah, I’d love to hear you do it again sometime.

TsumuguFor sure. I would have to practice. I’m a little rusty now.

RogerSo after that, you graduated. You went to Berkeley in Boston.

TsumuguYeah, I went to Berkeley College of Music. Singapore is where I grew up, so there’s a two-year mandatory military service right out of high school. I did that. And then I went to Berkeley, and I actually just graduated this year.

RogerCongratulations. Then, you moved to Tokyo to work here?

TsumuguI moved to Tokyo with no plan. But I’m very glad I came, and I’m gradually getting connected to the community here.

RogerYeah, we’re really glad you’re here. And I’m looking forward to… So listeners, Tsumugu and I are going to head up to the disaster area for Christmas this month and give a bunch of concerts, which I’m really looking forward to.

TsumuguYeah, we’re going to be, or I’m going to be playing the tsunami violin. Do you want to talk a bit more about that?

RogerDefinitely. Yeah. So just before we started recording, the two of us went to go pick up this instrument, and it was made by a violin maker who wanted to do something to bring healing in the disaster area and help people remember and to bring hope to bring life. And so we went and talked to the company a little bit. There were two tsunami violins you got to try. Tell me what your impressions were of that.

TsumuguYeah. Initially, when you proposed the idea that we do this concert on this violin, I was a little afraid. Violin is a very complicated instrument. It’s made out of wood with no nails, none at all. And so every single instrument is slightly different. And so your intonation, how you play, really changes according to the instrument. I have never performed on an instrument that isn’t mine. So this is the first time, and I was slightly like, “Am I going to be able to adjust to this instrument?” But once I played it, it’s like everything fell in place. I was telling you that the violin had tonal qualities that I look for in a violin. I think we’re going to be okay. I think I’ll be able to get used to it pretty soon.

RogerYeah, I heard you asking the staff, you’re like, “Is it okay if I record some things with this?”

TsumuguYeah. I’ve not said this to you, but it’s just been in my brain that on top of being a violinist, I’m also a composer, and I don’t know if anything has been written for the instrument. Since I have three weeks with the instrument, I thought maybe it might be cool to write something and record it. If that leads to anyone getting hope from that instrument, even if they’re not able to make the concert, I think, yeah, But I’ll have to start working on that soon.

RogerI’d love to see what you come up with.

TsumuguYeah. She told us that there’s a quartet of a tsunami instruments, so it might be cool in the future if I could write something for the tsunami instruments as a quartet.

RogerYeah, definitely. So not with organ, hunh?

TsumuguOkay, the solo violin will be with organ.

RogerI guess there is no tsunami organ.

TsumuguYou could make one.

RogerBut yeah, I found it interesting. Their project was to have a thousand performers of this violin. And what number was it she said that you were going to be?

TsumuguI am the 833rd performer.

RogerThat’s so cool.

TsumuguThat is really cool. Yeah.

RogerAnd they were saying how there’s been thousands of concerts because each performer does quite a few concerts with it.

TsumuguI was telling you before that because so many people have played it before me, you can really sense the thoughts and the heart behind every single performer that has performed on the instrument. I could immediately tell the moment I picked up the instrument that I was playing something special.

RogerIt’s definitely special. And there’s quite a history, too. She was telling us how Yo-Yo Ma has played the cello, and the Emperor himself herself has played the viola.

TsumuguI think it’s pretty awesome that our current Japanese Emperor is a violist. Yeah.

RogerDefinitely gives a better image to the viola. All those viola jokes, you can’t tell them in Japan. That’s now a rule here.

TsumuguOr you’ll be offending the Emperor of Japan. That’s right.

RogerYeah. So we are going up. Actually, it’s going to be a special a couple of days in Iwaki because that Saturday is the very first church that we had connected to after the earthquake and tsunami in order to bring up supplies, and we still have that relationship today. Then the next day, we’re going to be giving concerts with First Baptist, which is a church that was right next to the nuclear power plants, and some of their church members worked at the nuclear power plants, and then they had to leave and were migrating all over, trying to find a new home and settled in Iwaki. So first we’re going to give a concert with them. But then we’re going up and giving a concert right next to the nuclear power plant. It’s just three miles away to the chapel that they had just built. They had just dedicated their organ. And now we’re going to be going back into that space, which at first I was a little bit fearful of whether this is a good idea or not.

TsumuguI remember you sending me the email like, “we’re going to be really close to the power plant. Do you still want to do this?” I called my mom. I was like, “hey, I just got this email from Roger. What do you think?” And she was like, “You know, if it’s meant to be, if this is God’s plan, he’ll protect you.” And I was like, “Okay.”

RogerYeah. I mean, because I remember back when the disaster happened, I thought they were saying, you have to wait 50 years before you can go back into the area. But now it’s only been 12, and they reopened that area this year. And so they wanted to have a rededication of the building and of the organ, and to be able to bring the tsunami violin into that space and give a concert, I think, it’s going to be really special.

TsumuguYeah, I’m looking forward to it. Thank you so much for having me on this such a special event, not just for myself. I think it’s going to really make a mark on my journey as a musician, and hopefully, I can bring some hope to the people coming for the concert.

RogerYeah, it’s an amazing story, too, about this violin. I probably shouldn’t talk about this now, but I’m playing in my head with an idea for a children’s book. We’ve put out a children’s book about the tsunami piano before, Pippy the Piano. And now I’m having an idea for this Vivi the Violin, and just her seeing the story of living a happy life, and then this disaster comes, and her life is completely torn apart, and how she thinks it’s the end. She thinks she’s in despair, that there is no hope, and then this violin maker comes in and gives her new life and new hope. It’s just helping kids know how to respond to disaster and really dark times, and despair, and to see it through the eyes of this little girl who’s a violin, I think, would be a powerful story if we can bring it to completion at some point.

TsumuguYeah, I’m looking forward to it. I think it will be… It is a very difficult concept and feeling to explain in words, and especially to children. And I think art, like the drawings in the book and music, can help to… Even if children don’t fully understand, I think it is one way of connecting with them and helping them resolve some of these feelings.

RogerYeah, definitely. I guess that’s all the time we have. We really need to practice a little before this event tonight for all these concerts. So thank you so much for sitting down and talking with me on the podcast.

TsumuguOf course. Thank you so much for having me. I think maybe I can mention my SNS.

RogerSure. Okay.

TsumuguBecause we’ll be traveling with the violin, and I’ll be updating my social media with all the information and what we’re doing with the tsunami violin and everything. The best place to find it would be on my Instagram, which is @hellotsu. For my other work, you can find it on my website, which is tsu-music.com.

RogerGreat. I’ll list those on the program notes, the show notes for this podcast, so people can find it on the website as well.

TsumuguThank you.

RogerThank you so much.

TsumuguThank you, Roger.

RogerYou can read the show notes for this episode at my website, www.rogerwlowther.com. Thank you so much for listening. As we say in Japan, ”Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

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Welcome to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast, and I’m your host Roger Lowther.

I want to give you a little update about the situation in Ishikawa since that magnitude 7.6 earthquake on January 1, 2024. What a way to start the year! I talked to some people on the ground today and got the latest news. It’s still a very hard situation. The whole peninsula of Noto, that northern part of Ishikawa, only has a few roads, but they’re still broken. So, it’s making travel really difficult. In order to get from the southern end of the peninsula to where the need is most, it takes at least three hours. And I even heard a report that one trip took nine hours, one way, to get where they were going. Now, this is a real problem because supplies are collecting down in the major hub areas.

The main Christian relief effort is called Noto Help, and it’s being based out of a good-sized church there called Uchinada Church in Kanazawa. They’re making many trips almost daily, but because of the length of the travel time, all they can really do is drop the supplies off and then come straight back. It’s been really hard for them to develop relationships like the churches were able to do after the 2011 earthquake. And so they’re saying that really the biggest need right now is for young Christian workers to be able to relocate into those hardest hit areas for long periods of time. Then they can not only assess the needs and distribute goods, but they can build relationships with people there and become part of the community.

It’s not an easy thing to ask, though. I mean, without electricity, first of all, it’s really cold. And without running water? Means there’s no toilets and no showers. Noto Help did mention that they’ve been thinking about bringing in some portable showers in order to create a base in the northern part of the peninsula, and also to make it available to people in the shelters. But the thing is, it costs like $30,000 US dollars per shower, and they really are only needed for a couple of months or so. They’re really hoping that by that point the water will be running again. However, the showers could be used in future disasters like this. Japan has many disasters, so there is a need for it. So this is one of the conversations that’s being had.

Anyway, they’re hoping that in two months, once roads are easily passable again, there’ll be a big influx of Christian volunteers and longer-term relationship building. Our church, Grace City Church Tokyo, is considering various ways it can help. In fact, we’re planning to take a youth team of junior high and high school students this weekend. A cabin has been offered where the 15 of us are going to stay. Actually, our family went last week to that cabin in order to get it ready. It needed firewood in order to keep the place warm for all of us. And so we found out where the firewood could be bought and carried it in and spent a whole day doing that. After this trip next weekend, I’ll be able to share a lot more about what’s happening in Ishikawa.

This episode, I want to share some stories from Christmas concerts in Fukushima. Yes, that Fukushima, the second-only-to-Chernobyl-nuclear-meltdown-disaster-of-epic-proportions Fukushima. We were invited to that area to give some Christmas concerts. I went with Tsumugu Misugi, who’s a composer and a violinist. Actually, I have an interview with him in the next podcast episode, so you can stay tuned for that. But first, before I tell you about these Christmas concerts, I need to tell you about the tsunami violin that Tsumugu was playing. I actually have a whole episode on it, Episode #31, which if you’re interested you can find on my website.

The tsunami violin is a special violin. It was made specifically from debris from the tsunami in 2011. And the soul of the violin, the sound post which enables the violin to vibrate and make music, came from the Kiseki no Ippon Matsu, the very famous here in Japan “Miracle Pine Tree,” which was the sole survivor of 70,000 trees which lined the coast until they were knocked down by the tsunami. And then it, too, died later from salt left behind by the tsunami. The violin maker, Nakazawa Sensei, made this violin to bring hope to all of Japan. And his aim is for a thousand performers to eventually play this violin. Tsumugu was the 833rd performer. So we were able to take this violin which had so much symbolism to various locations.

First, we were able to go to the top of the Shioyasaki Lighthouse near Iwaki to play some music. I have a picture of Tsumugu playing at the top of it in the show notes for this episode. It’s a very famous landmark in that area. It was really badly damaged in the earthquake, repaired, and now, once again, it’s a source of light in the darkness. And it’s within sight of a town called Usuiso that was completely destroyed in the tsunami. Now, listen to this. Over 20% of the population was lost in the tsunami, the highest percentage of any town in Japan. When you look at how the town was built, you can kind of see why. The main road goes along the beach, and all the homes and stores are right there on the other side of the road. You actually have to go down the road quite far to the north or to the south in order to leave the beach area and go up into the hills. And next to it, there’s these cliffs, so steep that it doesn’t look like there’s any way to really climb up them. And so I’m told that some people just stood there by the side of the road and watched that tsunami come, facing it head-on, knowing that they didn’t have time to get away, that there was nowhere to go in time. I can’t imagine. Here it is 13 years later, and they’re still continuing to build that area, but it’s mostly just vacant lots.

That next day, we took the violin and my portable digital organ to give a concert to hundreds of people in an event called Iwaki Christmas. 30 churches from across the city of Iwaki came together for this event to bring unity across the city. After the nuclear power plant disaster, tens of thousands of refugees had to flee the area very quickly and moved into the city of Iwaki. And this huge influx of people really caused a lot of tension in the city. Roads were crowded, lots of traffic jams, and many were not happy about the money that was being given to these refugees who had to flee their homes due to the radiation. There were often news reports on how people would wake up in the morning and find their cars or places where they’re staying spray-painted with the message, “Go Home,” which is especially terrible since that’s the very thing that they could not do. So, 30 churches hosted this Christmas celebration in a huge wedding complex, and it was also televised for national broadcast later.

At this event, I played the organ and Tsumugu played the violin. Actually, there was another musical instrument as well. I was asked to play the “Kiseki no Piano,” the “Miracle Piano,” which was carried from the nearby 3.11 Memorial Museum. And this piano has a story of its own. It was inundated, completely destroyed in the town of Usuiso, that town I mentioned earlier. And water is not very good for pianos, and so it was dumped out in the street along with all the other trash. But a local piano tuner saw it, rescued it, and spent years fixing it, hoping to make it play again. And he deliberately left in the body damage from the disaster—chipped wood and paint, gouges and scratches. And despite all this damage on the body and the outside, it sounds really good. And it was just a wonderful opportunity for all of us to be reminded of the miracle of Christmas, in a place where so many lives were lost, and yet there is hope. There is hope of resurrection. And we really rejoiced in that new life together through the new life of this piano. There’s a picture of me playing this piano in the show notes as well.

Well, then the next day was Sunday. So on Sunday morning, we gave a concert at the new building for the Fukushima Baptist Church in the city of Iwaki. And I also gave a sermon on the Christmas message. And this church, I have a long relationship with. It actually was the very first church I worked with, with relief work after 2011. And so after that morning concert, we traveled together while eating lunch in the car to their original worship location, which is the very closest church building to the nuclear power plants, if you can believe it, less than three miles away from the broken power plants. And I have to tell you, I’ve never experienced anything like it. It was completely totally otherworldly going to this church. It was like entering a movie set or something. It felt like we were entering some other planet that suffered a terrible disaster centuries before.

It’s hard for me to paint a picture for you, but every structure and road was completely overgrown with plants. The homes were still destroyed from the earthquake because no one has been back there to be able to fix them yet. And when we stopped at one of the buildings to take pictures, I was struck by the complete absence of human noise. It felt like we were the only people on the planet. Not a car in sight. Not a single person moving anywhere. It was really spooky. It’s a wasteland that’s been stopped in time.

Last year, electricity finally came back on in the area. So this is 12 years after the disaster, right? And people have been given permission to move back into the area, even though radiation levels might still be high. We’re not quite sure. Many of the church staff had gone back before then with HAZMAT suits to gather some of their things, and they found the organ, the digital organ they had, fallen over. Well, they set it back up, but had no idea whether it worked or not because there was no electricity to turn it on. And so last year, when they were able to turn it back on, they’re like, “Okay, we have to give a Christmas concert!”

They wanted to gather folks from all the regions in order to have this concert and have this reunion. So they spread the word, and all the folks that had relocated, like from Sendai and Minami Soma to the north, Aizu Wakamatsu to the west. Others came from the south, from Iwaki, like us. And I met one older woman who came all the way up from Tokyo just for this concert. And I remember how there were tears streaming down her cheeks as she shook my hand and shared how she had not been able to celebrate Christmas in that area since December 2010, just before the disaster, 13 years ago. And she had grown up in this area. It was her home. She told me other memories she had of being a little girl in that area and just how sad it was to see what had become of it, this ghost town.

So, I played the concert on this fallen organ. They told me the organ could make a sound, but I really was worried about whether it could actually make music. They were talking about this old digital organ that hasn’t been used in a long time. I wasn’t sure if I give a concert on it. And so I had them bring up my portable organ just in case. And in the concert, the pastor stood up and laughed as he told everyone that he was going to make me play that “fallen organ,” whether it worked or not, simply for the symbolism of seeing it rise again. So thankfully, I was able to give the concert on that organ. And man, it was so powerful. I wish you all could have been there. The strong sense of community and love and unity we experienced really was overwhelming. And just to imagine the whole time that we’re just less than three miles from the nuclear power plants just over the hill—we could see their lights when it got dark…it wasn’t far away at all—in this wasteland, giving a concert, bringing new life, and worshiping God.

On our way back to Iwaki, we were shown some of the other church sites. There were actually four sites that the church worshiped in before the disaster. And they also show me some of the homes of members who can no longer live there. In 13 years, it’s amazing how overgrown all the buildings were. Some were barely visible at all through all the greenery. Driveways weren’t passable. Windows were broken. Roofs had big holes in them where rain could pour in.

And you know the saddest part? Right across the street, on top of what used to be rice fields, right in the middle of these neighborhoods, there are huge collections of big black trash bags. The government is trying to clean the area by taking six centimeters of radioactive dirt and anything/everything that shows radioactivity, and they’re collecting them into these bags, and putting them into these radioactive trash dumps. And the hope is, I was told, that within 30 years, they can then move this radioactive debris to other parts of Japan and rebuild the area. But everyone is scratching their heads, doubtful about who’s actually going to be willing to accept this radioactive debris into their area at any time in the near future. And just having these radioactive trash dumps right there next to these homes completely destroys any hope of being able to rebuild the neighborhoods. I’ll put a picture in the show notes of one of these trash dumps.

I couldn’t believe how we were able to drive right up to it. It was eerie, and we’re like, “Is this safe?” We’re right next to what was probably many square miles of radioactive debris collected in trash bags and put in one pile, and we were standing next to it taking pictures. And there was no one sending us away. And there was nothing blocking the road to keep us out of there. It’s just crazy. I felt bad, though, thinking about the workers who are collecting it all. I mean, that’s their job, day after day, collecting this debris and bringing it to these dumps.

I don’t know. The experience was sad, and it was happy. There were so many things to celebrate about this community, being able to worship together. And yet there’s so much destruction there and so many memories. There’s so much sadness that they won’t be able to rebuild anytime soon. It was a powerful trip that I’ll never forget—playing concerts with that “tsunami violin” and that “fallen organ” and the “miracle piano” and sharing that time with people who’ve lost so much. It really was one of the most meaningful Christmases I’ve ever had. Spending that time together and celebrating that story of Christmas, we could rejoice together that light has come into the darkness and that in our brokenness, there is hope of new life.

You can read the show notes for this episode at my website, www.rogerwlowther.com. Thank you so much for listening. As we say in Japan, ”Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

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Welcome to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast, and I’m your host Roger Lowther.

Now, many of you have been writing me about this earthquake that hit Japan just a couple of weeks ago on January 1st. Wow, what a way to begin the new year, right? As you know, it was a pretty big one. In Tokyo, it wasn’t that big, definitely felt, but mostly just a lot of big swaying. But actually, I wasn’t in Tokyo at the time when the earthquake hit. I was in Nagano, not far from the epicenter of the earthquake. We were up in the mountains of Japan on a ski vacation with the family. And let me tell you, where we were, it was big! It definitely brought back memories of 2011. The ground was jolting so hard that it was impossible to walk.

We were staying in a cabin with foundations that were nothing more than a bunch of stones piled on top of each other, not a very solid foundation at all, so we were really worried the whole thing was going to topple over and collapse on to the ground. And it’s built on the side of a cliff, so there was this worry that it would slide down the mountain in a landslide like happened in so many places in Ishikawa. Fortunately, neither of those things happened. But the aftershocks, they just kept hitting, one after the other, and not little ones either, so we took shelter outside for a little while and built a snowman.

The aftershocks were at first, like every 15 minutes or so, and then about every 30 minutes, then every 45 minutes, then every hour. And by the end of those first few days, we had, I don’t know, like 30 earthquakes, maybe more…a lot of earthquakes! I wasn’t keeping count. But they were definitely felt and memorable.

Inside the cabin, we had this big kerosene heater to keep the cabin warm. But it also dries out the air, so on top of it we had this huge pot of water, and let me tell you that didn’t fair so well in the earthquake. All that water was just swishing around and went over the side and went down to the floor, and so we had a very wet floor for a couple of days there. And of course, everything else in the cabin fell down as well. There was a quite a mess that we had to clean up, but there really wasn’t any damage where I was.

But, of course, as you know, it’s a much different story in Ishikawa. You’ve probably seen the news reports. A lot of homes fell down. A lot of roads are impassable. Through the church network, we heard about the needs in the area, and my friends in Nagoya, Japan, were able to take a number of large vans full of supplies right after the earthquake, and then my friends from Chiba did that as well. I haven’t been there yet, but we are in conversation with contacts about what the needs are and what we can do. They’re telling us not to come right now because there’s a bottleneck of supplies at the base of the peninsula, and they’re simply not able to get the supplies where they need to go because of damage to the roads and they’re so narrow going through the roads there. But the current plan is to take a team next month with artists to give concerts in shelters, so I’ll definitely keep you posted about that.

Well, today I’m excited to introduce you to Sarah Hinlicky Wilson. She is a phenomenal person and a phenomenal writer here in Tokyo, and good friends of our family along with her husband and son, who is in the same class as my son. We recorded this podcast just before an Art, Life, Faith event that was being held that evening on writing in Japan along with another writer as well. Anyway, without further ado, here is Sarah Hinlicky Wilson.

Hey, Sarah. I am so thankful to have you on the show today.

SarahI am delighted to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while.

RogerTonight, you’re going to be sharing with a group of people in our living room here about writing. Over the past, we’ve had musicians come, we’ve had painters, dancers, filmmakers. But it’s been a while since we’ve had a writer come, so I’m really looking forward to this.

SarahCool. I’m excited to be a part of it. I’m just excited to talk about writing because that’s… I mean, wow, filmmakers and dancers, that blows my mind. I feel like writing is the easy thing because all you have to do is type.

RogerI don’t know about that. It’s a tough process, that’s for sure, and it feels like it’s never done. Well, let me ask you. This morning, I finished your book of short stories called Pearly Gates, and I found it to be a really moving collection of stories. Can you tell us a little bit about this book?

SarahSure. It’s a strange little collection, honestly, of 30 very short stories, and the premise—is that each one features a person, a human being, never named, man or woman, usually adults, sometimes children, sometimes more than one person or even a crowd—and they come to the Pearly Gates of Heaven. We most often hear about Pearly Gates in connection with either jokes or New Yorker cartoons featuring Saint Peter standing guard, but the imagery is drawn from the Book of Revelation so there’s a lot of Revelation imagery scattered throughout this book. And the idea is basically when you get to the Pearly Gates, you are at the final zone of no BS, no more lying or pretending. There is something about that place that repels anything but truthfulness. It’s a story of how a bunch of different people in a bunch of different ways and for their own different reasons, either pass through the gates, some happily, some pass through even unhappily, but they still pass through. There are others who do not like what they find there and turn and walk around the other way.

RogerYeah, I really appreciated the vivid imagery of these stories. I mean, I could easily imagine myself right there listening to the story, even animating it in my head visually. Just so many different things connected to life on earth here.

SarahThe truth is, even though this is “afterlife fiction,” it really is about our life now. Like all spiritual speculation about the life to come, it’s reflecting back to us where we are now. But the nice thing about the Pearly Gates is you can’t lie anymore. You’re confronted with truth in a way that we can always dodge it in this life. Right.

RogerRight. There’s a sense, I think a lot of people think of heaven in this abstract manner that it’s a place where God is, but it’s somewhere other. It’s not here at all, but there’s an earthiness to the way that you’ve written these stories.

SarahYeah. Well, as I wrote more and more, I realized that to make them actually meaningful, something you can connect to, they had to be anchored in vivid reality. Because, I mean, they’re very short and there are no names. I’m not developing a plot, so it has to happen right then. What came to me is that we believe in the resurrection of the body. And so, a great deal of the emotional and spiritual drama is bodily enacted through the people’s own bodies. What happens to them. What they do with them. How they interact with objects that they might bring there with them. I’m glad that spoke to you that concreteness because it was really meant to be testimony to the resurrection of the body and the centrality to spirituality.

RogerI could really feel that the heaviness or the lightness of the burdens. I remember, especially there was that one scene where the woman is scratching her skin, and then she’s like, “Oh, I’m so clean now.” You can feel that cleanness. You can feel the physicality of this encounter they’re having with heaven.

SarahYeah. One of my favorites is when the man is furious at finding out that the Lord is the Lord. He had spent his whole life dedicated to denouncing the name of the Lord. Finally, in rage, he just attacks him and plunges through his heart and pops out on the other side covered in the blood of Jesus. But the blood is what brought him in. It brings everybody in. But the experience, even at that final moment of going through the blood of Jesus, is what changes him as well. They’re not all quite that gory. That’s an exceptionally…

RogerNo, it was… I could imagine there being an animated series of these stories because they were just so visual. For you listening, I can recommend these. They’re just perfect bedtime reading because it’s maybe two pages or six pages for a story, it’s easy to pick up and read one or a lot of them in one sitting.

SarahYeah, great. Oh, I’m just thrilled to hear this. I’ve gotten probably more meaningful feedback from people for this book than anything else I’ve written. It seems to have…which is funny because it started out as a bizarre experiment. I would not have expected this to touch as many people as it has.

RogerYeah, I was inspired. Let me move on to another book that you’ve written. A Tumblin’ Down is one that I read six months ago, and I have trouble ever forgetting that book because it hit me so strongly because of the things that I was going through in my own life. How would you introduce this book to a listening audience?

SarahRight. Well, less inspirational than Pearly Gates. This one is much more anchored on earth. A Tumblin’ Down is a novel about a Lutheran pastor’s family in upstate New York in the late 1980s. I grew up in a Lutheran pastor’s family in upstate New York in the late 1980s, but other than that, it’s drawn from our experience and location, but it’s not our family story. It’s not autobiographical in that respect. But basically, parents in their late 30s trying to struggle on with career and vocation. They have an oldest daughter getting close to adolescence. Two little boys born within a year of each other who are very close. It has all the usual growing up, growing older challenges, a lot of time developing what the life of a congregation feels like. I have never read a book that really I felt satisfied me either on what it’s really like to be a pastor in a church with a family or what it’s like to be in a congregation. So that’s one thing I wanted to capture. But that by itself was a little bit too vaguely literary for me. I wanted some action. And so, about a quarter of the way into the book, a really horrific tragedy befalls the family. And so, the rest of the book is about the aftermath of the tragedy and then, unfortunately, how it leads to a faction in the congregation, turning on the pastor’s family, exploiting the tragedy, trying to drive him out, and then the aftermath of that.

RogerYeah. Again, it impacted me so deeply because it so reflected what we were going through in our own church with a family tragedy with the pastor, and then division in the church. And I was like, “Is this a true story?” I even asked you, “Is this a true story?” It’s the most true fiction story I have ever read, I swear.

SarahYeah, I’m related to tons of pastors. I have tons of pastor friends. I am a pastor myself, fortunately in a very happy congregation now. Not like this at all. But I have just seen…Well, here this is another thing that may be a little slight polemical subtext here, but in popular American depictions of pastors and pastor’s families, you either have the totally sanitized, happy, unchallenged, the Lord is good and life is good and everything’s fine and isn’t it all sweet and all wrapped up. Or you have the pastor is a villain, and he’s having an affair, and he’s embezzling money, and he’s lost his faith, and it’s all dark and horrible. Just neither of those felt true to life to me. And those things…well, the second thing happens, I’m not sure about the first. But one thing I had never really seen depicted either, besides just really what it feels like to be in a congregation, is that a congregational faction turning on a pastor. In news reports, too, it’s always the pastor’s fault. I don’t doubt there are a lot of times it’s the pastor’s fault, but it’s not only the pastor’s fault. That story needed to be told about what it’s like for these… It can be a very small number of people who just decide to take down the pastor. Then how do you live with that?

RogerA very vocal minority.

SarahYeah, exactly. The way that well-meaning nice church folks are unequipped to deal with that, and they can get sucked into the system without even realizing it’s happening.

RogerYeah. Because it was such a painful book for me to read, I’m like, Should I recommend this book to others or not? Because it was so painful, but it was so true and so helpful. I do recommend it to as many people as I can because it was just… There was wisdom in there that I think we all need to hear through the pain how God is still… How God is working and how he can redeem such situations. That’s really something you can do in literature, in a novel, that’s harder to do in real life, right? Because you’re like, “Oh, I can’t mention that person…” You’ll get in trouble, right?

SarahI think actually it’s a hopeful book in the real sense of hope. It’s not naïve, and it’s not optimistic. But where the characters end at the end is a willingness to carry on based on reality. Having come through the pain, which was awful and they never would have chosen to go through it, but having gone through it, it gives them a fresh start in its own way. I also think there’s a lot of funny in it. I mean, it’s leavened with some comedy. I have had many pastors tell me that my scenes depicting the annual church conference is the most hilariously scathing satire they have ever come across of those church events. If you just need a takedown of a ridiculous, ineffective bishop, this book is for you.

RogerIt was coming to mind, too, about the organist in this story.

SarahAs an organist, that probably was painful for you.

RogerYeah, because I’m an organist, I’m like, Oh, my goodness. I hope I haven’t been like that. Or the organist is like, “I’m going to save this church.” It’s like, that’s not really your job. But okay…

SarahYeah, the church family that has deep historical roots, lots of money and never, ever attends, but still thinks they own the place. If you guys know that part of church life, you’ll find that here too.

RogerYeah. Gosh, there are so many characters that so stood out, likable or not likable, depending upon the person. Tell me, this idea, you’ve written many books, and this idea of writing books. There are issues you can bring up. By writing this novel, you were able to talk about things that you couldn’t really in any other way, not in this way for certain. Tell me a little bit about that. Why do you write? What is your… What do you want people to really get out of your books?

SarahWow, deep questions. Well, the first answer is I write because I can’t not. I think a lot of writers are like that. But I got my… Well, I was always writing stories from the time I was small, but when I was old enough to actually try to do it in a more professional way, I actually got my start in non-fiction. It just was where the audience and the money was. Then I went on academically, so I’m a trained theologically. I’ve written lots of academic articles and books, as well as taking that and putting it in more popular form and zillions of sermons as well. But I think that as much as I really enjoy the discipline of theology, and I know theology gets a bad rap with lots of people, but it’s just loving God with your mind. It’s devoting the best of your intellectual capacities. It is not…I mean, theology, like everything else, has good and bad in it and better and worse. I don’t need to defend the bad stuff. But there are things it can’t do. One thing I realized at some point is that almost all theology is written in the key of Romans, which is fabulous of course. I’m a Lutheran. Of course, I love Romans, but it is a very particular form or genre of communication. And theologians never write in the key of the gospels, for example, or Esther, or Nehemiah, which is a memoir, and rarely in the form of poetry, which is a hugely important biblical genre. Which is not to say you can only write in biblical genres, but I think the fact that there are so many genres in Scripture as well as in subsequent church tradition shows that not all truth is accessed the same way or expressed the same way.

RogerAs an artist, I definitely agree with that.

SarahOf course, right. Music tells us things that the written word cannot, and visual arts tells us things that dance cannot. All these things. If you’re actually really passionately committed to truth, as I aspire to be, then you have to look at all the avenues towards truth and not artificially cut them off. So I think for me, something like this novel, A Tumblin’ Down, was a way to relate the experience of being a believer and a member, a part of a church community that I actually couldn’t write in a non-fiction format. It would always be abstracted, and it would always attempt at being universal. But in fact, one key thing you learn as a fiction writer is the more specific you are, the more universal the message becomes. Everybody writes out trying to write the story that is for everybody and about everybody, and no one is interested in that story. But people who have no connection to Lutheran pastors’ families can read this and feel intimately what it is like to be these people and draw something very human and personal out of it, even if they can’t draw the faith lesson out of it. But I wanted to give more the texture of what it’s like to believe and wrestle emotionally with all the things you wrestle with in life.

RogerYeah, Pearly Gates had that as well, right? The physicality, the humanity of heaven. Here you are doing it with A Tumblin’ Down and through this story.

SarahYeah. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen schemas of the steps of salvation. Like first this, and then that, and then you have to go through this. It might be only two steps, or it might be, I’ve seen more like 18-20, and they have to unfold in the right order. I just think, if there are more fiction writers who were involved in theology, no one would come up with anything this stupid because every life is different, everyone’s experience is different. Of course, you find commonalities and similarities because we’re human, but we actually get the commonalities by looking at the specific cases and not the other way around.

RogerRight. Yeah, definitely. Recently, I’ve been talking a lot about that. How when you go and visit different countries around the world, you enter different cultures. We are so much a product of our surroundings and environments and the stories that we are entrenched in. You can’t separate our humanity from that and certainly our theology as well.

SarahYeah, right. You don’t go to a restaurant and say, I don’t need the menu, just bring me good food. Or you don’t say, play some good music. There’s lots of things that’s good music. That doesn’t specify it enough. Bach’s good music is not The Beatle’s good music.

RogerYeah. Before we started recording, you were telling me a little bit about your thoughts about wonder. Tell me a little more about that.

SarahYeah, maybe this is where I am very much as a 21st century person and someone who’s done academic training in theology and just tried to live in our very weird hyper-modern, hyper-novel worlds. I guess there’s two things on either side I’m trying to navigate between. One is the response of people of faith who are really deeply frightened and alarmed by the world and by discoveries that might call the faith into question. Whether that’s like, challenges to the origins of the biblical documents with historic criticism or archeology or scientific findings. There’s a need to just bracket out all of that or maybe more perniciously pine for a different century. If only I’d lived then, if I wasn’t stuck. I was born in the 20th century. Now I live in the 21st. It’s so awful now. If this is God’s creation, then now and everything we have unleashed, looking out your windows at downtown Tokyo and the high rises, this is still part of God’s project. God doesn’t love absolutely everything we’ve done, of course, but this is ultimately all within the realm of what God made good. So either bracketing out stuff or just wishing not to be here seems deeply unfaithful to me.

But on the other hand, there are, of course, tons of voices, we often call them secular or rationalistic or materialistic, that want everything or assume and infer everything is reductionistically explained, mechanistic, deterministic. Everything happens just as a matter of course, there is no freedom. There is no God, of course. I find that those people live in the same level of denial as the believers who are frightened by reality because they can’t allow the emotions they feel towards their beloved or their children or their parents to be real. They can’t allow their reactions to art or music to be real. They have to somehow tamp down any suspicion of wonder that cannot be analyzed and controlled by this engineering approach to reality. I think probably finding both of those wrong, and I’m stumbling because I’m trying to figure out how to articulate it. I think what I’m trying to do in all my writing is to figure out a way to talk about what it’s like to be really real, these bodies in this time, but that God is really real, but not in an easily accessible way, obviously, or there would be no question of doubt or pain.

But at the same time, every time I try to run the thought experiments of this is all just religion as a projection of the brain that was evolutionarily helpful. I can talk myself into that. At the end of the day, it still doesn’t change my mind about thinking God is real. I think for me, this concept of wonder, which I’m sure was very much formed by writers like George McDonald and Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, all those greats, there’s something that’s really true about wonder, but doing it in a way that’s not fakely miraculous or just strip down the bad titling of Shusaku Endo’s book, Silence. He didn’t want it to be called Silence because Jesus does speak to him at the end, but only at the end. To me, that is closer, I think, in spirit to what I’m trying to get at. God is real, but he so often hides himself. Just trying to… Yeah, that’s what I think. If I try to analyze what I’m doing both theologically and artistically, it’s mapping out the real experience of wonder, not overblown, but not reduced to the atoms moving in my brain.

RogerYeah, I see that in your books as I think through them, this sense of… As we live through our lives, we end up having a narrow perspective of the situation that we’re in. But the idea of wonder, as you’re describing, it gives us a renewing sense of where we are rather than some other mystery thing. It’s like, no, actually just wonder in the situation that we’re in, being able to see it in a new way, a new perspective. It’s really exciting, actually, and necessary. Life can get… Well, life is hard. Life is hard, and we can get so caught up and busy. What’s the next thing? What’s the next thing? It’s like we’re missing the journey. Your writing really helps us see the journey of where we are, not just where we’re going, but where we are right now.

SarahThanks for that reflection. That’s great. I just want to point out, it’s so interesting, when I talk to other believers in the same space about this novel, they never bring up the non-realistic elements in it, I think, because it doesn’t seem unrealistic to them. In the book, the pastor, dad, Donald, he regularly has conversations with his dead grandfather. What that even means is never explained. I never try to give an account. I just knew Donald talks to his grandfather. His grandfather talks back. Carmichael, his wife, has alternate versions of herself, different lives she could have had come up and confront and annoy her. Kitty, the daughter, has her council, which she obviously got from her dad’s church council, but it’s all populated with characters from her beloved books. I’ll leave the ones for the little boys for the reader to discover. But this is just… It’s unfolded narratively as completely realistic, even though clearly it doesn’t… What? Clearly? I don’t know. It doesn’t not happen in that way? I’ve had a lot of people say, This seems actually what life is like to me. This is what it actually feels like.

RogerYeah. No, it’s very effective. We’re almost out of time. But before we end, is there any other… Would you like to talk, introduce any of your other books to our listeners?

SarahCan I tell about an upcoming one?

RogerSure.

SarahOkay, so right now I am writing a book about the transfiguration of Jesus because as a preacher, it comes up in my cycle of readings every year. After three or four years, I was like, I don’t have anything left to say about this, but surely there’s more to it than I’ve thought up. I started reading and became completely obsessed and fascinated with the transfiguration of Jesus, and probably because it is this wondrous moment in the life of Jesus. Obviously, Jesus does cool things like miracles. But other than the resurrection, this is the big one in the middle of Jesus, earthly life. I just started going into it and I was like, I bet there are more preachers who need help preaching on this every year. I found out Catholics and Anglicans have to preach on it twice a year. That’s a whole other story. But also for anyone, any believer who’s come across this and like, I have no idea what to do with this story. Anyway, so I’m working on it right now. I’m going to have a Kickstarter for it in January 2024, if anyone wants to be involved in this.

It’s actually called Seven Ways of Looking at the Transfiguration, because even for this very short story, there is so much happening, and it’s drawing in so many aspects of scripture and spiritual life and devotion. But to me, it’s given me a new way to look at and think about Christ and what he’s doing. I hope some of that excitement will be communicated.

RogerYeah, I can’t wait. I’ll definitely include a link in the show notes so people can get involved with the Kickstarter. How can people listen to you? I know you have a podcast. There are other things they can follow.

SarahSure. Actually, I have two podcasts. If you want the more non-fiction traditional theology stream, it’s called Queen of the Sciences: Conversations Between a Theologian and Her Dad. And guess what? My co-host is my dad, Paul Hinlicky, a theologian as well. He probably has better claim to it than I do. We are just about to wrap up our fifth year together, and next year we’ll be starting our sixth. But also this year, I realized that I was ready to be more out there and official with my passion for combining good fiction and good theology at the same time. I’ve just started a second podcast with the very boring but accurate title, Sarah Hinlicky Wilson Stories. In fact, the first season is all the 30 stories of Pearly Gates, each with a little introduction from me. You can find either of those on your podcast app or wherever you are listening to this one.

RogerAwesome. Okay, I’ll include links for that as well. Anything else you want to share before we sign off?

SarahI think we’ve more than adequately supplied listeners with things to follow up on. But thank you, Roger, for this conversation.

RogerYeah, and we’re looking forward to tonight. We’re planning to have quite a few people come to dinner, and it’s going to be a really good night. Thank you so much for doing this.

SarahOh, you’re welcome. Thank you for the invitation to be here.

RogerThat was perfect timing.

So, that really was perfect timing, right? I had to leave that last part in because I thought it was just so funny. I was watching the clock as we were talking and thinking, “Oh, people are going to start ringing that doorbell.” And sure enough, that’s what happened. So, now you know what a Japanese doorbell sounds like!

The event was so cool. A lot of people came, and we had another author speak as well, Ellen McGinty about her book, The Water Child, where she tells the story of a teenage girl who is trying to find healing in her family when the 2011 earthquake and tsunami strike. I read this book when it first came out in 2021 and was really struck not only by the power of the storytelling but the accuracy of the events, the way she is able to vividly describe the scene surrounding the disaster, because Ellen herself, the author, was involved in the relief movement after the earthquake and so was able to write from personal experience and the experiences of people she worked with. So, anyway, I highly recommend her book as well and will include a link in the show notes to this podcast.

We also had two people share who attended a writer’s conference in Nagoya, Japan, a city about two hours south of us here in Tokyo. They shared some of the things they learned, especially interesting were some of the trends going on right now about what audiences are looking for, and especially what publishers are looking for. And there were a lot of writers in attendance, and so we had a really good discussion time together.

We do Art Life Faith events like this once a month, and I started this podcast during COVID in order to be able to share some of this content with all of you, the conversations we’re having and the people we’re talking with. Most of those events are in Japanese, but it’s especially great when the speakers speak English so that you all can participate in them.

So, as we sign off, Sarah Hinlicky Wilson has her Kickstarter campaign she mentioned happening right now through January 31, and I encourage y’all to check it out and back her project. And I’m going to include the links to that in the show notes for this podcast.

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

Links:

Queen of the Sciences Podcast
Sarah Hinlicky Wilson Stories Podcast
“7 Ways of Looking at the Transfiguration” Kickstarter Campaign
Thornbush Press

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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.

AttendeeHey, 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.

RogerAwesome. What brings you to GCAMM this week?

AttendeeI’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.

RogerAwesome. It’s great to meet you.

AttendeeOkay.

RogerWho are you?

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

RogerWow. What do you do now?

AttendeeMe 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.

RogerThat’s awesome. Thank you so much.

AttendeeThank you.

RogerAnd who are you?

AttendeeI am Hoiling Poon from Hong Kong.

RogerAnd what do you do there?

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

RogerOkay, and so what does that mean?

AttendeeThat 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.

RogerAnd are you an artist yourself?

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

RogerOh, great. Thank you.

And so who are you?

AttendeeMy name is Janice.

RogerAnd where do you live? What do you do?

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

RogerWhat kind of arts ministry?

AttendeeNormally, 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.

RogerAre you an artist yourself?

AttendeeBefore that, no.

RogerOkay. Yeah, that’s great.

AttendeeI 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.

RogerThat’s great. It’s great to meet you.

AttendeeThank you. Thank you so much.

RogerSo please tell me what you do.

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

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

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

RogerAwesome. Thank you.

So, tell me about yourself.

AttendeeMy 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.

RogerWow. What did you do in Cameroon?

AttendeeI 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.

RogerAwesome. Are you a singer yourself?

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

RogerOkay, so you are a musician.

AttendeeI am a musician.

RogerGreat to meet you. Thank you.

AttendeeThanks.

RogerAnd how would you introduce yourself?

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

RogerAnd where were you before doing what?

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

RogerOkay. And what did you do there?

AttendeeI was there as an ethnomusicologist and an ethnodoxologist.

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

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

RogerGreat. Thank you.

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

AttendeeMy name is Mani.

AttendeeI’m from Hong Kong.

RogerAnd what do you do in Hong Kong?

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

RogerOkay. And why are you here at GCAMM?

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

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

AttendeeYeah.

RogerGood to meet you.

AttendeeI love that.

RogerHello.

AttendeeHello. How are you?

RogerSo what is your name?

AttendeeMy name is Stanley Amukwa.

RogerAnd what do you do?

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

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

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

RogerWhy would you come all this way for GCAMM?

AttendeeIn 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.

RogerAnd so what is your involvement in the arts?

AttendeeI’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.

RogerThat’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.

AttendeeThanks.

RogerWell, 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.

JillThank you. Thank you for having me.

RogerYes. 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?

JillOh, 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.

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

JillYeah, 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.

RogerThat’s easy to get to.

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

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

JillWe’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.

RogerWell, 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?

JillOkay. 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.

RogerYeah. 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.

JillYeah. 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…

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

JillThere’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.

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

JillYeah. 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.

RogerOh, 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.

JillYes, 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.

RogerVery 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?

JillWell, 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.

RogerFor 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.

JillYeah, 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…

RogerYeah, that’s universal.

JillIt’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.”

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

JillThank you, Roger.

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

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

RogerThank you.

JillTake care.

RogerNow 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.

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

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

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

RogerOtherwise known as TEAM.

NancyYes, 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.

RogerYou’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?

NancyYeah, 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.

RogerWell, 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.

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

RogerBecause 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.

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

RogerVery 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?

NancyYeah, 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.

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

NancyYeah. 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.

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

NancyYeah, 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.

RogerRight. 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.

NancyThat’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.

RogerDo 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.”

NancyKazakhstan, 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.

RogerYeah. 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?

NancyBy 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.

RogerNow, 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?

NancyYeah. 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.

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

NancyWell, 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.

RogerThat’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.

NancyYeah, 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.

RogerYeah, 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.

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

RogerIn 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.”

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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.

RogerWell, 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.

AttendeeOne 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.

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

AttendeeRight. That’s right.

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

AttendeeWe’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.

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

AttendeePeople 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.

RogerThis 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?

AttendeeExactly. 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

RogerThank 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.

AttendeeThank you. Thank you very much.

RogerYeah, so tell me, who are you?

AttendeeI’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.

RogerAnd how many people are in this network?

AttendeeYou 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.

RogerThank you very much.

AttendeeThank you.

RogerAnd what is your name?

AttendeeMy name is Joy Kim.

RogerAnd what are you doing here?

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

RogerWhat is Proskuneo Ministries?

AttendeeProskuneo 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.

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

AttendeeYes.

RogerWhy is that important?

AttendeeIn 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.

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

AttendeeOkay.

RogerThere 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?

HéberYes. 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.

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

HéberI’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.

RogerDo you sing as well?

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

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

HéberGEN 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.

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

HéberYeah. 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.

RogerYeah, it’s a big country.

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

RogerI’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?

HéberYes, 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.

RogerI see.

HéberYeah.

RogerAll 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?

HéberOh, 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.

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

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

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

HéberThere 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.

RogerIt sounds exciting, though.

HéberIt 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.

RogerYeah, 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?

HéberIt’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.

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

HéberYeah. 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.

RogerYeah, 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?

HéberThey 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.

RogerYes, definitely.

HéberWith 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.

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

HéberI 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.

RogerYeah. 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.

HéberYeah. 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.

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

HéberOf course. My pleasure. Thank you very much.

RogerAs 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.”

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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.

AttendeeWhy, 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.

RogerAnd where are you from?

AttendeeI’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.

RogerAwesome. Great to meet you.

AttendeeThank you.

RogerAnd who are you?

AttendeeI’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.

RogerAre you an undergrad or grad student?

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

RogerAwesome. What do you hope to do after this?

AttendeeI 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.

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

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

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

AttendeeHi, I’m Karen, and I’m from England.

RogerOh, and what do you do.

AttendeeIn 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.

RogerIs it arts-related?

AttendeeYeah, 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.

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

Attendee100%.

RogerOkay, good to meet you.

AttendeeThank you.

RogerAnd who are you?

AttendeeWell, 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.

RogerAnd what do you do through the arts?

AttendeeWell, 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.

RogerThat’s amazing. Thank you.

AttendeeYeah, you’re welcome.

RogerAnd so, who are you?

AttendeeYes, 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.

RogerOh, that’s awesome.

AttendeeYeah, great.

RogerThank you.

AttendeeThank you.

RogerOkay, and who are you?

AttendeeAre 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.

RogerGreat. And what do you do there?

AttendeeI’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.

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

AttendeeLikewise. Blessings.

RogerYeah, and who are you?

AttendeeHi. My name is Pam.

RogerAnd where do you live? What do you do?

AttendeeWhat 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.

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

AttendeeWe 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.

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

AttendeeYou’re welcome.

RogerIt 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.

JulisaAbsolutely. My pleasure.

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

JulisaWell, 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.

RogerYeah, so ethnodramatologist. What is that exactly?

JulisaYes. 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.

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

JulisaYeah. 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.

RogerThat’s true. Yeah.

JulisaThere 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.

RogerLet 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?

JulisaYeah, 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.

RogerThat’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.

JulisaExactly.

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

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

RogerJust 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?

JulisaThat 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.

RogerYeah, 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.

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

RogerYeah, 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?

JulisaI 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.

RogerWell, when you put it that way…

JulisaYeah. 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.

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

JulisaYeah. 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?

RogerYeah, 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.

JulisaYeah, can’t wait to see it.

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

JulisaThanks, Roger. Appreciate your work.

RogerThis 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.”

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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!

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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.

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

RonThanks for having me.

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

RonWell, 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.

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

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

RogerWell, 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.

RonIt’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.

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

RonWell, 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.

RogerI’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?

RonWell, 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.

RogerThat’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?

RonI 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.

RogerYou 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?

RonYeah, 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.

RogerI 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.

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

RogerWe’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.

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

RogerYeah, 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.

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

RogerRight. 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.

RonYeah, 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.

RogerYeah, 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.

RonAgain, 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.

RogerYeah, 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.

RonWell, 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.

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

RonWell, 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.

RogerYeah, 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.

RonBecause 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.

RogerYeah, 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.”

RonRight. 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.

RogerYeah, 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?

RonAs 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.

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

RonTill 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.

RogerYeah, 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.

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

RogerWell, 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?

RonWell, 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.

RogerYeah, 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.

RonWell, 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.

RogerYeah, 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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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:

RogerWe 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?

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

RogerYeah, 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?

ChristopherI 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.

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

ChristopherIt’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.

RogerMy 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.

ChristopherThat’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?”

RogerDefinitely.

ChristopherIt’s beautiful seeing that.

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

ChristopherI do.

RogerWhat do you do there?

ChristopherI’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.

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

ChristopherWell, 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?

RogerYeah, 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?

ChristopherWhat 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.

RogerYeah, 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.

ChristopherYeah, it was amazing reconnecting with them.

RogerYears later, you still have kept those relationships going.

ChristopherAnd 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.

RogerNot when I make them!

ChristopherYeah, 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.

RogerYeah, 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?

ChristopherOne 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?

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

ChristopherAnd 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.

RogerYeah, 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.

ChristopherAnd 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.

RogerI 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.

ChristopherHow 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.

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

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

RogerThis 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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“Kanpai!” We called in a loud voice together as we clinked our little ceramic cups. This was my very first experience of sake and I really didn't know what to make of it. ...

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Welcome to the Art Life Faith Podcast, bringing this to you live from Tokyo. This is the show where we talk about art, what it has to do with your life, and what it has to do with the Christian faith. And I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

We host Art Life Faith gatherings every month. One reason we started this podcast was so that you could hear some of those stories. Most of the time, we gather in pretty small rooms, so even if you were here with us in Tokyo, only so many of you would be able to fit. Well, the other day, we gathered in a home in the southern part of Tokyo known as Meguro. It was an old home. You know it’s an old home when you have to lean down to pass through the doorways. Unfortunately, one time I didn’t lean down far enough, and I knocked myself clear to the ground. I hit that door frame really hard. In fact, I still have a bruise, now, on the top of my head a couple of weeks later.

The owner of the house gave us a little tour, which was pretty cool, explaining various parts and its history. He grew up in the house when it was surrounded by fields. It’s hard to imagine that now with Tokyo being so full of buildings. But one day developers came in and built up a rectangular grid of new straight streets with homes alongside it, leaving this house buried in the backyard of others. You have to pass through what felt like a secret narrow passageway between two homes in order to get to the house. But it was beautiful, covered in greenery, opening into a well-kept Japanese garden, and then the living room with sliding doors that opened up into the garden.

The home had one of those traditional kotatsu, a dropped floor under a table where you could put a pan of hot coals during the cold winter months and then surround it with a thick blanket to keep in the heat. Of course, nowadays most homes with a kotatsu at all use electricity. The walls had interesting decorations on them with bamboo screens and traditional wall hangings. And you should have seen the staircase to the second floor! It was so steep and narrow. You wouldn’t want to fall down those stairs!

Then he showed us a panel in the floor of the kitchen.

“This is where we keep the nukadoko,” the owner said. “If the whole house was on fire, we had to bring that with us.”

“Nuka…doko?” I asked, shy about not knowing that word.

“Oh, that’s where we keep the haha no aji,” he said with a smile, “the flavor of mom.”

The flavor of mom? That sounded a little sketchy to me. I obviously still had no idea what he was talking about, so he went on to explain. Okay, so apparently, nukadoko is a mixture of rice bran, salt, and water, where cucumbers, carrots, radishes, and other vegetables could be put in to make a specific kind of pickle called nukazuke. It has to be stirred daily to prevent the growth of mold and allow fermentation to continue to happen. And here is the interesting part. It has to be stirred by hand. The yeast in the fermentation comes solely through the hands of mom in the kitchen and can be passed down from generation to generation. This is the reason why it is called haha no aji, the flavor of mom. It is literally the taste of mom, but not only mom, but grand-mom and great grand-mom as well. It is nothing less than the taste of home. And the flavors are unique to every single household. Daughters take part of the yeast culture with them when they marry and start their own households, continuing the tradition of nukadoko.

As he was explaining this to me, I thought, wow, what a great picture of God’s work in our lives. All of us are in a fermentation bed of sorts, stuck in the damp and the dark. Everything around us would quickly mildew and rot if not for God’s daily care in sticking his hands into our mess and stirring. Through his work in our lives, we don’t lose heart, but can be renewed day by day. We are being prepared for an eternal weight of glory through the troubles and challenges we face every day. Each is different, but so are the stories of God’s grace in our lives.

“We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” (2 Corinthians 4:16–17, ESV)

In a nukadoko, vegetables are preserved. They break down. They “suffer,” but this suffering ultimately turns them into something that is healthier, tastes better, and lasts so much longer.

God sticks his hands into a world which is quickly falling apart. He prevents the mold and mildew of anger, bitterness, and despair from taking over our lives. He builds a place where we can flourish in the midst of our brokenness. He cares for us in more ways than we’ll ever know.

God gives us megumi no aji, a taste of grace. He gives us a taste of our heavenly home. And every time we take a bite, we see God delighting in us and rejoicing over us in the midst of his preparation.

This is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the Art Life Faith podcast. Check out my website, www.rogerwlowther.com, to see a picture of nukazuke and a transcription of this episode. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

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Welcome to the Art Life Faith podcast, coming to you live from Tokyo. This is the show where we talk about art, what it has to do with your life, and what it has to do with the Christian faith. And I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

Well, last week we had a team retreat in the mountains of Karuizawa, about a two-hour drive northwest of Tokyo. It really was a great time to get together before all the busyness of the coming months. As a whole team of artists, we’re always trying to figure out what it means to be team as we live in three different cities, work at different churches, send our kids to different schools, and make different kinds of art. In fact, two people at the retreat had never even met each other in person. So we spent a lot of time just listening to each other, praying for one another, and continuing this process of how best to encourage one another.

At the retreat, we also saw my pastor, Rev. Fukuda. I haven’t said too much about this in the podcast so far, but Fukuda-san, who planted the church that I work at, stepped down from Grace City Church just last month. There’s a lot of reasons he left. His term with the church was over. He was grieving the death of his oldest son. He had some health problems. But probably the most hurtful was some ongoing opposition from just a few very vocal critics asking him to step down. It’s been really hard, not just for the Fukudas, but also for me and my family who’ve been with them planting this church since the very beginning and are good friends with them. I share all this with you because it’s a pretty common story in the mission field and one that’s not easy for missionaries to navigate wisely.

Anyway, he and his wife, Michiru, happened to be in Karuizawa, so we asked them to lead our team in a devotional time. It was so good and encouraging for all of us. He really is a great leader and teacher, and we’re going to continue to miss him dearly.

Now, back in the mountains of Karuizawa, it reminded me of an experience I want to share with you. There’s this restaurant my wife and I were treated to in our very first year of language school in those mountains. Last week when we were there for the retreat, I tried to drive by the restaurant just to see if it was still there. Unfortunately, though, it had closed down. This was 18 years ago after all. It’s too bad, though, because that one night we spent there has haunted me all these years later. It was a restaurant for kaiseki dining, perhaps the most representative of all traditional Japanese meals, but also probably one of the least known to foreigners.

Let me share a scripture verse, and then I’ll share this story with you.

“On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines.” (Isaiah 25:6)

Deep in the shadows of the mountains and autumn leaves, red paper lantern faintly illuminated the entrance to a traditional Japanese restaurant. The roar of a river filled our ears as it plummeted down the cliff next to the road. The air was moist and cold, as was typical for that time of the year.

Entering the restaurant, my young sons ran to the side of a small wooden tank full of large fish. It was placed alongside two small waterfalls and a large stone cistern full of water and a ladle for washing hands. The kimono-clad hostess motioned for us to take off our shoes and leave them by the entrance. And then she led us back to our Japanese “father” and “mother,” an older couple we met during our first year at language school. They had often invited us to enjoy the best of Japanese culture. And this time we were being treated to the heart of Japanese dining known as kaiseki.

We took our seats on zabuton cushions on the floor and pushed our knees just under the edge of the table. There was no menu to look at because today’s selection would be omakase, left to the discretion of the chef. The first dish was sashimi, bite-sized pieces of raw fish, perhaps from one of the fish we saw earlier swimming in the entrance. The sashimi was beautifully arranged on a long slender plate with salmon eggs, edible flowers, and a leaf. The restaurant was not large with few other customers, so I worried what they would do with the rest of the fish, but that also made the experience that much more special.

Plates continued to come out one after another: soup, a different kind of sashimi, a small grilled fish, simmered vegetables, lightly fried tempura, chawan mushi (an egg custard with vegetables, not like the sweet custards I’m used to), rice, tsukemono pickles, miso soup, and a seasonal dessert. We also enjoyed a locally made plum wine.

I wanted to ask about each dish, but I had not been in the country for even a year. My Japanese was simply not good enough. I did have the distinct feeling, though, that everything was chosen for a reason. The flowers, leaves, and mushrooms most likely came from the mountain forest surrounding us. Everything seemed to reflect that fall season.

Dishes came out slowly and in small portions so I could focus on the beauty of each one. There was so much diversity and so many flavors. I learned later that exactly five elements were built into that meal, and each of those was divided into exactly five parts. Let me list them for you. There were five colors: red, yellow, green, black (or purple), and white. There were five flavors: salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy. There were five ways to prepare the meal: raw, simmered, grilled, fried, and steamed. There were five key ingredients: sugar, salt, vinegar, soy sauce, and miso. And lastly, all five of the senses were engaged: taste, texture, sight, sound, and smell.

I’ve often seen sci-fi films showing people swallowing pills for all their nutritional needs, but I can’t imagine that ever happening. Can you? It’s true, food could all be served the same way—same colors, same taste, same textures—but how boring would that be? Our world is filled with an abundance of different kinds of foods and an infinite number of ways to prepare and serve them. And through this limitless variety of food, we get a taste of the limitless abundance of God.

This abundance of food on earth is just a dim reflection of the abundance that we find in heaven. There may be four seasons in most regions of the world, but there are twelve in heaven, for the tree of life bears “twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month” (Revelation 22:2). We will enjoy each crop in turn, wondering at its beauty. And each time we taste that delicious food, we’ll be satisfied, assured of the goodness of God.

The meal my family enjoyed with our Japanese friends was not just delicious, it was glorious. Everything felt good and right with the world.

I was so engaged in the food and the conversation, I didn’t think about anything else, until my wife asked, “Where’s our child?”

“Isn’t he over there . . .” I said, turning to the corner where he had been quietly looking at a book, but he was gone. “I’ll go find him,” I hurriedly continued. I guessed he had gone back to the entrance to look at the fish.

Well, I found him all right, with ladle in hand and an intense look of concentration on his face. You’ll never believe what he was doing. He was carefully pouring water into each of the shoes of the customers by the entrance. And by the look of things, he’d been at it for quite some time.

“Eastin!” I cried a little too loudly, then glanced around to see if anyone was watching. I turned a couple of the shoes over to see if any of the water would come out, but it was too late. The shoe had already soaked all of it up. Not knowing what else to do, I quickly scooped up the little troublemaker, placed the ladle back on top of the stone cistern, and headed back to our table.

“Oh, good. You found him,” my wife said when we returned.

I paused, not sure how best to explain to my Japanese friends the predicament we were in. Finally, I said in English, “He found the stone cistern . . . and the ladle . . . and the shoes. . .”

“What?!” she exclaimed.

Apologizing profusely, I then tried to explain in Japanese, while gesturing with my hands. But rather than responding with shock or anger, my Japanese father and mother burst out laughing. Even if we returned home with feet a lot wetter than when we started, nothing, it seemed, could ruin the mood of that evening.

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Welcome to the Art Life Faith Podcast, live from Tokyo. This is the show where we talk about art, what it has to do with your life, and what it has to do with the Christian faith. And I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

This episode, I’d like to take a break from our regularly scheduled program to tell you a strange story from my hike on the Pacific Crest Trail with my wife, Abi. It comes from my book that I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned on this podcast. Actually, it was the first book I tried to self-publish, and strangely, it’s been my most popular book so far. With over 100 reviews on Amazon, a lot of people are reading this book who I’ve never met. I’ve also given it the strangest title of any book I’ve written, called Cow Pie Water. What do you think? Does this title engage you? Does it make you want to read it and open its pages? Probably not, right? Cow Pie Water. Anyway, this book’s a collection of trail journals my wife, Abi, and I wrote as we hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, 2,659 miles through the mountains of California, Oregon, and Washington.

During the hike, we wanted people to be able to fall along with us, so we tried to write down some things that happened along the way. There was not a lot of downtime. Mostly we were just hiking, eating, sleeping . . . hiking and eating some more, trying to average 26 miles a day. But one of us ended up writing while the other was cooking. Then when we went into town, we sent the papers to a friend who put the journals up on a website. At one point, that website disappeared, but I still wanted people to be able to read these journals, so I made this book.

Anyway, the following recounts the story from which I named the book. It’s a meditation on thirst and how God provides for us through it.

“They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.” (Isaiah 49:10)

All 40 plastic gallon jugs were completely empty. I lifted each just to be sure. Sweat evaporated from my face so quickly that all I felt were deep layers of salt crusted on my skin. Hot wind blew in my face as if from a hairdryer. Knee-high bushes and cacti did little to provide shade.

Abi and I were hiking across the Mojave Desert, a 37-mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail, famous for its high temperatures and lack of water. Several hikers in the previous town assured us we could depend on this water cache provided by trail angels. But they were wrong. We didn’t carry enough water not because we were foolish, but because we physically couldn’t. The weight of the water alone would have been more than both of our backpacks combined, and we had no practical way of carrying it. I mean, would you carry shopping bags full of water 37 miles through the desert?

Trying not to get discouraged, we kept going, hoping for another water cache not far down the trail. There was one after an hour. Empty. Every single bottle lay on its side, shaking in the wind, held together by a rope that snaked through the handles.

More than a little concerned, we picked up our pace, and pretty soon we passed yet another empty water cash. And then another. And then another. And then we stopped, and I put my backpack down. In this dry heat, we were never going to make it. We were still so weak from dehydration just the week before when we found a dead horse in our only water supply for that day.

“Well, this isn’t good,” I said, trying to be funny at the magnitude of the understatement. But Abi didn’t laugh.

We looked to the horizon in all directions. Not a single building or paved road in sight. Sand, sand, and more sand. Apparently, the name Mojave means “beside the water,” a combination of the Native American word aha meaning water and macave meaning along or beside. This desert definitely needed a new name.

I pulled out my map and found what was labeled as an unreliable water source about a 30-minute hike off the trail. I really didn’t want to add a whole extra hour of hiking, especially not knowing if there was anything there at all. But what choice did I have? I left my backpack with Abi and went in search of it, filter and water bottles in hand.

Why are we so dependent on water? Why are our bodies so weak without it? We usually think of ourselves as stronger, yet I know from this experience and others like it that just a few hours in the sun without water is very debilitating. A few days, and you’re dead. Nothing is more essential to life than water. I have a whole new perspective of stories about thirst in the Bible. When we don’t have water, we don’t just feel thirsty, we feel forsaken. We feel alone. We feel like no one cares.

“The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.” (Isaiah 41:17–18)

In our current situation, this was the ultimate picture of hope, a perfect picture of heaven. Deserts turned into pools of water. Parched ground turned into springs. We can have this water because Jesus cried on the cross, “I thirst” (John 19:28). We can have this water because Jesus was forsaken (Matthew 27:46). One day, we will never know thirst again.

After walking for what seemed like forever, I heard the faint mooing of cows and saw trees that were actually taller than I was, and my hopes began to rise. Where there’re cows and trees, there is water. But then I saw the cows, and my heart sank. They stood there right in the middle of the water source, really nothing more than a mud puddle filled with cow pies.

Cautiously, I inched forward, trying not to spook the cows or ruin my sneakers in the filth, and stuck my hands into the muck. I really don’t want to give you this visual image, but it was like, actually it was exactly like, sticking my hands into a stopped-up toilet. I put the intake tube of the filter into the muck and started to pump, clogging it almost immediately. It took all my strength just to keep pumping. Then I stopped to stare suspiciously at this yellow water accumulating in my bottle.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I said to the cows staring at me. They probably thought the same thing. “Thanks a lot.” And then I took a sip. I’d like to tell you that it really wasn’t that bad, but it was. It was warm and metallic and . . . a little hard to describe, so maybe I’ll just leave the rest up to your imagination. But I can say this. On the trail, I often drank from muddy puddles, but this was different. There was definitely more than just spring water in that bottle.

Trying not to think about it further, I drank some more. In my distant memory, in a faraway magical land, I had running water at the turn of a faucet. Now, it was hard to imagine that such places ever existed. All I had was cow pie water.

I pumped and pumped and drank as much as I could, bringing back full bottles to Abi. As I described the source of the water to her, she opened the lid to sniff the warm yellow liquid.

“You really drank this?” she asked.

“It won’t kill you,” I said, and then added, “probably.”

“It smells,” she whined, and then drank, downing half a liter before passing it back to me.

We continued our hike with renewed resolve. We hiked all through that night and long into the next day, dehydrated and weak, desperately in search of water.

This is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the Art Life Faith podcast. Check out my website, www.rogerwlowther.com, for a transcription of this episode. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne. See you next time.”

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This is the Art Life Faith podcast, live from Tokyo, Japan, where we talk about art, what it has to do with your life, and what it has to do with the Christian faith, especially in the context of foreign missions. And I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

Today, I’d like to share a conversation we had with Mayuko Shono or Mayu for short. Her story is not new to this podcast. In fact, our very first podcast back in July 2020 was about Mayu and her Love Your Neighbor mask project right in the midst of the COVID epidemic. Well, she’s been really busy since creating art, hosting events, and connecting people. This past January, I heard Mayu speak at the IQ Café in Shibuya, one of the coolest hangout places for young people. The front walls of the café were all made of glass and overlooked a really busy intersection. Clearly, in every way, we were downtown amidst the hustle and bustle of the busiest, most populated city on the planet. And there was Mayu in the heart of the heart of the city speaking passionately about her artwork, and speaking passionately about Christ to a group that was mostly not Christian.

To draw people in, Mayu began the time with live painting, including a dramatic toss of glitter onto canvas and into the air. It was pretty cool. Everyone was engaged. Everyone was having a great time. And then she seamlessly went into sharing her faith by talking about her other artwork.

Mayu is really good at talking about God in ways that are engaging in any environment, but especially in really urban settings like that one. Whether it be a café, or street corner where she was handing out her masks, or a really cool mall in Harajuku, where I saw her speak in December. Now, Harajuku is one stop from Shibuya Station, still technically part of Shibuya, and, in my opinion, the coolest part of Shibuya. In Harajuku, she held this pop-up shop for two weeks through Christmas, and it quickly became a hot spot for where God was working in Tokyo during the Christmas season.

Let me try to paint the picture for you. You’re walking through a really busy shopping district. There’s nothing Christian anywhere around. Then you suddenly come upon her store in the main place that people are hanging out. There Mayu sat, in a display window, painting and talking with everyone who came by. And there were a lot of people coming into that store, a constant flow of young people. My two youngest boys, ages 9 and 13, helped out for a day by handing out cool gospel tracks that Mayu made. Japanese people usually throw things like that out, but hers were prints of her art and so were very engaging. People held on to them and flipped to the back, where there was a conversation about the true meaning of Christmas. There was a group of young women coming down the hall and they saw my boys and kept saying, “Kawaii! Kawaii!” (“Oh, they’re so cute.”) My boys, as you can imagine, were so embarrassed. They ran away and back into the store, “Mommy!” And the group of women followed them inside. After that, my boys got a lot more bold and better at their job interacting with people.

There’s this image in Japan that Christianity is just for Western people or for old people. But Mayu completely shatters those images. She shatters that image of a boring Christian who’s wearing very serious looking clothes and shouting at people while holding a Bible. There was Mayu, sitting in a display window in the best of what is attractive to young people, making her art and talking about Jesus.

One of the nearby shop owners was first attracted to Mayu’s nativity scene that she had painted and placed in the entrance. “Are you a Christian?” she asked. Well, this question led into many other questions and great conversations in the days that followed. This shop owner was especially interested in the Fruits of the Spirit series from Galatians, asking about the meaning of each of the words. There was also another shop owner who visited Mayu at her gallery across town, Mina-tera, and they’re still in contact today. In fact, Mayu is still in contact with many of the people she met those two weeks at the pop-up shop. God was clearly working through her during that time, building relationships and sharing his good news of light and hope in a world that desperately needs it.

Anyway, I’d like for you to hear from Mayu herself. I’ve invited Alana Essex, a six-month intern we had on the show just a couple of episodes ago, to interact with Mayu about these things.

AlanaAll right, Mayu, I have some very important questions for you. I really want to know, what was your favorite part about your recent pop-up shop?

MayuGood question. Well, there are many favorite parts about that event, but I think my favorite part was that I got to meet many new people. People kept asking me about the story behind my painting and art. “Why did you create this?” And I got to answer their questions. So I was able to share the purpose and story behind my artwork very naturally. And I was able to share my … How do you say? Something like God has put in your heart? Yeah, God was working during that time.

AlanaYeah, you also had a design that was on sweatshirts and T-shirts specific to Christmas that included the whole Jesus scene. Can you explain what that looks like?

MayuIn Japan, Christmas is all about couples and Santa Claus, and people don’t know the real meaning of Christmas. So I wanted to create a space where people get to know and learn about the real purpose and meaning of Christmas. So I created this artwork about… How do you say this? I made a nativity scene drawing, and I displayed it at the pop-up shop. And people walked by and asked, “What’s this?” and, “Oh, is this the baby Jesus?” and I was like, “Yeah, how do you know?” And it just started the conversation. When some people walked by, they even asked me, “Are you Christian? Are you a Christian artist?” and I was like, “Yeah.” And some people told me they used to go to a Christian school when they were students, or that they went to church with their parents when they were little. And it just opened up unexpected conversations.

AlanaIs there any conversation you can think of that really stands out in your mind from all that?

MayuYeah. So there are many different stores around my shop and one of the ladies from the store came to my shop to talk to me and she asked if she could take a picture of the nativity drawing. I was like, sure. And she said, “My mom is Christian and I want to share this with my mom because I’ve never seen a nativity scene in Japan during the Christmas season.” It was rare for her to see that. So she was excited and she took a picture. But she just kept coming to my store every day. And we just got along, and we became friends.

AlanaWas she a Christian too or just her mom?

MayuI think she didn’t have a personal relationship with God, but she said she felt at home when she messaged me after the event. It felt like home coming to my store. I think that’s because there were more than just me, but there were many Christians, missionary friends at the store helping me. So she felt at home and peace just being around us and talking to us. So it was very encouraging.

AlanaThat’s such a gift, though, that you’re able to make a Japanese person through all your Christian art feel at home and that a Christian influence in their life is something that impacted them so much, to feel like they’re at home in your shop.

MayuYeah. I had these paintings on the wall about the Fruits of the Spirit. Japanese people don’t really know the English words. So she asked me, “What does this mean?” And it was just natural to be able to share the gospel and share the meaning of each word. And she was so interested.

AlanaYeah. It seemed like a lot of people were coming in there buying things that had Bible verses on them. But it’s just blowing my mind that they’re buying those things and giving them as gifts to people and not even aware that you’ve prayed over those things. That’s your artwork and it displays literally the nativity scene and all those Bible verses that point to Jesus in their heart for them and they’re unaware. One of my roommates bought things for her two friends who were having babies that had Bible verses on them. So many people were going in there buying what you had, and it was just so cool.

MayuYeah, I think art has the power to do that. If my artwork had no color, if it’s a very old style, it wouldn’t attract young people in Japan. But I purposely create things, very colorful things, that attract the younger generation in Japan. I want to change the wrong understanding and impression of Christianity because art helped me to have a better understanding of who God is. I used to think being a Christian is very strict and boring. I thought it was all about following the rules, that you have to be the right person and go to church and everything. So I felt distant from Christianity. But art and music helped me to understand, how do you say…

AlanaUnderstand the gospel?…

MayuYes, who Jesus is. There are many different types of Christian art and Christian music in America.

AlanaBut not a lot in Japan?

MayuNo.

AlanaAlso, how did you get that space? You really got a good spot. It was basically a mall near Shinjuku and Harajuku. How did you even go about getting that space? And then how long did it take you to prep?

MayuSo I had my first pop-up shop in Shibuya two years ago. And how I got that opportunity was through my online shop that I started during COVID when I started to make masks. In the very beginning, I started this brand called LYN (Love Your Neighbor) during the COVID season. I made a bunch of masks because we didn’t have enough masks here. I had a bunch of fabrics at home so I just started to make a bunch of colorful masks and I started to give them to my neighbors and friends, unconditionally. And I called this project Love Your Neighbor. I also made a little sticker that said, “You are loved.” And so, with this little note, I decided to give this mask to my friends. And I also made an Instagram account for this project because I wanted to post the pictures, and I wanted to give not just to my friends or family member who lived around my house but to anyone who needed a mask. So after I made these social media Instagram and Facebook accounts, people started to message me, “Can you send me this mask? I need two masks. I need five masks. Can you send me 10?” And I made more and more. But during that time, I was not able to go out and do things, so I really enjoyed doing this.

AlanaWas it all free?

MayuYes, but it was hard for me to buy new strings and fabric. So people started to donate their fabrics. My friends who lived around my neighborhood were like, “Mayu, I left a bag in front of your door. You can use that fabric.” And people just started to give me a bunch of fabric and strings. So I was like, “Okay, God, this is my mission. I need to make more masks.” So yeah, that’s how Love Your Neighbor (LYN) started. But after a while, we had enough masks at the store, so I didn’t have to make any more masks. But I still wanted to continue this Love Your Neighbor Ministry. So I was praying, “God, what do you want me to do next?” And the idea just came to me to make T-shirts and mug cups and all different products. When I was living in America, I was working as an artist and selling paintings and prints because it’s common for American people to display artwork at home because houses are big. But in Japan, people don’t really buy big paintings or wall art. So I decided to make T-shirts, something easy for Japanese people to purchase. Because my passion is to share the message about my artwork. So somehow I wanted to…how do you say…Hand out? Yeah, hand out my artwork. So I decided to make an online shop called LYN, Love Your Neighbor, because my passion is to reach out to young Japanese people. And my art style is more…how do you say…a better fit in Laforre, the mall where we met in Harajuku, so I just kept applying but they never responded. I didn’t give up, and I just kept sending emails and kept trying. And then in October, they replied to me and told me, “Come to the office on this day” and I was like…

AlanaWow, that’s your big break!

MayuSo I had the first meeting with them in October and they asked me, “Do you think you can do it in December?” and I was like, if it’s the Christmas season then I get to share the real meaning of Christmas, so I said, “Yes, I will do it.” And I started to prepare for this event.

AlanaWow. So you only had two months?

MayuYeah.

AlanaYou were prepping the whole time?

MayuYes, every day. I mean, I rested, but yeah. I wanted to do it professionally. I wanted to do it well because as a creator, as an artist, I think it’s important to…how do you say…think through how you share your artwork. For example, sushi. If your sushi is on a paper plate, it doesn’t look good. But if it’s on the nice Japanese traditional osara plate, it looks delicious. Same food, but depending on how you present it, how you show it, it is completely different. So I wanted to take my time to think about how I want how to set up the space. So I made a theme, color yellow concept for this event, and I started to prepare.

AlanaAnd it looked so professional. It looked like every other brand that was in there that had probably, I’m sure, done that before. And yours, I think yours stood out because it was so colorful because you love the colors and you made it yellow and bright and still included the Christmas concept and had Christmas-themed things. But your brand, LYN, stands out. It has that…I don’t know…I don’t know if it’s because you have that Christian gospel mindset, but it just shines. I just feels and looks so bright. And it brings in people…Yeah, I just think it looked so good.

MayuYeah. I just want my motivation to be, as I said, to change a wrong understanding and impression, image of Christianity. So I wanted to make it unique and different and colorful. And I wanted to tell people, “Hey, I’m Christian. I’m weird. This is weird art. I’m different, but it’s okay.” Christians, it’s okay to be unique. It’s okay to be you. God still loves you. God created us all uniquely. I used to be very insecure about myself growing up in Japan. I’m tall, I’m big, taller than most of the boys at school. I didn’t like myself. I didn’t know I was beautiful. But when I went to America and heard the gospel, my Christian friend told me how God created us all uniquely and differently. And we’re all beautiful. God purposely made us unique. And we are all God’s beautiful masterpiece. And that really healed my heart and opened my eyes. So I actually made one painting about this story. It’s called Uniqueness. But yeah, I also displayed, exhibited this painting at the pop-up shop so that people could see it. And if people ask me about this painting, I get to share about this story how God healed my heart, how beautiful we are, because a lot of young people in Japan struggle with appearance and insecurity. People try to look like others. We want to become like beautiful American girls — blond hair, big eyes. But I just wanted to encourage people who walked by the pop-up shop that you are beautiful, you are valuable, you are special. You don’t need to look like others. Just be you, and we are loved.

AlanaCan you describe what that painting looks like?

MayuI don’t know how to describe the painting…

AlanaWell, there’re some faces on there. They all seem to have long noses…

MayuYes, different shapes.

AlanaYeah, different colors. It’s all very bright, very your style. Why did you do it?

MayuWhen I create something, I usually make an outline and prepare before I paint. But this piece, I didn’t prepare anything. I just prepared a huge white canvas and had my brush and paint and just went for it. I prayed like, God, I want to paint whatever you want me to paint, so please use me. I felt like I was worshiping. I was communicating, dancing with God while I was painting this piece. I just started with this figure in the middle. I call him boss because he’s the first guy I painted. But everyone is different and unique in different colors. And this artwork is completed together. If it’s just one guy, it’s boring. It’s not interesting. But this art is beautiful because everyone looks different. So all my paintings have a spiritual message behind them.

AlanaYou also have one that’s the huge mural of 2022 with all the events of the big things that happened. Can you talk about that?

MayuYes. After I accepted Christ, I became a Christian. I started to pray before I painted. My art style really changed after I became a Christian because then I created what God wanted me to create, not my own selfish desires or my own reasons. But yeah, this new painting that I just did was all the things that happened these past few years. Starting from COVID, and the Tokyo Olympics, and all the arguments. Every day when I turned on the news in Japan, there were always arguments about whether to do the Tokyo Olympics or not. I was so tired of watching all the negative news. Yeah, COVID and people losing jobs, suicide, depression. The recent news was not just in Japan, but shooting at schools in America, natural disasters, the thing that happened in Korea in Itaewon (when 159 people were crushed to death). Yeah, just unexpected crazy things happened these past few years. When I actually started painting this, Mr. Abe, the Prime Minister, he was still alive. But while I was painting, trying to complete this work, he got shot. So I also added that as well. And I just painted all the shocking news, things that happened these past few years. But not only the negative things.

AlanaThere were cool things in there, too.

MayuYeah, I mean, all the athletes…

AlanaAnd you had a big hand in the middle of it, too. Can you explain that?

MayuYes. So this painting is called Chaos because this world is broken and things happen unexpectedly. So we can’t…In Japanese, I always say, “Kono yo niwa kitai dekinai.” Yeah, we can’t depend on anything in this world. This world will disappoint you because it’s broken. And we don’t understand. Even as a believer, I don’t understand why those things happen. It breaks my heart. People are still suffering who lost their kids in Itaewon, Korea, and from the natural disasters and shootings. It’s heartbreaking. But when we look up and when we keep our eyes on God, there is a hope and peace that we can’t explain. It’s indescribable. There is hope and peace in Christ. I experienced that in my personal life, too. I can’t explain by speaking. That’s why I paint. So I painted this strong, powerful hand coming from the sky. And I want people to see that. And even in this broken world, we can still find hope. And there is a hand who is wanting to help you, and unconditionally love you.

AlanaThat was so cool. I love that painting.

MayuA lot of people asked me about that painting, and we all feel the same way as a human living in this world. So a lot of people agreed with what I said. Even people who haven’t accepted Christ or who don’t know God. I think as a human, we naturally seek for joy and hope and peace. So it was cool. I was able to connect deeply with many people. Even though it was my first time meeting them because of my painting and artwork, I was able to connect with them in a deeper way.

RogerI really like the visual reminder of that big, strong hand. It was the biggest thing in the painting. It was very powerful. It was like God has the power to make things right in the midst of our chaos.

MayuYes. Also in the middle of that painting, there is a baby, a naked baby in the middle. It’s also a reminder, we all start as a baby, no matter where you’re from, what nationality you are, we are family, we are the same human. We start as a baby. And we start to have a different story in life.

AlanaAnd you can say Jesus also was a baby. He came down and yet he also holds the whole world. He chose to come down and be just like us when he didn’t have to. He’s both.

RogerHe’s the greatest and the weakest in the midst of our chaos. There’s this little baby, and you’re like, “Oh, he’s going to get hurt!”

Mayu“Help the baby!”

Alana“Get him out of this world. Why is he in this?” But he did that for us to save us in the chaos. He came down into the chaos to do it when he didn’t have to. Such a cool message.

RogerYeah, I think that message that you give of God’s presence in our chaos, in our broken world, is especially powerful in Japan. Just knowing that God is not a foreign God. He’s not only a Western God. He’s not something we have to somehow bring here. But God is reaching down to the people of Japan, into our brokenness here and working. Whether you recognize him or not, he’s there. He wants to help us.

MayuWhat I love about art is if I’m just speaking about this without artwork, people would think I’m just a religious lady who’s trying to…I don’t know…What’s the word in English?

AlanaTrying to lure people in?

MayuYeah. But art creates this natural conversation. When we are talking, we are looking at something and we are in this…bonding?

AlanaYeah, it’s crazy how just looking at something can even resonate with emotions with someone else. Even if they don’t even understand why you painted it, they can have their own feelings that emerge just because of how they view it. Even looking at the one you did that shows people who all don’t fit the beauty standard and are all ugly in their own way. And it’s just a lovable painting. But someone could also have their own reason why they’re attached to it. And it could have a similar meaning, or it can just be something that they just resonate with in a different way. And it’s such a cool, powerful thing.

MayuIt’s all by the grace of God. Yeah, I don’t know how he did it. I was surprised what happened during that event. I couldn’t…For a couple of weeks, I was like, God, what did you just do? I needed time to organize my mind and think about all the people I met and all the conversations I had. I felt God was there just using that space to encourage people because he loves ungodly people. He loves both godly and ungodly. It doesn’t matter. People on this Earth, everyone, he loves, he wants to rescue, he wants to take them to a better place. So it was cool and encouraging for me to see that. And it reminded me how much God loves Japan and Japanese people.

RogerThank you so much, Mayu, for sharing. That’s great.

MayuThank you for having me.

RogerThis is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the Art Life Faith podcast. Check out my website, www.rogerwlowther.com, to see some of Mayu’s artwork and get a transcription of this conversation. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

https://www.instagram.com/mayukoshono/

https://loveneighbor.thebase.in/

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Welcome to the Art Life Faith Podcast. This is the show where we talk about art, what it has to do with your life, and what has to do with the Christian faith. And I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

Well, March 11, 2023 is the 12th anniversary of that devastating earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that struck the nation of Japan, and a day that changed everything for me. During that time, I saw firsthand the power of the arts to bring hope and encouragement during really dark times. The people I worked with in the relief movement had lost everything—family members, friends, homes, jobs, entire towns. And during that time, people responded to the arts in ways I never dreamed possible. We knew people really needed food, water, and supplies. But it turns out they really needed beauty as well.

I’d like to share with you an excerpt from my book, Aroma of Beauty, which tells many stories from that time. This is taken from the audiobook version.

Food just after the tsunami was terrible. Every meal was treated like an emergency situation. Refugees and relief workers alike, we all lived off canned and instant foods. These may keep the body going for a day, but they sure lack the vitamins, nutrients, and life-giving beauty that we so desperately needed.

When we heard from survivors the kind of digestive problems they were now dealing with, our local Tokyo community was galvanized into action and began to plan our first takidashi cookout. Grocers donated rice, meat, and vegetables. Restaurants loaned equipment. My dentist even donated toothbrushes and toothpaste. A dozen people who had never been to the disaster area agreed to go as cooks and volunteers.

My wife Abi led a caravan of trucks and vans to the city of Ishinomaki. They came to a halt in a gravel lot cleared of debris, the telltale sign that people were taking shelter on the upper floors of nearby homes, stores, and buildings.

Fish and seaweed decayed in the sun. Piles of garbage lined roadsides with nowhere to go. Porta-potties and toilets overflowed. The stench was overwhelming, and every time we opened the doors of our trucks, we were overcome by the potency of it.

This must be what hell is like, Abi thought as she began to unload, trying to ignore the stench and not stare at the surrounding devastation.

Noisy generators powered the rice cookers. Industrial-sized propane burners roared underneath large pots of water. The volunteers cut meat and vegetables on plastic portable tables: pork, carrots, daikon radishes, shiitake mushrooms, and konnyaku gelatin strips—all the ingredients needed to make tonjiru soup.

As the food went into the pots, something beautiful began to happen. An aroma began to waft through the air, a pleasing smell unknown since the earthquake.

People began to line up from surrounding buildings—ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred people—and volunteers began to get worried. “What do we do? We still need more time!”

“It’s okay,” Abi said. “There hasn’t been a smell like this here for a very long time. Let’s enjoy it.”

Abi asked the musician who came with the group if he wouldn’t mind playing a bit. “I know it’s not an ideal spot,” she apologized, staring at the blocks of concrete and thick gooey mud. “And your audience isn’t exactly nicely grouped together.” The line of people went as far as they could see.
The musician pulled out his shakuhachi bamboo flute and began to play, slowly picking his way around the puddles and the mud as he walked down the line of people. The melodies of the flute and the aroma of the soup filled the air, washing away the stench, pointing to a world that cannot be overcome by decay and destruction.

The food was more than mere sustenance, and the music was more than mere entertainment, a way to pass the time while waiting in line. It was life-giving. An electrifying sense of hope, almost tangible, wafted through the air. It was the aroma of beauty.

Aroma may be temporary and only last a moment, but the more time we spent in the disaster area, the more urgently we felt its need. The aroma of beauty became a seawall against the black waves of despair that threatened us every day after that tsunami. It brought an unexpected joy with the promise that a better tomorrow would come.

An electrifying sense of hope, almost tangible, wafted through the air. It was the aroma of beauty.

That was a retelling of the story from which I got the title for the book. It really was a powerful time, and that power I witnessed can only come from God. Through the arts, God shared his aroma of beauty, the aroma of his kingdom, where every tear will be wiped away. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, and everything will be made new. God lovingly shares his goodness with us through the arts.

If you’d like to hear more of these stories, you can get them right now in the eBook version on Amazon for just $0.99 this weekend, March 10–13. Even if you already have a paper copy, I encourage you to check it out. You can also check out Pippy the Piano and the Very Big Wave, a children’s book I wrote based on one story from that time, also on sale.

Well, today I have the privilege of sharing a conversation I had with Rachel Reese Kollmeyer, who recently received her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Rachel has a lot of experience as a missionary and as a musician, playing the violin in a number of countries. After graduating from college, she moved to the country of Peru, where she was heavily engaged in the musical life there. Among other things, she helped lead a Bach festival and a music competition. When that term ended, she moved to Japan to join our Community Arts missionary team and work in the very same area where the tsunami hit, in those early days when beauty was needed most. She also worked with us for a time in Tokyo and flew down to Kumamoto in southern Japan again to do relief work through the arts.

Now let’s turn to my conversation with Rachel.

RogerSo, Rachel, it’s wonderful having you on this podcast because there are things that you have experienced that I really want our listeners to be able to share in those stories as well. Can we first let’s talk a little bit about that time just after 2011. Huge earthquake, huge tsunami, the fear of radiation. And you moved right into the middle of all that. What was that like?

RachelWell, I remember I was so excited because I’m really passionate about the music and how it can bring healing and my faith and how that’s all interconnected. And I remember I thought my dreams had come true. I moved there. I’m doing what I love.

RogerDid you have any fear of moving into that area that meant you couldn’t protect yourself from all of the destruction? It wasn’t like you were somewhere then coming in for a short time, but to be in the midst of it, living, sleeping every night there, I mean.

RachelIt was hard because it was dark there. There was a lot of pain and suffering. But I think growing up as a Christian, pain and suffering is part of what we’re promised in this world that’s broken, and we have hope because God became flesh and he experienced that suffering. So I knew I wasn’t going into it alone. I had the Holy Spirit’s presence with me, and I worked with a group of people there. But yeah, there was definitely some fear.

RogerWhat was your living situation like? Were you in one of those homes that were kind of being repaired or you in something like a prefab thing?

RachelYeah. When I think back on that, I sometimes wonder, like, how you live through it. I stayed in a home that was partially repaired from the tsunami. For example, the bathroom door was made of plywood. Right. There was no central heating or electricity. So in the winter, I remember it was like October and people had my roommates had left and it was getting really cold. I was like, I don’t know how to keep warm in this place. And I raided the closets and found some huge it looked like a heating device, but I didn’t know how to use it. And I kind of missionary was like, okay, I’ll take you in my truck to buy some kerosene to put in there. And he taught me how to use it. But it was tough at first, I’m sure.

RogerYeah. And you mentioned darkness too. I mean, physically it’s a dark place because it’s so far northright, isn’t like dark. Most of it quite the day hard too.

RachelThe sun sets at like 330 or four in the winter, and then you come home to a freezing cold house because there’s no central heat.

RogerAnd I know you like sunlight. I love sunlight. I’m sure that could not have been easy. So and here you are. You’re moving into this and you’re moving in as a musician, as an artist. Was there really a role for music in that situation? Or was it more like this? Need people to rebuild homes and, you know, help make sure that getting food where it needed to go and things like that?

RachelAt this point, people had learned they were living in temporary housing. A lot of people had food. I think there was fear that they would be forgotten. They themselves didn’t really know what the next step was. So going in as a musician was so powerful because, especially for Japanese, the value placed on beauty is so high. And to live in these places that were only supposed to last for one year, the houses weren’t very nice. It was plastic. And of course, the people had lost everything, so they didn’t have their own maybe memories or photos or things that brought them joy.

RogerRight. And they were basically like living in parking lot looking things, right. These things are just lined up in rows and let’s park our house here, sort of thing.

RachelOh, yeah. And so when you go in, music just takes you to another realm. It takes the listener there. It takes you there. So it kind of transported us. I would go there with a friend, maybe, or at the local pastor. We’d set up our keyboard and I’d get out my violin and suddenly those little rooms would be changed in some way. It was like we weren’t sitting in this place of destruction and pain anymore. There was suddenly hope.

RogerThat’s beautiful. So the music you played in these rooms, it was like a different you said transport people in a different world, almost. How did the room change when music was played?

RachelAt the time, I was still getting to know Japanese culture, so I couldn’t read body language very well, and I was just starting to learn the language. But you saw smiles and laughs and people were happy to be there. At this concert, I remember playing with a friend, Julianne, a violinist, and we were just full of joy playing together. And I think that transmits to the audience too. Oh, we’re playing music we love. We both grew up playing the Suzuki method, and then we met in this area and played together the things that we grew up playing.

RogerYeah, I bet that brought energy into that situation. Because there were often common rooms, right, that people in the temporary homes, they could leave and kind of meet and there was nothing else going on. These people had no jobs because everything was gone. And so to have music was one way to bring life into that situation, for sure.

RachelAnd a lot of these people were retired, so they didn’t have a job to go to, or maybe a lot of their community was gone. I remember talking to some people, and they may have lived in a certain neighborhood with those neighbors. And then once the tsunami came, maybe half of people weren’t living anymore. And then they were displaced. They were just put in this government assigned housing with a totally different group of people they didn’t know. So trying to have these community events to help people get to know each other was also so important.

RogerYeah, that’s good. What specific stories do you have of how music helped you personally connect with people there?

RachelWell, in Japan, the culture that is so private, I was really struck after concerts that people were willing to talk to me and tell me some of their stories. Some people, of course, were very quiet, and they seemed still traumatized, like they didn’t want to talk, but they were there, and I think that was powerful. But then other people, it was like when they retold their story, in a way, that person was still alive in their memory and the memory of someone else. For example, one person I talked to, and I made a mistake. Honestly, I asked her. I was trying to connect with her. I was like, do you have any children? And she was like, Well, I had a daughter, and she was pregnant, but she was washed away in the tsunami.

RogerWow. Yeah, that’d be hard. Yeah, I remember. Fortunately, this story ended better, but after one of my concerts, a man was telling me about how he was upstairs when the wave hit, but didn’t realize that his wife was downstairs. Like, she was able to make it home just as the wave hit, and it was filling the downstairs, and there was nothing she could do but climb on top of the refrigerator. And when he came down in the morning, he found her up there, extremely cold, because it was like snowing outside, and she was soaking wet, and she was injured, but she was alive. And he’s, like, just telling me that story. Wow. Stories of survival like that are just hard to believe, to imagine.

RachelIt’s incredible.

RogerI know that you were teaching a young lady. Can you tell me about that?

RachelYes. Cynatron was a piece of light. Every week when she came for her lesson, her family lost everything in the tsunami. They lived on the beach, and they couldn’t afford to buy an instrument after they had lost everything they were trying to replace, like even school clothes or books. So we gave her violin and she started lessons, and she was extremely shy at first, and I took it as my personal goal to try to make her laugh and smile and I wanted her to enjoy violin. So eventually I taught her a Miyazaki theme and also a beloved Japanese song called Fudosato, which is very nostalgic, like a coming home song. And she played that a lot. It’s really sweet.

RogerYeah. I remember you introduced me to her once to accompany both of you. And I remember she was very shy.

RachelYes.

RogerSo how did she get the violin and then what did she do with that?

RachelWell, we had an arts program for kids there. We also went and taught gospel choir at the middle school. So we had a few instruments. Some people, some supporting churches sent me their kids old instruments that they weren’t using anymore. And I brought them to Japan with me. And she started playing. And I think she inspired some other kids in the area. They also started to take violin. So I had like, maybe eight students after a while.

RogerAnd why was that important during that time?

RachelWell, it’s important for a lot of reasons. It’s important because music connects people like that. I couldn’t learn violin unless I was teaching her, and then because then I played and told her friends about it, they were excited. So it created this little community of I think it was mostly girls, and they could talk about it and play together. And also important because music uses both parts of the brain, and it can be really powerful. When you experience trauma and depression, you have trouble focusing. And when you play music, you can’t think about that. It requires you to focus deeply, and in that way it helps you move on or forget some of those harmful things.

RogerInteresting, I hadn’t thought about it that way. So it’s like almost reprogramming your brain to think about positive things, light and beauty. Yeah, that’s cool. I know those relationships, too, because they didn’t really have a lot of afterschool activities at that time. So to have something because then you told me before we started talking that John went on to become a doctor. Is that right?

RachelYes, she went to a special boarding school for kids who wanted to become doctors. I guess it was like a specialized program to get you on the fast track.

RogerI wonder if the tsunami kind of inspired you to do that, just seeing so many hurt people and wanting to help.

RachelYeah, I really wonder about that.

RogerThat’s cool, though. Some music kind of gave her, though, helped her drive and hope for the future and create a new future.

RachelFor sure.

RogerThat’s really cool. So you worked in Peru as a missionary using the arts. Then you worked in Japan using the arts as a missionary, and now you’re here in Baton Rouge. And what have you been thinking about during this time of COVID and the role of the arts during that?

RachelWell, one of the things that’s been hurtful to me about this pandemic is the division and just the harsh judgment that I feel we as a people kind of pass on people who make different decisions than us. And I’ve thought a lot about it and want to give other people the freedom to make their own decisions and to believe that people are really thinking and praying about what they’re doing. And I think as artists, we have something powerful. There’s not really places that I’ve seen for people to mourn the things that they lost in the pandemic. And as artists, I think we can provide spaces for that. We can talk about the loss we’ve experienced or those parties we couldn’t go to, or those funerals. That was a huge deal. So many people couldn’t go to funerals of their loved ones. And to think about that and provide a space. Music also provides a space to just be and to breathe and to sit still and to do nothing. In a world where I know as a student, being on the computer all the time, I would just get in such a frenzy because this world is kind of fake and it always feels like you have so many things and you’re going to forget all your deadlines.

RachelAnd so for me, playing music, being away from a screen, calm down and was very special. I needed it so much more during this pandemic.

RogerYeah, it’s well put. I know. We had a you hosted a house party on Saturday night here, and that was so much fun. Two of us played together some things, but there was a man who played guitar and sang for a while. It was so beautiful. It just felt like the community being built through that time was something special and worth embracing.

RachelWell, and it was a fulfillment of a dream of mine. My husband and I bought this house. It has a big open living room and dining room, and we want to do house concerts. I even wrote a paper on how I would design the concerts and I wanted them to be like a monthly basis and how I was going to treat the musicians who came. Musicians often I find that maybe they overwork and don’t take care of themselves well, they don’t eat meals on time. And so trying to be a space that also gives musicians a healthy space to be like, we don’t have to rehearse without taking breaks or without eating, just so we can get this music the way we want it.

RogerYeah, I’ve certainly been guilty of that too. It’s hard because you are so driven to get a certain quality and it takes everything to do that.

RachelIt’s very hard. And I actually reinjured a little bit this fall. I did a new music thing and we didn’t take breaks. And it’s curious to me also how musicians don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about how we care for our bodies or if anyone has a twinge or is in pain. It’s just like you don’t talk about it.

RogerYeah, just buck up, practice harder, push through.

RachelRight. But I actually found out when I mentioned I was like, let’s finish this rehearsal, I said, I’m in so much pain. We still have a performance that the other violinist opened up. I was like, yeah, actually, I’m not doing so well either. And then the clarinetist was telling me, oh, yeah, these are all these strategies you can do for this is what I do after. This is what my boyfriend does. And I was so moved that just by sharing that I was struggling, it provided this whole other platform for us to connect and to help each other.

RogerThat’s really cool. Thank you, Rachel. It’s really good talking with you.

RachelThank you, Roger. This has been a pleasure.

RogerThis is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast. Check out my website, www.rogerwlowther.com, for a transcription of this podcast and various links. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time!”

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Welcome to the Art Life Faith Podcast. This is the show where we talk about art, what it has to do with your life and what it has to do with the Christian faith. And I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

Well, I got back late last night from a three-week trip to the US and I really pushed probably a little too hard, so I’m pretty tired, but glad to be back and looking forward to continuing the stories about how God is working here in Japan. I first made a trip to Boston where I gave an organ concert for a new organ installation. I met a lot of people during my time there, and also spoke at a college.

Then I traveled to Memphis, where I spoke and played in a foreign missions conference and was interviewed by a radio station. I had the privilege of being one of the main speakers for the conference. The theme was arts, worship, and missions. For the Sunday morning service, I spoke about the role of worship in the call to missions. And in the evening service, I spoke about the role of the arts in the call to missions. In case you’re interested, I’ve included links to both in the show notes for this episode on my YouTube channel.

One of the fun elements of the conference was a collaborative art project. The idea was to be able to create something that we could bring back to Japan and use in the ministries here. There were three large banners where people could write prayers for the Japanese people on Japanese origami paper, tear them into small pieces, and paste them onto the banners. It was a tangible way to show prayers and encouragement from America for the people of Japan. The art project also had additional symbolism of brokenness. By tearing the paper, we were symbolically showing our own brokenness, and in the hands of the artist, this brokenness comes together to make a beautiful picture. In this case, it was a scenic picture of Mount Fuji with a rainbow behind it and Christ carrying the cross at the base of the mountain. And all this was designed by our intern, Mayako.

There was also a campaign to raise money for Community Arts Tokyo. This summer, we’re going to have lots of events with interns and short-term missionaries who are planning to come to Japan. Japan has really been closed down lately. In America, COVID may seem like something that’s in the past, but not so here. People are still pretty fearful. I live on the 22nd floor of an apartment building, which means I have to ride an elevator many times a day. And believe me, if I forget to put a mask on, there will be consequences. Others will furiously go for the buttons to get off at the next floor. We also still have large plastic dividers on tables at restaurants and still have to sanitize our hands going into many buildings along with temperature checks. Restrictions for worship services were just lifted in December, only two months ago, so people are still really fearful of getting together. We tried a few small events, but they really weren’t well attended. But the idea is that by this summer, through the activities of Community Arts Tokyo, by renting spaces, providing food, and giving music and art events people would be willing to overcome their fears and gather together again and form community around beauty. And we pray that God is going to use these efforts for the sake of his glory in the building of his church.

There are many interns and short-term trips coming this summer, not just with our team, but with all the other missionary teams as well because last year, the country was still pretty much locked down. And people have been waiting. Now they’re ready and raring to go. And we sure can use their excitement and energy.

So for this episode, I thought it’d be fun for a change to interview two interns who were here last month to give them an opportunity to share their perspective of their time in Japan. The first I’d like to introduce you to is Zoe Phillips. She’s planning to graduate from university this May with a degree in composition and singing, and so came on a two-week vision trip to decide what to do next. And she’s considering missions full-time. Boy, we kept her busy, probably too busy! I think we wore her out. She met person after person, did event after event, and most of the travel was by train or on foot. As a singer and composer, she sang in many places, accompanied by herself on the guitar or by me on the piano. Well, without further ado, here’s Zoe Phillips.

Zoe, I wanted to sit down with you for a second. By the way, your singing today was beautiful. Thank you so much for doing that.

[Zoe]

Of course.

[Roger]

It’s really a privilege for me to be talking to a musician and a student now. You are trying to decide what to do with your life, and here you are on this vision trip to Japan trying to figure out if you want to be a missionary as an artist. Just after hearing you share a little bit this Art Life Faith event tonight, I wanted to ask you more questions about that and let our listeners know some of your stories. First, let’s go back and say, why are you in Japan? How did you get here in the first place?

[Zoe]

How did I get to Japan? Well, I grew up basically watching anime my entire life. The culture of Japan, as much as anime can portray, was just always super interesting. Then when I got to college and I joined a campus ministry, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I can go to Japan and do missions.” Then I get to senior year and my parents are like, “Okay, time to be realistic. Being a musician is a dumb idea probably. Being a musician in missions is an even dumber idea. You need to get an actual job.”

[Roger]

How do you explain that to your parents?

[Zoe]

It was hard. Especially with missions. You have to raise money and getting right out of college and not making money but having to ask people for money is just mind-blowing to them. I decided to just go ahead and do it anyway. Last fall, I decided to look up, just on my computer, missions in Japan. The first thing that popped up was MTW (Mission to the World). I clicked on it, and I got in contact with a woman named Theresa Webber. We had our little discussion, our little talk, and she was like, “Okay, where are you interested in?” I was like, “Well, I’ll go anywhere the Lord tells me to go, but if there’s somewhere in Japan, I would absolutely love that.” She was like, “Okay, cool. We have some people there.” She was like, “What ministry are you interested in?” I was like, “Well, anything that the Lord says, I know I’ll do, but if there’s something in music, that’d be even better.” And she was like, “Oh, that’s so crazy. We have a ministry there in Tokyo, and they do music, arts, and stuff like that in Japan.” I was like, “Wow.”

[Roger]

That’s so cool.

[Zoe]

I was like, “Okay, what’s the next step? How can I actually do this?” And she was like, “Okay, the next step would be to go on a vision trip. And just so you can go out, meet them, get to see all the stuff they do.” I guess there was something going on with the scheduling and stuff like that. So she was like, “Okay, how about this? We’re going to send you to a conference where they’re going to be at CPI and you’re going to be helping with the children, but maybe at some point you’ll be able to sneak away and get to meet Roger and Abi.” I was like, “Cool, that sounds awesome.” But then when I actually got to Japan, this was in November, I just totally forgot about the secret mission because I was so scared about being around hundreds of kids and teaching them the Bible.

[Roger]

CPI, Church Planting Institute, is a huge conference. It’s actually the biggest conference we have of mission leaders and church leaders all over the country. And so there were hundreds of kids there.

[Zoe]

Weren’t there? Yeah, it was overwhelming, actually. I was like, “I’m not sure I even like kids all that much.” I’m like, dealing with so many of them and their parents are just leaving them here.

[Roger]

Thank you for your sacrifice and doing it. My kids were in that program too, so I know they really enjoyed it.

[Zoe]

Anyway, got there, totally forgot about the secret mission. And so I’m talking to a few of the other people on the team, and I’m like, “Yeah, I do music. And so if I came back and did missions, full-time missions, and I wanted to do music…” and she was like, “You have to meet Roger and Abi Lowther.” And I was like, “Okay, if there’s time, whatever, whatever…” I talked to multiple other people, and they all said the exact same thing. And so one thing led to another and I finally got to meet you one time when you were checking in your kids. And I was super distracted trying to make name badges for the children. And you were like, “I’m Roger.” I was like, “Oh, my gosh.”

[Roger]

Someone had texted me and told me about you and said, “You need to go find Zoe.” I’m like, “Okay, all right.” And so, that was the first time we had met.

[Zoe]

Yeah. And so we met and I got your contact information and all that stuff. And the conference went and passed. And so this past semester was my last official semester of college. And I was like, “Okay, so now it’s time to do the vision trip with you guys.” And so we emailed, did other stuff, and I was honestly not sure it was going to happen because it was so last minute. I was like, “I have to raise money again and I’m still not working. My parents think this is crazy. I’m going back, and it’s only been three months since I’ve been there.” But anyway, we still would go through with it. I’d already raised all the money, and now I’m here.

[Roger]

And we are so glad you are. I mean, while you’ve been here, we’ve done do a lot of great things together. We went down to Nagoya. We gave some concerts in a café. We visited a private high school about a future concert. We met a lot of people, various ministries around the city. It’s been really cool to have you be able to join in and see what those are. How has the trip been for you, though?

[Zoe]

It’s been really good. Honestly, a little bit exhausting meeting so many people every day. I love meeting and talking to people, but it’s just like I’m trying to process if I want to come back. And so meeting them and having those discussions, and then at the same time trying to process how I feel and if I want to come back for it, it’s just super exhausting. And then I’m not fluent in Japanese. And so it’s constantly just hearing Japanese and not understanding anything and trying my best to. And it’s just not happening. And so that’s also super exhausting.

[Roger]

Yeah, it’s not easy.

[Zoe]

But I’ve also met a lot of people, and it’s like one thing to read about all the ministries that are happening in Japan. But it was just life-changing and completely changed my heart for Japan. Actually being here, actually meeting native Japanese people, actually getting to see the ministries that are happening with the arts and seeing that it has an impact on people. I was there when Ayaka did her interview for your podcast, and I was listening to that and just hearing her testimony and how the arts and how music impacted her life. It was just like, “Whoa, this is actually making a difference.”

[Roger]

Yeah, it’s how she became a Christian.

[Zoe]

Yeah. That’s really been making me get up every day and be like, “This is worth it.” I’m here in Japan. I’m only here for a short time. I need to put my best foot forward. And even though it’s tiring sometimes, to see what’s out there and continue meeting people because it’s important.

[Roger]

So what would you say to college students who are listening to this show and are like, as an artist…being in missions…that doesn’t sound like it fits for me. What have you learned through this trip? What would you say to them?

[Zoe]

Honestly, I would say it’s just not about you, really. It’s about people. And it’s like, no matter what gift you have, whether it’s art, whether it’s singing, whether it’s some instrument or something like dancing, even. God didn’t give you those things so that you could honor yourself. It’s to honor him. And there’s no better way to use your gifts than in missions and literally having that directly impact people. And no hate against people who want to go out and pursue a music career. That’s amazing. But it’s just like, there’s nothing wrong with it. You wouldn’t lose any part of yourself by doing missions and whatever arts that you love. It’s even more so, I feel like it makes it deeper. It makes it more meaningful.

[Roger]

Yeah, I mean, the way it was sold to me is that you can do this in America as well, but there are fewer Christians in Japan, and so there are ways that God can use you. It’s more strategic because there are less Christians here. And to have that inroad that is so effective here in Japan and many countries around the world of using music, using the arts to reach people. It really has been a blessing to us being here these many years. What do you think is next for you?

[Zoe]

I was talking to the people that I’m staying with, and I was like, I need to just take a week and pray and fast and just take that time to be away from Japan to really look through all my notes and stuff and what happened.

[Roger]

I’ve noticed you were taking a lot of notes, doing a lot of journaling…

[Zoe]

It’s so much. I think the next step is to just tie up loose ends back at home and talk to Theresa Webber and see what that would look like, coming back. I know for sure that I want to come back, but same deal as always. It’s like, God, your will be done. That’s first priority. But if your will be for me to come back, I would absolutely love that.

[Roger]

Well, I know that whatever you end up doing, that God is going to bless you as we’ve already seen during this trip. And so we look expectantly to see how God continues to work through you in the years ahead. So thank you so much.

[Zoe]

Of course. Thank you for having me.

[Roger]

Well, it really was fun having Zoe here. She probably doesn’t really know how much she impacted the ministry here. When people come, even if it’s just for two weeks, it’s a catalyst to build so many new relationships and to deepen others. It infuses everything that we’re doing with energy and excitement, and that just makes church planting all that more fun.

Next, I’d like to introduce you to Alana Essex. Now, Alana has been here for quite some time, for six months, serving with the Tokyo City team on the other side of Tokyo. She recently graduated from college and is planning to move to Nashville to make her mark as a singer and songwriter. But before that, God called her to come to Japan for just a little while to use music to help with church planting efforts here. She was so effective as a missionary, and I think she was really sad about leaving and having to say goodbye to her new community here. Mission to the World recently released an article about her which tells more of her story. So I’d love to have you check that out as well in the show notes.

Now, let’s listen to the interview with Alana.

I’m sitting here with Alana Essex, and we just had an Art Life Faith event here in downtown Tokyo. And Alana was one of our main speakers talking about her dreams for the future. Alana, thank you so much for being here today.

[Alana]

Mm-hmm.

[Roger]

When I heard you speak at the event today, I was like, “Oh, man, we have to get this story out to everyone else as well.” I wonder if you’d be willing to retell some of that story to our folks?

[Alana]

Yeah, of course.

[Roger]

All right, so first of all, why don’t you just take us back to the beginning? Why are you in Japan?

[Alana]

So it all starts back in my senior year of college, and I had no intention of doing missions or going to Japan. I was doing a Bible study with some of my roommates that talked about missions and just God’s heart for the world. But there was nothing specific about Japan. It was solely just learning about God’s heart for the nations. After that study, I was doing my own quiet time in my room and was reading something that had nothing to even do with missions. I just remember specifically the word Japan just popping in my head.

[Roger]

Wow. Yeah, I can’t think of the word “Japan” in the Bible…

[Alana]

So random. Literally no correlation to whatever I was reading at the moment. I don’t even know what part or passage it was in scripture, but I just remember thinking, “That was not my own thought.” And I had a feeling I was going to hear it again. And it basically repeated in my mind, no matter what I was doing, just throughout the next few weeks, I just kept thinking about Japan and not knowing why. And I didn’t know if that meant I was supposed to go to Japan, if I was supposed to meet students on my campus. I just felt so confused because I was so set on going to do music in Nashville and being a songwriter. That rocked my world. Then after a while of the continued thought, even at church, I would just randomly think about Japan during the service and the worship and just feeling this odd call I never felt before. So finally, I decided I was going to Google missions to Japan. And the first thing that came up was MTW (Mission to the World). And I found the group that I ended up staying with now for the last six months. And yeah, it was like nothing else I’d ever planned for or expected.

[Roger]

So you’ve been here for six months now?

[Alana]

Yeah.

[Roger]

And when do you go back?

[Alana]

I go back February 9th.

[Roger]

Okay, so that’s like two weeks from now? Wow. And so where are you going from here?

[Alana]

From here, I will be going back to Dallas. But before that, I will be going to Germany for two weeks with my roommate and then visiting my brother. But the plan really is to go back to Dallas and then hopefully head over to Nashville to do what I had planned to do all along and do music in Nashville and be a songwriter.

[Roger]

Okay. Actually, there was an article out about you recently that you have this dream for Nashville, and yet you came to Japan instead. Do you want to tell us more about your dream in Nashville? And then also this tension that you felt inside about coming to Japan and how that may kill that dream.

[Alana]

Originally, when I first thought about Japan and the idea of just doing missions, I wanted to just close the door right away on it because my thought was that if I came to Japan, music would end and I couldn’t do that here. And even though I even saw there was an arts team in Tokyo, in my mind, I still just thought, well, if I want to be a music artist and I want to be a serious songwriter, I have to go to Nashville or some big city in America, and I couldn’t do music and also be doing missions at the same time. I felt like before I came here, I really had to repent the thought of, “Okay, music is no longer in my plan. God has some other plan for me.” And the idea of going overseas is really dying to myself and letting go of all my desires and everything that I had wanted in the past and saying, “Okay, God, I’m going to just throw it all away and just know that you’re better. I have to get over that idea of doing what I had wanted.”

[Roger]

So let me emphasize that point. You really thought you were going to have to throw out everything: your dreams, your passions, your talent in music. You thought, I’m going to have to give it up because I’m going to Japan, right?

[Alana]

Yeah.

[Roger]

Okay, so then what happened once you got here?

[Alana]

So then immediately the first week I get here, I didn’t bring my guitar and I just thought, no music for the next six months. I am solely doing college ministry, church planting, and that’s it. And I won’t be writing any songs on here. And within the first week, I was talking to some of my team members who happened to have a guitar they weren’t using. And me not knowing that, I just made the comment, “Oh, I wish I had my guitar here. I would have loved that.” And they immediately were like, “Well, why don’t you just take ours?” And just gave it to me. I’ve gotten to use it this whole time. I’ve written so many songs, and I’ve just already had so many opportunities here, even though I’m not even on the arts team to get to do music. And so that’s been such an eye-opening thing this whole time, realizing that God did not want me to stop doing music. And he proved that in my first week here just by literally giving me a guitar to have for the next six months in Tokyo.

[Roger]

That’s so cool. And then you shared just in the event tonight with your beautiful singing, by the way. I wish I could share that with the listeners.

There were certain people that you met, you just felt like, man, God was really leading me to be in this place at this time. Can you share a little bit more about that, the way God continued to lead you through?

[Alana]

Yeah, I think the entire time I just thought because I had no connection to Japan, I just wasn’t sure why God placed me here. I didn’t really feel like there would be anything in a time period of just six months where anything super impactful could happen or any relationships that could really have any lasting impact on many people. I don’t even speak Japanese. Just coming here, it was like, I don’t know the culture. I didn’t even know that you don’t wear your shoes in the house. I learned that the first night I got here.

[Roger]

Are you shared, too, how the food was a little challenging for you in the beginning?

[Alana]

Yeah, I’m also a picky eater. I quickly realized that my life was going to change a little bit. But yeah, I think from right away, I just ended up living in a share house with no other Christians. It was actually a last-minute thing. My team leader told me that the place I wanted to be living in was no longer available. He had to ask a friend that he knew if there was any extra space in the share house and there happened to be a room. I ended up living with all Japanese people and one French guy. It’s honestly been such a cool experience because I’ve been able to be a missionary living in a house with a bunch of non-Christians. And through that, I’ve met so many people that I’ve been able to just have some great conversations with and just getting to live with them and even just share my life. I think a lot of it has been even just the day to day and getting to know them, especially my roommate, Julie, who I’ll be going to Europe with that I mentioned, never ever would have thought that after I’d be leaving here, I’d be stopping in Europe with this new friend that I’ve made just to get to continue to share the gospel with her and just go through a study that explains God’s heart for her.

It’s just so wild to me to learn how the people here don’t know anything about God, and not even that they had some bad experience with church or that they had a religion they left, but they just literally have never heard about Jesus or the gospel. It’s just so sweet to get to play my songs for them in the share house and hear that it inspires them. Even if they don’t understand what the words mean, even if they don’t have perfect English and they don’t even understand all the lyrics, they still will say, “Wow, that’s so great.” That’s inspiring. It has shown me that music, one, is so impactful, but also even just being in the presence of other people here and being a Christian does have an impact, whether I’m singing songs that are about Jesus or just songs that I’ve written about heartbreak or life or whatever I’m sharing. Music just bonds people, and people here love it. I think it’s something that is so easy to bond with. It’s just been such a cool, powerful tool in all my relationships here that has led me to just continually be inspired by what God is doing with music in Japan and even what will become after this.

[Roger]

That’s so true. That’s so true. I know God is going to bless you in Nashville as you take your experiences from here. So thank you so much for sharing this story with us.

[Alana]

Thank you so much.

[Roger]

Well, there you have it. The stories of a two-week missionary and a six-month intern.

I first came to Japan on a two-week missions trip, and now here I am, still in Japan, 18 years later. So I certainly believe that mission strips and internships are powerful ways to help people discover their paths.

We’re going to have many more stories to share with you this summer when summer interns come for two months. We pray that God will use their sacrifice and their willingness to come serve and help the church planting efforts here in Japan.

This is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the “Art Life Faith” podcast. Check out my website www.rogerwlowther.com for a transcription of this podcast and various links. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

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Immanuel: NOT ALONEWelcome to the Art Life Faith Podcast. This is the show where we talk about art, what it has to do with your life and what it has to do with the Christian faith. And I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

Well, we’ve taken a little break from making podcasts over the New Year’s, but now we’re back and excited to share more stories with you. My family spent a little time up in the snowy mountains of Japan in Nagano, which is where the Winter Olympics were held back in 1998, and there was a lot of snow! We had to put on snow chains just to get around and did some skiing, and had fun in the snow with the family and friends. Just yesterday, I got back from a trip to Nagoya, Japan, which is a city about two hours south of us. God is doing amazing things there. I was visiting one of my missionary teammates who lives down there and runs an art gallery and was meeting new people as well.

We have an intern with us here for two weeks about to graduate from college as a musician, and she’s trying to decide what to do with her life. One of her questions is whether she should become a full-time missionary or not starting this summer. So yesterday we gave a concert in Nagoya at a cafe. She sang and played the guitar, and I played some things on the piano and accompanied her. We just had a great time meeting people and encouraging the ministry down there.

We also visited a private Japanese girl’s school started by Presbyterian missionaries back in the day, like 100 years ago, and they have a big hall with a pipe organ. So I had fun trying out the instrument and meeting the principal of the school with the music teacher, chaplain, and other teachers. The idea is that when I come back, I’ll give an organ concert for the whole student body. That school is extremely well respected by the neighbors. So actually, our missionary friends with Mission to the World who are down there, they started working there as teachers at the request of their Japanese pastor and partners in order to get a stamp of approval from people in the area as they begin planting a church. Whereas before their activities would have been seen as suspicious, as possibly part of some kind of cult, now everyone says, “Ah, well, they’re okay. They work at that school.” And so the hope is that a concert by me will help give further legitimacy to their church-planting work there. I’m looking forward to it.

Actually, I put a short clip of my time on the organ on TikTok, something I just started doing. TikTok was kind of a New Year’s resolution in my desire to recruit more and more people into a life in missions as an artist. It shares various aspects of my life as a musical missionary in Japan in ways that I really can’t share in other ways like newsletters, books, or other social media. So, anyway, please check it out and subscribe!

Today, I’m excited to share with you an interview I had with Ayaka Uchida. She paints in the traditional Japanese art of nihonga. She was born and raised in Tokyo but became a Christian during her time in the States and has spent quite a few years trying to figure out what it means to be Japanese and a Christian. It’s her faith in God that’s really brought her through some hard times.And through her artwork, she’s been able to praise God and give back to him and share the presence of God with others in ways that they may know him as well. So in the show notes for this podcast and on my website, www.rogerwlowther.com, you can see a picture of her and some of her artwork we talk about it. So, without further ado, I’d like to bring Ayaka onto the program. Ayaka, thank you so much for being here today.

Ayaka

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Roger

I’m really happy to be able to share your story with all these people. I first met you at a conference we did last year, our Aroma of Beauty conference. And after that, you sent me a note, so I wanted to start with that and let you respond. You said,

“I got saved in college in 2000 in the USA, where the pastor told me to ‘put off your old life of sin, everything Japanese, and put on the new life in Christ.’ I tried very hard to do that for 18 years in the States through marriage, childbirth, my husband’s affair, separation, single mothering, running a social enterprise, and my art. And now I’m trying to find Christ in Japanese culture.”

Can you tell me more about that? What were you thinking when you wrote that to me?

Ayaka

Yes. When I attended the conference, I think that’s when all that memory came back to me, because when I got saved, I was in college. It was sometime before my senior year, and my friend invited me to church. I went, and it was one of those Paul getting knocked off the horse type encounters. I experienced God, and I started attending the church, but there was no other Japanese Christian in the church, so they would somehow associate all my old thinking to Japan. And they would say, “Oh, you’ve never touched the Bible,” or “You’re from the godless nation,” or things like that. I would just take that as a college kid and believe it and say, “Oh, I’m sorry.” Then the pastor would say, “You have to put off your old self. You think like a Japanese person. You respond like a Japanese person, but you have to become a Christian.” And they said I needed to cut off my family, and I did cut off my family for years.

Roger

Wow.

Ayaka

Which I’m sad about, but I’m being reconciled to them now. And I threw away all my Japanese cookbooks, all my Japanese books, all the mamori. There were some things that were Shinto based, and I took it all as bad. But there were days that I would sit outside and receive things from nature. I wasn’t worshipping an idol god. It truly was my time with Christ. And I would draw or paint and say, “I felt the Holy Spirit whisper this to me when I was looking at the birds,” or something like that, and they would say, “Oh no, you’re doing it again.”

Roger

Oh, no.

Ayaka

I feel like my Japanese-ness was very tied to my art, using the five senses and loving nature. When I’m with nature, I connect deeply with the Lord and not the god of water or the god of…you know…but yeah, using all the senses was viewed as very Japanese.

Roger

So at that time, you really had trouble seeing what it meant to be a Japanese person and a Christian, right? As if the two couldn’t be reconciled?

Ayaka

Yeah, it was truly presented as, “if I remain as a Japanese person, I cannot be a Christian.”

Roger

Wow. How has your thinking, then, changed over the years?

Ayaka

Yeah, so now that I’m look back, it was actually through tragedy, like personal suffering, when God showed me that he’s with me as I am. And it wasn’t that I had to become more Westernized in my thinking or had to act like an American. I had to laugh at American jokes and not Japanese jokes. And I couldn’t speak Japanese. So my Christian experience was only in the context of English, so I had never seen a Japanese Bible. And then my father passed away, so I went to Japan and someone gifted me a Japanese Bible. And when I read it for the first time, that moved my heart completely differently. One that touched me was “love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.” But the way the Japanese Bible put it was “love God with your heart spent 100%, your mind spent !00%, your soul spent 100%. And I was like, oh, this is what it means to love God. It was the Japanese words that really touched me. So then I realized, “Wait a minute, maybe I can be a Christian while embracing my Japanese-ness.”

Roger

That’s really cool. So hearing or thinking about the gospel in the Japanese language helped you see it in a new way, a different way.

Ayaka

Yeah, very different. I think it just moved me in a different way maybe because it’s my mother language, even though I was living in the US for, like, 20 years. But, yeah, something about that moved me. So then I started reading the Bible in Japanese, which felt like a taboo thing. I was like, “Oh no, Lord, please don’t destroy my faith.” I actually did pray this a lot. Like, “God, I am scared. The Japanese Bible touches me so much, but if I keep reading this, will I lose my faith in you?” And I was like, “Jesus, I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to go back.” Because for me, the life before Christ and after Christ was black and white. So I was like, “Please, I don’t want to go back to life without the way, the truth, and the life.” So I remember praying that a lot. But then when I do open the scriptures and read them…yeah, I don’t know…it was more vivid or some verses became more clear, like, the nuances made sense to me.

Roger

Yeah, well, I feel that too. I mean, I became a Christian in English in America. And it really has helped me so much to worship God more by being here in Japan and praising him in Japanese and reading the Bible in Japanese and talking about him in Japanese. There’s just something…it’s like you get a different perspective that gives you a deeper understanding of who he is and how he is working in this world.

Ayaka

Yes, it is fascinating.

Roger

What brought you to our conference, the Aroma of Beauty conference?

Ayaka

So actually, I found your book on Amazon. I bought it after I moved back to Japan in 2018, and I really wanted to start searching for a way to see the Lord, to see Christ through things in Japan. And then I found your book, and I was just blown away. Thank you!

Roger

Wow!

Ayaka

Because each chapter I read, I was like, “Yes, in Japanese culture, in the things that are very Japanese, we can see God.” And I really appreciated the way you wrote it. It wasn’t, “Even in Japanese things, we can see the Western God.” It wasn’t like that. I’ve read that before somewhere else. But here, you are writing that we see different sides of Christ that we didn’t see before. And that was very, I think, affirming and comforting for me as I was starting the journey of, “Oh, I’m scared. I’m back in Japan once again.” I thought I was a good Christian in the US. Can I be still here or would I get thrown and eaten by Japanese culture? So, I really appreciated that. And when I went to the conference too, it was very affirming for me that it’s okay to be here. Like, oh, maybe God can use me for his kingdom here. Yeah, thank you for that.

Roger

Yeah, no, thank you! Well, let’s go back a little bit further now. So how did you become a Christian?

Ayaka

It was a summer before my senior year, and I had an internship. I was in university in Pennsylvania, but I had an internship in New Jersey with Johnson and Johnson, and a friend there said, “Hey Ayaka, I have friends on your campus, and they all belong in this campus ministry.” I was like, “There’s no such thing on my campus. I’ve never seen that.” But when we went back to visit the campus, obviously they existed, and they invited me to a car wash event on Saturday. And I think that was the first time I witnessed joy. So I asked him, “Why are you guys so happy for washing someone else’s car? I don’t understand this.” And they all say, “Oh, we do this with Jesus. We love him so much.” I was like, “Where is this guy? He’s not even here and you guys are doing this? He must be really something.” And then they’re all like, “Oh no,” and then they said, “Why don’t you come to church with us on Sunday?” The next day I went to church with them.

And it was during the worship, the music. There was something about the music that really stirred my heart. But it was a charismatic church, so people were putting their hands out, jumping and singing, and that was a little bit scary for me. So I closed my eyes and I just listened to the music. And then I received a vision of a seed falling from the sky, hitting the ground, and grass sprouting. And I felt my body, like, jump. So then I was like, “Church is quite interesting. I could come to this again.” Then the pastor gave a message, and my heart was stirred again to want to know what he was talking about when he mentioned Christ, because that’s the part that I didn’t understand at all. Then they said, if you want to receive a prayer, come to the front. And I went up, and that’s when they prayed for me. And I just started weeping and weeping. I hadn’t cried since age nine, like 13 years. I had not shed a single tear to that point because I had, I guess, closed my heart to numb the pain of life. I was a Disney fan, so I wanted to be in the happiest place on Earth all the time, and I didn’t know how to embrace pain.

So that was that. I started weeping and weeping, and they said, “Do you want to accept Christ today?” And my mind said, “Who is this guy? He’s not here again. He wasn’t at the car wash. He’s not here either today.” But in my heart, I was yelling. I was really yelling, like, “Yes, yes!” And they said, “Okay, say the salvation prayer.” And I was like, “I don’t know what that is.” And they said, “Okay, repeat after us.” So I repeated the prayer, and they all hugged me. They celebrated, but we had to drive back to Jersey. So the rest of the summer I was thinking, what was that? What happened to me that Sunday? But I had joy. I had this new feeling in my heart, so I just said, “Okay, I’ll find them again when the new semester begins.” So that was how I got saved and I started my Christian walk. And I was a senior in college that fall, but I joined a freshman small group because I was a new believer.

Roger

Car wash? That’s the way to go!

Ayaka

Car wash and worship music.

Roger

Oh, that’s so cool that music played a role. You are a painter, so tell me a little bit about that. Especially…I went to your exhibit last month. That’s the reason that we’re talking right now. I really wanted people to hear that story. Can you tell me a little bit about the exhibit last month?

Ayaka

Yes. So it was an exhibit by eight Christian artists in Japan, Japanese and Chinese artists, and I was the only Americanized person…but I am Japanese. And we got together from different churches. We wanted to do something for Christmas and especially for the people who wouldn’t come to church for the season, so that was how it started. And pretty much the theme was just Christmas, so it was very open ended. One guy was a sculptor. Another was a photographer. There were painters of different styles…

Roger

Your theme was Immanuel Sky? Can you tell us a little bit about that series?

Immanuel: LOOK UPAyaka

Yeah, so when we were brainstorming this exhibit, a lot of them said I’m going to do the Song of Mary or maybe the scene of the Nativity. And when I was sitting on it on the train, I realized, you know what? The special thing for me personally about Christmas is that Jesus is Immanuel, he became flesh for us, and God is with me all the time. To me, that was the most exciting thing about Christmas. So that’s where the idea began. And then I started recalling the times since I moved back to Japan in 2018 when I really felt God’s presence. When I found I had uterine cancer, and I was walking back from the clinic, I looked up at the sky and the sunset was beautiful, and I realized, our story doesn’t end when the sun sets. I’m okay. God is with me. So I started thinking that’s what I wanted to paint. So it became a series of sunset skies in Tokyo.

My non-Christian mom and my sister were like, “Isn’t it supposed to be about Christmas?” But it was about Christmas.

Roger

Yeah. And the color you used for the sky was golden, which reminded me of the art hundreds of years ago where they used gold to represent heaven, sacred art that revealed the beauty of heaven on Earth. Was that part of what you were thinking?

Immanuel: ALWAYSAyaka

Actually, it just so happened when I was crushing the pigments, I truly feel like it was the Holy Spirit doing it because I just wanted to paint the sunset sky in the nihonga-style, which is pulverized minerals and jewels mixed with hide glue, everything natural, from the Earth. And I was kneading the minerals to create pink or orange. The thing about minerals is that they change depending on the humidity of that day and the temperature and even the different amounts of the glue. It just so happened that on that day it became very golden. So, yeah, I was just like, oh, this is interesting, but I’ll just go with it. And when I was painting, I kept praying all the verses that has the word Immanuel and yeah, it was really a prayerful time of kneading very yellow, orange, warm pink, really happy colors.

Roger

And then in the Earth part, it’s a bluish color, isn’t it? What mineral do you use for that? And what does it represent?

Ayaka

Blue is the most precious, expensive mineral, lapis. I had this feeling that when God is with us on Earth, he doesn’t consider it cheap. It’s the sense of God coming to Earth on Christmas. I wanted to honor that with blue. So I purposely painted anything on Earth with blue. And then it ended up being a good contrast to the sky.

Roger

Yeah, it is. It stands out. It was clear it had meaning to it. Usually when I think of God’s presence, I think of things like a mountain, starry sky, ocean, or something like that. But God’s presence is here in the city, in the normal scenes we see every day. Right now as we’re recording, we can look out the window and see the city. But people tend to look at it as a man-made thing so not as good. But no, this is a God thing, and God is present here. I really appreciated that. When I am tired and riding on the train, to remember that God is present here in this train is so cool, that image.

You were telling me before we started recording, just how you started painting this too, during a hard time in your life, and you shared that testimony. And they’re like, no, that’s too much, that’s too dark. But then your paintings are so happy. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Immanuel: WITH MEAyaka

Yes, when the artists got together, so we were praying every week before the exhibit, and we decided to write our testimony for the website. So I said, “The reason I’m doing this is because I’m going through a divorce. And this is ten years after the initial affair, separation, single mothering, and reconciliation. It was a culmination of my worst fear coming to true. I had to wrestle with this: Is reconciling my marriage my hope or is Christ my hope? It was in the midst of that I knew God was with me. So that’s what I wanted to paint. I wrote that and they said, “It’s too much. You can’t say that. That would scare people away, and we don’t want to scare people away.” I think I was really struggling. I understand the point, but in Japan, it’s so hard to talk about, or no one talks about personal suffering. But isn’t Christ the very reason why we can? Because now we have a sovereign God who walked into the mess of our lives and is able to save us.

But I said, “Okay, I will write a nicer paragraph.” But after they saw my painting, they said, “Wait, your paragraphs and your painting don’t go together at all.” And I said, “No, they do.” Then they were okay, and I put that on the wall at the exhibit as well. I could tell by watching the visitors, they would look at the painting first and then read my paragraph and go, “Oh!”

Roger

As you just described it, too, about getting the colors from crushing the minerals. I think even that just in the very medium itself, the idea that Christ was crushed so that we could have beauty in this world coming across. The more they are crushed, the brighter they are. You know, in the gallery the lights were shining down, and as I went around the side of the painting, I could see the minerals sparkling because of the way you crushed them. Just you saying, “I have this pain in my life, but I’m able to paint this beauty because of what Christ has done for me,” I thought was cool. Even in the very medium itself of nihonga, the message came through.

Ayaka

Yes, the funny thing about nihonga is that this practice is so tied to Shinto art. My classmates, my teacher, are used to seeing nihonga painting of Shinto-related things or spiritual things that are not of Christ. But for me, I realized this is very fit to worship God, the creator God, because everything I’m touching is from the Earth. All the colors are the colors that God created, and they’re crushed like the Lord. I get to paint it to worship back to him, and I think I feel like it’s a full circle.

Roger

Yeah, a lot of people apparently did, because when I visited the gallery and came in, you had a crowd of people around you, and they were asking a lot of good questions. I was trying to overhear to see what they were asking. It was really cool to see so many people engaged with your artwork.

Ayaka

Yeah, I was actually surprised because my paintings were the smallest compared to others. I thought about making them big, but it was really just my prayer for the whole series to keep them humble and small, with no frames, like how Jesus is. Even the way that Jesus was born on Christmas had nothing decorative. I purposely expressed that. I wasn’t sure if people would even be drawn to it because there are other paintings that were big and covered in gold. But I was actually very surprised. So many people came, and I think they related to the train window one the most.

Roger

I really like that one.

Ayaka

I was very surprised because that was the last piece I did right before the exhibit. And I didn’t think I would finish, but that was a scene that kept coming to my mind. A lot of viewers asked me, “Is this Nihonga? When I think of Nihonga, I don’t think about this.”

Roger

Right!

Ayaka

And I was like, well, the style, the technique is nihonga. So that’s why the conversation started. And they said, “Okay, wait, but this…” and I have to explain. The thing about nihonga is that it’s a slow art. So for me to start painting, I can’t just get on the canvas right away. I have to do the double boiler to melt the hide glue. I have to knit the paint, crush it, make it smooth, mix it up, check the temperature, check the humidity…This is crazy process. And that hour to me is my time with the Lord, a heart check. Because sometimes I find myself really rushed and impatient, and it actually shows in the quality of the pigment when I’m rushed and mixing. And when I start painting, it doesn’t glide as well. And I realize “Oh, Lord, am I worried today. Oh, I have this undeveloped issue in my heart. God, can you purify me now as I’m doing this really meticulous, tedious thing?” And that’s how the painting starts. And also, it doesn’t paint like watercolors. If I just brush across the paper, all the colors will move to the side of the paper.

So the way it works is that I have to place the pigment almost like sand art, and then I wait for it to dry. And then I put the next layer and the next layer. You can actually see through all the layers. That’s something we have to think about ahead of time. If you want to paint, say, a red flower, some people put green underlay on purpose to play with the contrast, stuff like that. I was explaining to the people that, yes, this is just a window view, but there’s a lot of layers of prayer that I prayed over this painting. And there’s, like, 30 layers of different color on it. And then so many people said, “This brings tears to my eyes,” or a businessman said, “You know, this brought me back 30 years ago when I first moved to Tokyo from the countryside, and I’ve lost that pure heart as a businessman.” So he was tearing up, and I was like, “Oh, I’m glad.” And then another lady said she had been battling depression the last two years. But when she came into the gallery and saw that painting, something left her, the heaviness was lifted. So she was just crying, saying, “I’m healed. I’m healed by this light.” Praise the Lord Jesus.

Roger

That’s really cool. Clearly, God is working through you and your art. And that what you said about slow art…the idea of praying through even the process of preparation, I think I and other musicians can learn from that. We have to warm up the fingers to be able to practice some of the harder things and can give that to God as well.

So I noticed that your group was called Bezalel. You want to tell us why?

Ayaka

Yes, the lead artist came up with that name. It’s the person that God chose to create highly artistic and beautiful tools for worship. It was in Exodus 31, I think. And she prayed over us, saying, “May we be the artists in Tokyo today that receive from the Lord the wisdom, the skill, the ideas, everything, and create something excellent to help other people worship.” So that was the idea. It’s kind of unique. Not in your face Christian.

Roger

And it so fits. God gave Bezalel those gifts to build the temple so that people could connect with him. And that was the whole point of your exhibit last month, as you even showed during the conversations, the way people responded to what you were saying, to share God’s presence. And you have an exciting story to share too, right? About the owner of the gallery?

Ayaka

Yes, so the owner of this tiny gallery in Nihombashi, through the time that we were preparing and interacting a week before our exhibit, she shared that she wanted to know Christ and she wanted to accept Christ. And we were all like, what is happening? She said our group was very different than any other artist group who have showcased at her gallery. It was very precious because she was always in the corner of the gallery watching during the setup, during our conversations, and even during the week of our exhibit. One or few of us were always in the gallery, and we had our gospel musicians come play music. And through that, she decided to accept Christ. And speaking of this week, she’s starting a class on baptism to get baptized.

Roger

Wow, that’s so cool! There’s this image that art is about self-expression or trying to make a mark by saying something new or something like that. But the fact that God would work so powerfully through the arts, through your exhibit, to help people is really encouraging.

Ayaka

Yeah, I feel like art is a familiar language in Japan. I don’t know why, but art is everywhere in this culture, and it’s very accepted. People know the need for it, even the government. They spend so much money on art, and they don’t mind because they think it’s important. It’s almost like, in daily life, it’s as important as food and transportation. So, in that sense, art is not excess, but part of life, I think.

Roger

Yeah, I think in general Americans like the idea of debating—we were talking about that earlier—debating someone into the kingdom or something like that. But in Japan, it’s different. It starts with the heart, not with the mind. And so it makes it particularly effective to use the arts to share Christ here.

Ayaka

Yeah, and the mind battle is so hard here, too. Sometimes I am reminded that even though the US may not be viewed as a Christian country, there’s a familiarity. There are Bibles in the hotels, like in little drawers, or there’s a sense that Christianity is part of everyday life. But in Japan, it’s not like that. It’s a foreign thing. And a lot of people have a weird understanding or it’s scary or it’s forceful or some old book says it smells like butter. It’s a foreign thing. Like the Western missionaries brought this to Japan. But I feel like, in art, people can know that this is the Creator God who created Japan as well.

Roger

Definitely. Well, thank you so much for sharing today. I pray that God will continue to bless you and your art and use you to share more about him and his kingdom, as he already has been. So exciting. Thank you for sharing today.

Ayaka

Thank you so much.

Roger

This is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the “Art Life Faith” podcast. Check out my website www.rogerwlowther.com for a transcription of this podcast and various links. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

(Visit Ayaka Uchida on the web at www.ayakauchida.com and on Instagram.)

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Merry Christmas everyone! Welcome to the Art Life Faith podcast, where we talk about art, what it has to do with your life, and what it has to do with the Christian faith. And I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

Every month, I send out newsletters telling stories of missions through the arts—what’s happening here in Japan, how the arts are playing a role in church planting, and how the arts are connecting us to people in the city. You can sign up for these newsletters by going to my website, www.rogerwlowther.com, and clicking Contact at the bottom of the page. In these podcasts, I try to tell other stories, the ones that usually don’t make it into the newsletters. In the last episode, I began to share some stories from a Christmas event at a gallery I visited. I told you a little bit about an artist who was so thankful for the opportunity to share her faith publicly for the first time when she led one of our Art Life Faith discussions, which is what this podcast is named after. Because of that experience, she’s been sharing her faith with more and more people.

And guess what? Last week, I got a message from her. She was sharing the gospel with the owner of that gallery, and then the owner of the gallery became a Christian. What a tremendous Christmas present, right? The artist told me how excited she was. It’s just so cool that all she was doing was sharing the love of God in her context, which was an art gallery. It was not out of place at all because that particular exhibit was about the love of God and Christmas.

I also want to tell you about another artist who was exhibiting at that gallery. Her name is Ayaka Uchida. She paints in the traditional Japanese art of nihonga, which uses crushed minerals and glue to paint layer after layer over each other and create a beautiful effect you really can’t get any other way. The whole painting sparkles in the light, especially under the bright lights of the gallery.

I was particularly drawn to a series of paintings she calls Immanuel Sky. One in particular showed her house surrounded by what you usually find in a neighborhood in the suburbs of Tokyo—lots of other houses, power lines, streetlights, etc. They were all painted with a beautiful blue color, which Ayaka explained was a particularly expensive mineral. These were all placed under a broad golden sky. The artist told me that she painted this scene after a really difficult day to show that God is always with us.

IMMANUEL: WITH ME by Ayaka Uchida
“God became human to be with us in every moment of life”God is Immanuel, “God with us.” He is not only present in beautiful scenes of nature, like mountains and ocean and starry skies, but he is also present in the cities and the neighborhoods where we live. Under the lights of the gallery, her ordinary scene came to life with a magical glow. Our drab, ordinary world shined with expensive minerals to show the value of our lives and the things in our lives. It was nothing less than a picture of heaven come to earth.

And in that sense as well, it was a picture of the Christmas story. This message of the presence of God and the glory of heaven shining through into our ordinary world is exactly the message I’ll be sharing in a solo organ Christmas concert this weekend where I’ve been asked to give a Christmas message. I’ll be sharing from a passage of the Bible not usually associated with Christmas, from the Book of Leviticus 23:1–2.

“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the Israelites and say to them these are my appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the Lord which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.’”

It’s fascinating to me that God gave the Israelites festivals. There are seven festivals listed in this chapter: the Sabbath, the Feast of Passover, the Feast of First Fruits, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Booths.

Let’s consider for a moment. What is a festival? In festivals, people celebrate together using the best of their art and culture. The festivals are celebrated with their own distinctive foods music, dress, decorations, gifts, and games. Sometimes balloons or fireworks fill the sky. There’s excitement in the air. And so by giving the Israelites festivals, God was forming the identity of the nation and the people of that nation.

Every nation on the planet has festivals. Probably every person has strong memories of some holiday or celebration they had as a child. These kinds of celebrations are an important part of who we are as humans. They’re part of our identity as families and as communities. In America, perhaps the biggest festival of all is Christmas.

I have so many fond memories of Christmas. The lights, the decorations, the presents, the food, and, of course, the music. They’re all tied to art in some way, aren’t they? Every year when I was in junior high and in high school, I participated as a musician in a play our church put on. It was a pretty big church, and we had about twelve performances every year, always completely packed, every seat taken. And everyone loved it. Christmas was always a day off from school. Since Christmas falls on a Sunday this year my kids are really happy they don’t have to go to school on Christmas this year.

My dad had a really nice train set, not a toy one made for children that he’d spend much of Christmas Eve setting up, so that when my sister and I woke in the morning, the room was magically transformed. There was the moving train and a mountain of presence and stockings full of goodies above the fireplace. We had special clothes like a silly red sweater with reindeer or snowmen or snowflakes and hats like Santa and his elves. We played special games. We watched special movies on TV. And a sense of wonder and magic surrounded everything.

Growing up in Boston, we almost always had a white Christmas. My dad told me it’s already been snowing this year in Boston! So after opening my presents, I’d go outside and play in the snow and then come back in for hot chocolate or eggnog. My grandmother, grandfather, uncle, aunt, cousins, and guests would all come over later for lunch and dinner. It was a whole day event.

I’ll be sharing some of these stories in the concert because people here in Japan are really fascinated by the American way of celebrating Christmas. It’s just not a big deal here. Some people go and get Kentucky Fried Chicken…I guess Colonel Sanders does look a little bit like Santa…and there’s a special white Christmas cake you can buy. Children still go to school when it’s not a Sunday, and people still go to work. From the window of my living room, I can see the living rooms of probably 100,000 people, and we are the only apartment with Christmas lights on our porch and window. Yet, with all these memories, we never forget the real meaning of Christmas. God came to be with us. He came as a little child.

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light on those living in the land of deep darkness, a light is dawned. For to us a child is born. To us a son is given. And the government will be on his shoulders, and he will be called wonderful Counselor, mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:2, 6)

Then in the first chapter of the New Testament, Matthew connects the birth of Jesus to the prophecies when he writes,

“All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel,’ (which means ‘God with us’).” (Matthew 1:22–23)

God came as a little baby to be with us, to share his presence with us. The All-Powerful became vulnerable. The infinite became finite. The transcendent became imminent. Heaven itself came to earth and the government was on the shoulders of this child, bringing heaven itself to the earth.

Everything is being made new. Every tear will be wiped away. You see…Christmas doesn’t just celebrate the coming of Jesus. There is a deeper meaning to Christmas, what I like to call the “magic” of Christmas, where the glory of heaven peaks through into our drab and ordinary world. This is the beauty and wonder and excitement that leaks into our lives and communities.

Light into darkness. Hope from despair. Life from death. Everything sad is going to come untrue and will somehow be greater for having once been broken and lost. Christmas is not just about Christmas. When we celebrate the festival of Christmas with our favorite food and favorite music and favorite clothes, we’re celebrating something big, a place where Christmas will never stop and will never grow old. Christmas is a picture of heaven. Heaven is a festival, a feast for the senses.

There will be a feeling of excitement with crowds of people we’ve never met before, as we share special foods, listen to special music, and wear special clothes. There will be dancing, gifts, and games. There will be decorations with lights and glass balls and bells beyond our wildest imaginations. And so in this season, we celebrate this amazing God, the giver of every good and perfect gift. God gives festivals to point to the kingdom he is bringing. He’s giving us the means to celebrate him.

Everything we delight in now in the festival of Christmas is but a taste of that ultimate beauty and joy we find in the Great Festival of Heaven.

This is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the “Art Life Faith” podcast. Check out my website www.rogerwlowther.com for a transcription of this podcast and various links. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

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Welcome to the Art Life Faith podcast. This is the show where we talk about art, what it has to do with your life, and what it has to do with the Christian faith. And I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

For over a decade now, we’ve been hosting “Art Life Faith” gatherings around Tokyo where we share a meal together and then an artist, a different artist each time, shares a little bit about their work and then we discuss it together. What does their art have to do with our lives? What does it have to do with our faith? The themes are always different, given by artists who are experts in their fields: musicians, dancers, painters, photographers, and the like.

These “Art Life Faith” conversations have been a great space for everyone involved, as we struggle together with what our faith has to do with our art. We teach and encourage each other in ways impossible outside of community, and no one is more rewarded by these relationships than I am. I’m always excited to learn more about God embedded in Japanese culture in ways I never imagined possible.

And there are so many other good things that come from these discussions as well. Let me just share a quick story with you. Just the other day I was visiting a gallery to encourage an artist showing her work here in the city. She was doing an artist talk and interacting with people about her work. I met another artist there who had spoken at a previous event with us. So I introduced myself and said, “I remember you.”

She asked, “Where? Where did we meet?”

“Oh, at that art life event at so-and-so’s house,” I told her.

“That event changed everything for me. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was. After I tried to express my faith in words for the first time, connected to my art, everything took off from there. I started to try to make all these different kinds of artwork to express my faith, and I started telling more and more people about it, and I was able to bring in people and talk about the artwork and talk about my faith. And that was just an amazing opportunity for me.”

I thought, “That is exactly why we’re doing events like this.”

But unfortunately, during these discussions, only a small group of people are ever actually able to be there in person. And then during COVID, well as you know, no one was able to be there at all. We had to move the discussions online. Now thankfully, things have opened up a little bit, but during COVID it really was helpful to look into how we could get these discussions out to more people. How can we involve them in these discussions?

Well, one way was by writing books. My book, The Broken Leaf, is a good example of that. It has ten meditations of the gospel through Japanese art and culture. In one sense it’s a work of journalism, a reporting on our “Art Life Faith” discussions in print form so that people can see what we’re talking about and be drawn into the discussions.

More recently, we started this podcast. Thank you so much for your support of it! We’ve had thousands of downloads since we started, and recently I received an email recognizing us as one of the top listened-to Christian podcasts in Japan. Now, I’m not sure if there are any other Christian podcasts in Japan, so it probably doesn’t mean very much. And, of course, this show is only in English, but we’ve always wanted to get a Japanese version going. So that’s something to look forward to in the future too, as we keep trying to get the message out there to more people.

So, anyway, in today’s episode, I want to bring you into conversations we had about the artwork of Chiyoko Myose, a Japanese artist who now lives in Wichita, Kansas. She came to Japan to exhibit at a gallery in Asuka, Nara, a city that’s south of us, but while she was here we also invited her to exhibit in at Minami Terrace, or “Mina Tera” as we like to call it, a gallery/event space run by our very own Mayuko Shono, an intern working with us here in Tokyo. And then the work was moved to the lobby outside where we meet for worship on Sundays, and we had the privilege of the artist sharing her faith through the artwork in the worship service itself.

Chiyoko moved to the U.S. about 25 years ago, which led her to think about themes of being a traveler and a sojourner, with a longing for a place that she could call home. And she invites all of us to think about those themes along with her through her artwork.

Here is a short clip from the opening to our “Art Life Faith” event with our intern, Mayuko, introducing it and my wife, Abi, translating.

[Sound clip from exhibit]

As you can tell from this, it’s a pretty fun and informal event. Chiyoko began by sharing a little bit about her mother, who apparently was really good at talking to people and could become friends with anyone. In the train, in the bus, she would just talk to people. And when she visited Chiyoko in America, even though she didn’t know English very well, she would talk to anyone in her broken English and made friends with so many. She clearly loved meeting people and treasured memories of meeting with each person. Unfortunately, her mother became very sick, and during that time someone gave her a lot of thread and asked if she could make something with it. Chiyoko thought about it and realized that thread really is a very good metaphor for human relationships. She thought of Japanese phrases like 縁を結ぶ (en o musubu), weaving a relationship together, and 縁が切る (en ga kiru), “cutting off a relationship. In fact, the character for “thread” 糸 (ito) is found in many other Japanese characters.

Are you ready for a Japanese lesson? Okay, let’s go. For example, 結ぶ (musubu) “to tie,” 編む (amu) “to knit,” 織る (oru) “to weave,” 縫う(nuu) “to sew,” 紡ぐ (tsumugu) “to spin yarn,” and others. If you look in the show notes, you can see that the left side of each of these characters has a part that looks like the character for “thread.” This is called the ito hen or thread radical.

But, you know, this radical for “thread” is not just found in words that have to do with an actual working with thread. It’s also found throughout the Japanese language in characters having to do with relationships. Besides the two mentioned before, here are two more: 繋ぐ (tsunagu) “to tie together or connect in relationship” and 絆 (kizuna) “bond between people.” In the time leading up to Tokyo Olympics, I saw these two characters everywhere. They were on posters. They were on T-shirts and all kinds of paraphernalia. “絆を繋げよう” (kizuna o tsunageyou). A good translation of that might be something like “Let’s connect in bonds together!” This “thread” radical is in both of those words, “bonds” and “connecting.” And I also saw both of these characters everywhere after the 2011 earthquake where we were coming together as a nation to meet the challenges of that terrible time.

Another word with the thread radical is 組む (kumu) “to organize.” My youngest son is in the second “kumi” of his fourth grade class. There are four groups in the fourth grade, and he is in the second one. So he’s in the “second kumi.” Another could be紹介 (shoukai) “an introduction, the start of a new relationship and perhaps 契約 (keiyaku) “a contract or binding agreement.” When parties tie themselves together in some mutually agreed upon terms, it’s called a keiyaku. And what about 結婚 (kekkon), the marriage between two people.There are so many words like this that have the thread radical in those characters.

And this “thread” radical is also found in verbs for the end of relationships: 終わる (owaru) “to end,” 絶える (taeru) “to break off,” 絡まる (karamaru) and 絡れる (motsureru) “to get tangled up.”

So in all these different ways, the Japanese language itself expresses relationships based on thread. And Chiyoko does a wonderful job of expressing this through her art. Sewing, tying, braiding, and stringing thread together—through all these methods she’s able to give us different perspectives on relationships.

There were two main works Chiyoko exhibited when she was with us. One was called A Thread x A Thread. Each thread is only about 10 inches long, but in the whole work, there’s miles and miles of it. Each thread represents a person. Each knot represents the meeting of people. She started this work in 2013 but ever since, people have been adding to it. And it has grown and will always continue to grow.

First, you have to realize how large this work is. It completely filled the space at Mina Tera and completely changed the atmosphere of the room. That’s one of the gifts of installation art, right? To create a certain atmosphere that people can be drawn into. And we definitely saw that in this case. As we talked to people, we had to shimmy around and through and under the work. But rather than hindering the building of community, it added to the experience. Usually when you walk into a gallery, you’re not allowed to touch the artwork. Your supposed to just look at it. But in this case, it was okay to brush against it and touch it, but you were encouraged to do so. You didn’t have to be afraid of breaking it or hurting it, because you were completely immersed in it. And that was the intent, to envelope the viewers with love as represented by these threads and also with the message of hope and healing. And through the art, different people were connected to each other.

As we added to the work, it became more and more complicated and messy. There were pieces hanging out everywhere. But in the hands of the artist, this was all brought together into one beautiful tapestry. Threads that hung by themselves were tied to others. They were physically brought into the work.

After the gallery showing, the work was transported to the lobby outside our worship space for Grace City Church Tokyo. One couple who came to the gallery had carefully tied their threads together but were disappointed that they couldn’t find their thread again in the new space. It was so clear how their lives, their relationship together, were all connected and part of something bigger, to this bigger community that was around them and with them and encouraging them. And how they too gave back to the community. It was just such a wonderful picture of being church.

I also really appreciated the way it brought in people from the congregation who don’t usually say much and may be a little bit shy. But they were willing to quietly grab a piece of thread and tie it on somewhere. And it gave me a chance to tie on a thread next to them and talk quietly with them. Just through the artwork itself it gave and built a sense of community, exactly what we are trying to be as a church.

Another work that Chiyoko displayed at the gallery and also outside the worship space was a painting series called Iridescence. Iridescence is a phenomenon where surfaces appear to change color depending on what angle you view it from. And it’s meant to be a picture of our lives. By being in community, we’re able to see our life through the different perspectives of different people and how we interact with one another.

In this work, Chiyoko made alternating layers of dry and wet in order to show this. She first would lay down a drawing with pastels, crayons, color pencils, and pens, and also of course thread, she always used thread, and then she would put a wet layer of paint. Sometimes she mixed in gold and silver to give it that iridescent effect. The wet paint would flow up against the thread and along it. Then another layer dry layer is put down. And then again another layer of wet paint. So the finished artwork is a beautiful combination of these three, wet mediums, dry mediums, and thread, interacting and responding to each other. I might even add learning from one another.

Fortunately, we now have two paintings from the Iridescence series hanging in our living room. Our living room is one of the main meeting locations for church gatherings. So many meetings, parties, Bible studies, and training happens here. A lot of community building happens in our living room. So it seemed especially appropriate to have artwork about relationships displayed there, and we look forward to the time when you can see them in person, joining in the church activities and building community with us.

It was really cool to see how Chiyoko brought all this together—her own experiences, her wonderful memories of her mother, and this theme of relationships brought out in the Japanese language as represented with thread. Through her work, we saw a new perspective of the way that God works with us. We’re cut off. We’re separated from one another and lonely. Our threads are fraying and falling apart. We’re unraveling. And yet, through her craft, Chiyoko showed us how the Great Artist takes our tangled and frayed and unraveling lives, and brings us in and ties us to one another and to him. He builds our community and makes unity in him possible through his love. As it says in Colossians 3:14, “love…binds everything together in perfect harmony.” God has fearfully and wonderfully knitted us together in our mother’s womb. He has weaved us together in the depths of the earth, as it says in Psalm 139.

All of this happened for the first Sunday of Advent. What better way to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas? In a profound and mysterious way, God saved the world by coming into the world. He came as a little “thread” to 結ぶ (musubu), “to tie” onto our tangled and fraying lives and communities. Jesus was cut off on the cross that we might be tied to God. He became the isolated and broken strand so that we could be gathered into community with him. In a world quickly unraveling in sin, he binds us together with his love into a big and beautiful tapestry in the peace and harmony of the kingdom of God.

This is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the “Art Life Faith” podcast. Check out my website, rogerwlowther.com for a transcription of this podcast and links and pictures to Chiyoko’s works. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time.”

www.chiyokomyose.com

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Welcome to the Art Life Faith Podcast. This is the show where we talk about art, what it has to do with your life, and what has to do with the Christian faith. And I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

In previous podcasts, we’ve talked about the challenges of working as a Western classical musician in a global and missional context. In my first month in Japan, I was helping to lead worship on a pipe organ, which I was asked to do, when an older missionary came up and started to berate me. “You can’t play that kind of music here. It’s completely against everything we’re trying to do for the Japanese church.” In other words, he was not very encouraging!

I was a bit shocked, but I could see his point. As Christians, we want to see the nations of the world worship God in their heart languages…their spoken language, but also their musical language and their cultural language. The music of Messiaen, Vierne, Widor, and all the other Western composers who’ve written for the organ are not part of their heart language…so, doesn’t that mean I shouldn’t play that music while church planting in Japan? I mean, what role do I have, someone trained in distinctly Western styles of music, in bringing the gospel to the people of Japan? How can I justify playing the pipe organ for people in Japan?

Well…this is, of course, one of the key issues we’ve been addressing in many podcasts. The fact that we’ve seen many Japanese become Christians, not by adopting Western cultural forms, but by embracing creative expressions of the gospel in their own culture proves we need to rethink the dilemma. Church planting around the world builds the kingdom of heaven, where all the nations worship God of course through their heart languages. But also, they are led in worship through the heart languages of all other people as well. Just as in Isaiah 6:3 where the angels call, “Holy, holy, holy,” to one another, our worship is enhanced by calling out and sharing the praises of God through our own languages and cultures, our own perspectives and insights and experiences. God is most certainly glorified through it.

When I play the pipe organ in Japan, I build relationships with people that lead to experiencing the gospel. I share myself, and they in turn share themselves with me. And through it, we see Japanese become Christians. Not Western Christians, but Japanese Christians who praise God through their perspectives and lead me in worship through them as well.

So, being an artist and a missionary is not only okay, but it’s helpful. It’s effective. It’s strategic. And we’re going to investigate this a little bit more fully in today’s podcast.

This week I’ll be talking with Samuel Metzger. Samuel and I have a lot of overlapping circles. He is currently the organist at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Nashville, TN, which is a church that has supported me and my family generously as missionaries for many years now. And it’s also where my latest organ album, called COVENANT, was recorded. (You can check out that album and its music in the show notes!) Before that, Samuel was the music director and organist at Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis, TN, another church that supports us very generously. I was also the organist there for a number of years before coming to Japan as a missionary. Before that, he was the organist at Coral Ridge Presbyterian in Florida, a huge TV church with services broadcast around the world. I actually auditioned to be organist at that church but didn’t get the job. When Samuel auditioned, he did get the job! So, obviously, he’s a phenomenal organist. He’s active as a concert artist and was a Fulbright Scholar in Germany. The list goes on. Anyway, I feel privileged to know him and to be able to call him a friend.

The reason I’m bringing Samuel on the show today is because, besides being a stellar musician, he also grew up as a missionary kid working with the Navajo. And so he has something to offer as we seek to understand what does it mean to work as a Western classical musician in a missional context.

Samuel, thank you so much for being here today.

SamuelThank you. It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.

RogerSo you are a musician and you’ve been a musician your whole life and you are a missionary kid. We’ve had a number of conversations in the past in this podcast about how the two connect, missions and arts. And so I’d like to talk with you a little bit about that and hear some of your history. So let me go back to the beginning, your growing up. Tell me about what it was like being the son of a missionary family.

SamuelWell, I think it’s probably the case for all missionary kids, it is a bit of a unique circumstance because you’re in a foreign place. And even though I grew up in the United States, but being on the mission field, being truly a minority, and for a lot of the time, being home-schooled, the family is very important.

My love of music really came through my father. My father, who is a German immigrant, he’s now passed, loved classical music, loved the music of Bach, loved the organ in particular. Had studied organ privately in his late 20s. So when we went to the mission field, he had this wonderful record collection and conversations, and he would reminisce about programs that he’d gone to at the Eastman School of Music when he lived in Rochester. And I would hear about all of these famous organists and of course, we had the recordings.

RogerSo was he a musician himself or just a music lover?

SamuelMusic lover. He had played for a little bit, but when you start playing an instrument at age 27, regardless of how hard you work, you can’t do it. And then he felt called into ministry.

RogerRight.

SamuelSo I grew up hearing music constantly in the home, even though we were at a place culturally that might have seemed a bit removed from that. But when I was eleven is when I was able to start taking some private lessons at the University in Flagstaff, which was an hour drive from where we were. They had a preparatory school for young kids. So I studied with a student teacher there and actually began on the organ, because we didn’t have a piano, we were given a little electronic organ. And so that was at eleven.

RogerThat’s the way I started as well, on the organ, not on the piano.

SamuelYeah. I think it has definite benefits and definite disadvantages technically as keyboard players will know. Give me counterpoint, I can play that all day. Arpeggios, that’s always not quite as comfortable.

RogerSo what was the ministry that your dad was involved in?

SamuelSo my father was a missionary to the Navajo Indians, and the Navajo Indian Reservation is the largest Native American nation in the country. And it’s all around what’s called the Four Corners there of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. And we were in the portion of the mission field, which is near the Grand Canyon. We were about a 40-minutes drive from the Grand Canyon where we lived. So we had a mission church, which actually was in a mobile home right next to the reservation. You could not be on it as a non-Native American. So we lived right next to the reservation. We would go out in my dad’s old World War II jeep out into the sheep camps and would visit people. Some of the ministry was people coming to the mission church. Others were just people that my dad would visit. The Navajos did not speak English. He had an old-fashioned wind-up record player with sermons on it spoken in their native language. It was kind of funny. After listening to them over and over again, you could predict where the pops and the clicks were in the LP.

Yeah, we’d be out there in the sheep camps, and we’d have fried bread cooked there and lard on an open fire and mutton stew and all those things. And then we’d go back to my home and we’d be hearing a Bach Cantata at night.

RogerWell, yeah, that makes me wonder if he’s carrying this record player to the reservation. Was music a part of this ministry? Was he playing music as well?

SamuelNo, it was not. It was not the kind of record player, I don’t remember why, but it was not the kind that would use the normal magnetic electrical pickup. It was totally acoustical. It was a non-electric system. I don’t know what that particular technology was, but no, it did not play regular LPs.

RogerDid he then do music as a ministry at his house or off the reservation?

SamuelYes. When we were first on the mission field, we actually did meet in our living room and we had the regular mission church. He would refer to classical music and later on, as I was able to play more, for example, I learned all of the Bach Schubler Chorals, and I was able to play them and he would use scripture to talk about the text and he would give a translation. Sometimes my dad would do his own translation that would be more literal, rather than the, what’s it called, versified or has to be rhyming. Right? The Catherine Winkworth translations are beautiful, but they’re not always literal.

RogerSo how did that go? What was the reception? Were there a lot of people there?

SamuelYeah, I think it was well received. It was just sort of part of my dad’s ministry. He loved music and referred to it. And then, we would often at Christmas time, we would have a listening time to listen to the Messiah, the Christmas section, and we would print out the lyrics. And so, the congregation would hear this wonderful music, but then also the gospel story. We did that. And then he would, on occasion, this would be for the more adventurous listeners, he would maybe do a Bach Cantata and then give a translation in English or something like that. But that was probably becoming more of a reach. Handel’s Messiah is probably an easier lift.

RogerWell, I would have enjoyed that.

That’s interesting, though. One of the things that we struggle with in Japan is that whole thing about trying to make sure that Christianity doesn’t look like a Western religion, and so bringing in Bach’s cantatas or Handel’s Messiah or things like that. Do you think there was any of that conflict there? Or how do people…

SamuelI’m not sure that the Navajo people, at least, certainly 30 years ago, would have thought of it that way. I think in our more modern times, people are more and more sensitive to those thoughts. Now, maybe we were just oblivious to it, but I guess in a way, even for the few white people who came to my dad’s church, that was practically just as foreign to them as well.

RogerRight. That’s true.

SamuelThe whole thing was a novelty. It was a novelty that people thought was kind of interesting. You present it without trying to make excuses for it. You just present it, “This is wonderful.” You know, you just present it with the assumption that people are going to like it. My dad always would say, “You have to get the hay out of the hayloft down on the floor where the cows can eat it.” I don’t know if that’s an old German saying or what, but his attitude was, I take that even when I do concerts in church settings, if you tell somebody about a piece of music, give them a hook and you present it in such a way that assumes they’re going to like it, they will, of course, like it. And so I think being not so self-conscious about that, but choosing carefully, you know?

RogerYeah. And I mean, kind of I asked as a devil’s advocate because obviously I’m an organist as well, and I’m playing Bach all the time in Japan, which seems like this Western thing, but it seems too that it’s a chance to say, this is what I have to offer, this is who I am. It’s a way for relationship building rather than some kind of Western domination of culture thing. Just like a sharing time.

SamuelYeah. And I think that it’s being less self-conscious about it. But whatever we present, and particularly those of us as performers, if we do it with passion and excitement, I think that ultimately music is just music and you have to know your congregation. I do remember I come back from Germany having studied all of this high art, and then I end up in a church in South Florida, which was a TV church and really appreciated just the old hymns. So I kind of got a little bit off of my pedestal and realized I could play my Bach and my Vierne and all that. But then if I worked in a nice arrangement of a hymn setting or something that people related to, that bought a lot of buy-in. And in the end, after being there for several years, my solo concerts would get a huge audience. And it wasn’t because they were organ lovers. It’s just they kind of knew that whatever I presented they would like. And so I think it’s presenting things with passion, and I think that’s the key.

RogerThat’s cool. So what about in case of Navajo music? I know they do have a rich heritage, which has really been commercialized when I’ve been out West and seen the dances and various things going on. Were you ever able to sing together in Navajo various songs or hymns that were Christian?

SamuelYeah, there were some songs, particularly with…Well, first of all, most of the Navajos, the young, like young parents and children, a lot of them were already starting to lose their native language. They had become very Westernized, as in language-wise. But there were some songs that we were seeing in our Good News Club with the kids that there were some verses in Navajo that we kind of, my dad and us, as a family learned kind of by rote. So we did have a little bit of that. But they would be Christian songs, but Christian songs that had originally been in English and then been translated. So there was a little bit of a tradition of that. In the actual Navajo music itself, it’s not completely tonal in the sense of what we would think. It was more chanting. And a lot of that had to do with the Navajo religion. So some of that didn’t naturally translate over into the mission. But doing a verse or two of a song in Navajo, that did happen.

RogerAnd how the Navajo react to that? Did they respond well to it?

SamuelYeah, absolutely. And we did a lot of things like, for example, instead of just putting a cross on the wall, we had a Navajo rug made that had a cross. And the offering plate was a Navajo basket. And so we did things to try to incorporate the culture into the services, I think because my father, being an immigrant, understood what it was like to not be a part of the majority culture, he was sensitive to that. He came to this country when he was 16, after World War II, and throughout his whole life never felt truly American, so he was sensitive to other cultures not feeling that way. So I think he related well to it. So he did what he could, I think, to create those bridges.

RogerSo let me jump ahead to modern time and this spread of COVID and this has been hard for a lot of people. I’d love to hear your thoughts about how music had a role to play in healing during this time.

SamuelAbsolutely. Well, for all of us, people in general, but certainly those of us in the arts and those of us who serve in church, it’s been even for us creative people, has taxed us in different ways. We, unfortunately, at the very beginning of the COVID season, we had a pastor catch COVID and die. And so that kind of probably launched us a little bit more quickly into the various measures. We actually went into having to do everything virtual for a couple of weeks while we were waiting to see if any of us had COVID because we’d been in the same room with this pastor. We even recorded things separately in our homes. So I would say it took a lot of flexibility, but the congregation was so appreciative to have some normalcy and we’re blessed, of course, to have had an AV team that could help us make the quality of the audio as good as possible and cameras and all of those things. So we were blessed to have that. But the congregation is really appreciated all that we’ve done and really have reached out. For me as an organist, where I sit normally on Sunday morning, I’m kind of up there doing my thing up there very privately with my back to everybody. But it was interesting that during COVID because of them needing to put something on the screen, they had a camera pointed kind of down at the organ. And so for the first time, a lot of people saw what an organist does and that was interesting. So in a kind of curious way, it raised the people’s appreciation of the organ, which I thought was interesting.

RogerI remembered during COVID, I sometimes watch NBC News from Japan because it’s one of the few that I’m able to watch what’s happening with American news. And Second Pres., your choir, was on the news.

SamuelYes. That was really a wonderful thing that came out of a tragic situation. This pastor who died really loved music, was so supportive of the music. Loved Handel. So he passed away of COVID and the choir, led by our choir director Calvin Ellis, decided to go to his widow’s house and sing a hymn, a cappella. It was a moment when this group of choir members, many who have sung in this choir for 30 years or longer, they’re a group of music lovers, lay musicians, some even have music degrees, but maybe didn’t end up going into music as a full-time career. They took their love of music and then used it to serve the higher purpose of ministering to this widow. And it was posted, I believe, on Instagram or Twitter, and then somehow picked up by NBC News. So that was a really sweet thing that came out of a very sad situation.

RogerYeah, I’m sure it was healing for the choir too, just to have a way to do something that brought light in a dark situation.

SamuelYeah, absolutely. As we know, arts and music and all of these things that we have are what sustain people through difficult times. You can look throughout history…I think of how in my dad’s home country, Germany, how quickly after the war they rebuilt the concert halls or would put on the radio broadcasts of orchestras performing even in rubble, the importance of the arts and what that means for our culture and for those of us who serve and use our music in the church setting. It relates, in some ways, not only musically but then the whole fellowship, the church family, and the spiritual higher purpose of that. So that came together in a wonderful way.

RogerThat’s a great story to end with. Thank you so much for your time, and God bless your ministry and everything you’re doing here.

SamuelWell, thank you. I appreciate it.

RogerThis is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast. Check out my website, rogerwlowther.com, for a transcription of this podcast and various links. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time!”

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Welcome to the Art Life Faith Podcast. This is the show where we talk about art, what it has to do with your life, and what has to do with the Christian faith. And I’m your host, Roger Lowther.

In the previous episode, I interviewed author Bruce Young and his wife Susan about his latest book, Living in Full View of the God of Grace. Thank you so much for your support of that book. We hit number one on Amazon in a number of categories, and it’s our hope that this book will be a blessing to many as it helps all of us see more and more clearly the God of grace.

I’m also excited to announce that my latest album, Covenant, has just been released. It’s available wherever you buy music, Apple Music or Amazon. You can also listen to it on Spotify and YouTube, so I encourage you to check it out. It was definitely a labor of love with some pieces I’ve been wanting to record for a really long time. On one of my trips to the US, I started by flying to Nashville, where I stayed on the Japan time zone for a few days so I could record all night long when the building was quiet and sleep all day. At the end of the week, I gave a concert. It was a pretty cool experience, and I’m really happy with how the project turned out.

I’ve been playing music my whole life. It’s not just something I do. It’s part of who I am. And like a lot of artists, the lines are a bit blurred between this “being” and “doing.” When you spend every waking moment focused on one thing, you kind of get rewired that way. But it’s also one more way that COVID hit particularly hard. As an organist, I depend on other spaces to play music and on people to gather to hear it. And here in Japan, things were shut down a lot harder and a lot longer than in the US. But even in the US, it was difficult. I had a terrible time finding places to practice because of COVID concerns, and concerts were basically out of the question during that time. But of course, some of my friends had it a lot worse than me. At least I still received a salary as a missionary. They, on the other hand, still depended on every single gig for a paycheck. And there weren’t many gigs. I know musicians who had to entirely give up their performing careers.

Yet, some of us could turn to other ways to share their creativity, and today I’d like to share one of those stories, about a dance company here in Tokyo, the Minato City Ballet Company. Because of COVID, they were forced to move online. Prices for cameras and livestreaming equipment skyrocketed, and for a really long time, a lot of things are actually sold out, not available anywhere. So they invested in what they could find and managed as best they could. The biggest challenge of all, though, was continuing to teach, which is the bulk of their income. And they didn’t give up. They figured out which platforms to use, how to collect payments, and all the rest.

The assistant director of the company, Natsko Goto, an award-winning ballerina, also took up photography. And then, she started entering those photographs into competitions and won numerous awards, especially for the picture titled How Beautiful are the Feet. It’s based on the scripture verse from Romans 10, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.” It’s a pretty popular verse at foreign missions conferences. The Apostle Paul says that people around the world will not know the gospel unless they’re told, and that they’re being told through all things that are made by God and by man. And this includes the work of dancers and every other artist from every nation and culture.

How Beautiful are the FeetThe message of the gospel is beautiful, but so are the feet of the messengers, the means by which that message is communicated. And so this ballet company, run by Christians, actively seeks to communicate the message of the gospel through their art, through their dance. In the photograph, How Beautiful are the Feet, we see a circle showing only the feet of the dancers. On one foot, they wear a point shoe. On the other, the foot is completely bare. One foot is dressed for being on stage, beautifully presentable. The other, not so much. It shows evidence of the blood, sweat, and tears—the bruises, pain, and injury. Feet are the means by which the Minato City Ballet Company brings the good news of the gospel to people. We pray that God continues to bless their efforts.

If you want to learn more about this company, I wrote a blog post about them on website for The MAKE Collective, a network of missionary artists I lead. If you’d like to hear more stories like this, please subscribe to our newsletter. You can send an email to info [at] communityarts.jp.

This week I sat down with Byron Spradlin, president and CEO of Artist in Christian Testimony International. He heads almost 700 missionary artists serving around the world, what he calls “imaginative expression specialists,” people unusually wise at imaginative design and expression. He also leads the Lausanne Arts Movement, which is all about connecting artists around the world to encourage us in the role of artists and the arts for global missions.

He has been a huge encouragement and influence on me over the years, really a lot more than I can say. I first met Byron during my first few months in Japan when he was a keynote speaker for a conference, and I remember some of the things he talked about that day, even now. That began a friendship which has lasted all these years. Since then, we keep meeting up at different conferences and gatherings all over the world. I’ve been following him all these years as Artists in Christian Testimony has grown tremendously under his leadership, and the various talks he’s given and the things he’s written. So I asked him to sit down for this podcast and share some of these with you.

So, Byron, thank you so much for being here today.

ByronYou’re welcome. And I have been actually following you because I think you are one of the great imaginators and innovators of church planting and church effort on the planet today, particularly as an artistic kingdom servant. So deal with that, my friend.

RogerThank you. I mean, it is so exciting what God is doing around the world, and I feel privileged to be part of it.

But yeah, there’s so many things that I want to talk with you about today. And let’s go back to the first time that I heard you speak. You were talking about why is it that missionaries can be artists and why artists can be missionaries, that’s probably a better way to put it. What is the foundation that we find in the Bible for this kind of ministry?

ByronWell, you know, Roger, that’s a big question, and you got to keep me disciplined to make short answers here. But really the question would be, can we actually do God’s mission without artistically inclined people, without imaginative expression specialists?

RogerA lot of people would say we can.

BryonWell, they’re wrong. And having been a church planter and a senior pastor, a worship pastor, a youth pastor over many years, and been to 50 countries, and then studied it three or four times in seminary on different degrees and such. It is clear when we think about the purpose of the expansion of Christianity, we have to take into consideration the fact that God is the one who’s created the various cultures in the world. And these cultures are not the same. And therefore, we know that we need to have what I call indigenous Christian community formation in every tongue, tribe, and nation. And so the church will not look the same in Japan as it looks like in Fiji and such.

RogerYeah, but why do we need missionaries for that? I mean, there are nationals around the world who are artists, and they can be involved in church planting.

BryonEvery nation, tongue, and tribe is supposed to be sending missionaries. So the Fijians are supposed to be sending them, and the Japanese are supposed to be sending them, and the Israelis are supposed to be sending them and such. So that’s part of our ethnocentrism, our self-focus, as if Europe and the United States are the only ones who actually send missionaries. In 2021, you know that there are more Christians in the global south who are not white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. We are the minority, and that’s a good thing, to tell you the truth. And remember, Christianity is not a white European and North American faith. It’s a Middle Eastern Asian faith. So all that said, Christian ministry must reflect God’s image to be fully and truly Christian. And one dynamic of God’s image is creative. He is extremely creative. We fight about denominations, but denominations really are the creativity of God, where different folks are bringing different correctives to the worldwide body of Christ.

RogerWell, he made the heavens and earth in Genesis 1. But is there more to it than that?

ByronAbsolutely! Frankly, when we take a good look at, for example, the Hebrew expressions related to imaginal creativity and understand that the Hebrew culture was far more holistic than the modern, Western linear kinds of thinking, we realize that imaginal I almost like to call it not artistic expression, but imaginal expression. These kinds of expressions take what is observable and also take the revealed propositional word of God…remember, it was God’s idea to put the Bible into print media. Okay? He told Moses, write it down…

Roger“Print media.” Interesting.

ByronYeah. Why is that? Well, even though the Bible is not primarily prose and intellectual dialogue, it’s mostly narrative and wisdom literature, story, poetry, song, narrative. And there are parts that are instructional, but not the majority we draw from the revelation of God. I mean, we do have the Ten Commandments, but you can’t understand, for example, the Ten Commandments without imagining into the realities that the Ten Commandments explain. It’s not just don’t murder, don’t commit adultery. You have to imagine into the sanctity of life. And that’s not something that you’re making up. That’s a reality of the way God made human beings the sanctity of life and for the whole creation, for that matter. But he’s placed human beings at the pinnacle of that.

RogerOkay, but some examples of that would be what? Like, what were the prophets? Like, for example, I remember you talking about the most powerful one was Moses and the plagues that hit Egypt. And what is that? Well, that was a multimedia presentation. I’m like, what? And you went through a whole list.

ByronSure. Matter of fact, part of that list is, “In the beginning, God created.” We have the creation or creativity as the initial dynamic of God speaking out creation. And at the end, God will create a new heaven and a new earth, Revelation 21. Then we see immediately he sets up a garden. In creation, there was gardening. Adam and Eve didn’t just sit around. They tended the garden. I think they delighted in it. I’m sure they worked hard and all, but there was no negative dynamic to that. In Genesis Chapter 6 with Noah, we see carpentry. People may not have known what a boat was. I don’t think there had been rain exactly before that time. We get symbolic expression in Genesis 17, for example, circumcision. What was that all about? I can make jokes, but I won’t.

RogerThat’s probably best.

ByronIt was a symbol of God’s covenant with his people, right?

RogerVisual reminders of this covenant.

ByronBig time. We have culinary ministry in Genesis 18. Abraham entertained his three visitors to Sodom and Gomorrah, and they interacted over a meal. Well, some people would say, that’s just sort of like going out to lunch with each other. Stop. There is something deeply creative that expresses the transcendent reality of community, hospitality, sacrifice, honor, all of these kinds of dynamics that go on in presenting a meal to someone. It’s not just eating food. It is utilitarian. We got to eat food to live, but there’s something aesthetic about that. And there’s something deeply human, which is more than, “Here is hot dog. Eat hot dog. Put ketchup on it.” No, there’s all kinds of creativity that goes into it.

And isn’t it interesting. Dogs have instinct. Mooses have instinct. People have imagination. Whales don’t have imagination from what we can tell. They get from Alaska to Lahaina Maui in some phenomenal dynamic of instinct. It’s really amazing. But when we see it, we paint pictures and sing songs and develop sonar to trace their way and hopefully enter into creation care because we are the stewards of all of creation and need to take care of these beautiful mammals in the deep.

That’s a human phenomenon. Sometimes I’ve said human beings have never been satisfied to make a pot to carry their water. They have made the pot to carry their water, but then they’ve made it beautifully. They’ve painted it. That is a human dynamic, even in a fallen world. How about that? Amazing.

RogerAll right, so you’re talking about imagination. Yes, humans have that. Animals don’t. But how does that help us with the way that God has spoken to us?

ByronWell, I know you’re being the devil’s advocate here, but you’re being that because you and I have come out of a modernist, Western, Protestant, actually Christian community which has been so focused on rational intelligence and intellectual discourse as the two dynamics or the two things that are that are prime. I submit to you that though there are historical reasons why we have done that, moving to let the pendulum swing to those emphases is incomplete and ineffective, inadequately biblically communicating to human beings. And secondly, seeing created or nurtured human community in intimate involvement with the community of the Trinity. We’re not just setting up a philosophy here with a set of didactic or dogmatic principles. We’re dealing with life, life with God. So we need to understand that there are two other dynamics of intellect. There certainly is rational intellect, but there’s also imaginal intellect and emotional intellect. Right there, I’m sure some of your listeners are going, oh, man, this guy’s really a heretic. Well that’s because all of our life…in my background I’m an ordained Baptist minister. I’ve heard as you think, so you are. Well, I’ve known a lot of biblical Christians who think one way and then are disobedient another way.

It’s really what we love is who we are. Who we love. Matter of fact, James K. A. Smith and younger philosopher now at Calvin College, he’s been pointing out that what we worship really is what we love. So you figure out what you love and I often say what you admire, desire, pursue, and serve, and that will tell you what you really love and what you really worship. Now in that C.S. Lewis even says imagination is the organ of meaning. That is, you can be told something but you don’t know what it means unless you imagine into the realities that it is explaining. I mean we know this from scripture. “As the deer pants after the water so my heart pants after you.” That’s an age-old way of comparing something that is less understood or more difficult to understand with something that’s more familiar to understand. It’s a metaphor, and we have seen that you can’t understand facts without an imaginal dimension. Now, part of the problem is, I know I got to be careful not doing a lecture, but part of the problem that we see is that we think if we say something, if I explain A plus B equals C that we understand it, but we don’t.

RogerOkay, so let me stop you there. I want to ask you to give more examples of prophets using the arts to convey their message. You just mentioned poetry and song, all these different things, but the things that come to mind is that part in Isaiah where he walked through town with “buttocks bared.” I still can’t imagine. I’m not sure missionaries should do that nowadays…

ByronBut there are cultural ways of doing that same kind of outlandish thing to help people wrestle and be jolted into the realities of what God is speaking into their lives. Remember drama and theater? Jeremiah 13, the linen belt. Jeremiah 19, the clay jar incident. Jeremiah 27, making a yoke and wearing it around. Poor Jeremiah. Yeah, it was Jeremiah. He lay on his side…

RogerI think that’s Ezekiel.

ByronEzekiel, he had to lay on his side for, like, an incredible amount of time.

RogerYeah, he was going to use his own excrement to cook his food, and he’s like, no, let me use cow dung instead.

ByronYeah, that’s right.

RogerI’m just imagining missionaries doing this nowadays. It’s hard to imagine, but this is in the Old Testament. This is in the Scriptures of how prophets actually communicated God’s word.

ByronA lot of the missionaries who have broken into the preliterate societies have done exactly this. Look, we are not talking just about artsy fartsy strategy here. We are talking about the need to encourage nationals to have the validation of or the permission to create indigenous liturgy, indigenous expressions. What is liturgy anyway? It is metaphors and symbols and various kinds of activities, when infused in faith and arranged in a human engageable manner, somehow human beings step into the presence of God and touch his transcendent reality, which is a dynamic of mystery. It’s not just an intellectual exercise.

And we need artistic expressions. Everything in a worship service is an artistic expression, except maybe a dull sermon.

RogerYes, I agree with you. But also, why the role of missionaries? Why is it so important to send people over—all the money, support raising from the United States and from every country to every other country as you said before—

ByronSure.

RogerWon’t it just happen naturally? Why…

ByronApparently not. Number one, Jesus commanded it as you’re going, wherever you’re going, be making disciples. And then he said, this gospel shall be proclaimed to all of the nations, and then the end will come.

RogerSo that includes artists? We have to make disciples?

ByronYes, it does, quite frankly. We see that with Bezalel and Oholiab, first time the Holy Spirit actually filled individuals and gave them the ability to teach or we could put that “disciple.” Any teacher, particularly teachers of kindergarten through sixth grade, know that if you’re going to teach real understanding, you cannot just say it. These kids have to participate in it. You have to capture their imagination.

RogerAre you saying that that’s what God did with Israel and us?

ByronI teach worship in the Old Testament and one of the key things that I press in this deal is what in the world has got up to with the sacrificial system, 1500 years of a whole lot of life liturgies that just touch every aspect of life. Well, in that for 1500 years, he was trying to help people understand. Number one, he is in the middle of everything in life, every process of life. The way we use the bathroom, the way we have involvement with our spouse, the way we deal with our family, the way we wash our hands. These were not just religious things. These were how humans ought to live in a fallen system.

RogerWell, just the way you’re talking about this too. It’s so clear that God is Lord of culture, that he is intimately involved in how we interact with each other. So arts and culture, the way and the why it looks different in every single culture around the world is so exciting that God is intimately involved in that and how we interact with each other.

ByronAbsolutely. And maybe that might help in Japan. I mean, I’ve been going to Japan since 1966. I’ve been there maybe 15 times. And I’ve had the great privilege and honor of actually learning from many Japanese Christian leaders and have had the joy of explaining the role of worship in church growth and how if we can make that more indigenous, we will literally see God touch the hearts of people outside the church. Well, now, if that’s the case, and if worship is more than singing songs, God forbid that that’s your dull definition of what worship is. Worship is reverencing and responding to the person and the work of God 24/7. Worship is always personal. Sometimes it’s public in a gathered setting. And all the time it’s personal. And even when you’re in a gathered worshiping thing, you have come there to together with the body of Christ, reverence him and revere him and acknowledge who he is and rehearse his sovereignty and his supremacy and his primacy and his beauty and his love and slowness to anger and compassion and all of those things. And that’s why we celebrate communion oftentimes.

The Lord told us when we gathered together to rehearse the story of the gospel, not just to remember it in one sense, but to interact with the life-saving, soul-saving work of Jesus. We are not just satisfied because of God’s desire for us to go, oh, that’s nice. No, we need to write music like the Hallelujah Chorus. We need to write the greatest music in the world. We have the greatest paintings in the world, the greatest celebration in the world. Matter of fact, human community when it breaks out in song, whether they’re specialists or not. So part of the reason that we need artistically gifted people, people who are as the Hebrew words for craftsmen and artisans mean, people who are unusually wise at imaginative design or expression is wise.

Roger“Wise.” That’s an interesting word to use there. Not gifted, but wise.

ByronThat’s right. A matter of fact, you’ll see, whether it’s in the artisan and craftsman—there are 19 craft industries that we see in the scripture, in the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament and such, we see those plus musicians and singers. And if you look, these guys aren’t entertainers. These are part of the fabric of the community. Worshiping God and leading the community into the life of community, which is supposed to be in Israel’s history, centered around the reality of God’s love and faithfulness and compassion and restoration and such. That’s the meta-narrative. I mean, the Exodus and Passover and the Day of Atonement and all of these feasts, they demonstrate that God is in the middle of the community. They demonstrate that sacrifice is important and that sacrifice, where is it culminated? In Messiah. He is the Passover Lamb. He is the Great High Priest. That’s what the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament is all about, trying to explain this and such, but who is best capable? I submit to you that God has given not a special class of people, but he’s given a specialized class of people, imagination specialists who are wise at imaginative design and expression, so that we take metaphors and symbols and human expressions or there are twelve human signal systems that every culture has, but they each have different meaning in that particular culture. So it’s not one size fits all, right? And we rearrange those in ways that provide environments like a celebration or a worship service or a pageant or a circumcision celebration or…

RogerAnd before we started this recording, you were telling me about “yatsar,” that Hebrew verb, because you were just talking about imagination quite a few times there, but what that means in the Hebrew scriptures I thought was fascinating.

ByronSure, now, the term “to imagine” is “yatsar.” The term, as I understand it’s pronunciation for “imagination” is “yetser.” You see these terms used 79 times in the scriptures, maybe six, seven, eight times…I’ve got to count it again, so I could be wrong…but seven, eight, nine times it’s translated “vain imaginations.” And we think of imagination as this dynamic where we think of something that isn’t true and pretend that it is true. So idolatry, for example. That is a vain imagination. That’s a good example of it. We have thought something up that isn’t true, and we have placed faith in it as if it were true. But most of the usages of imagination or to imagine are in the context of reality, that is, it means to form in your mind before you fashion it in time and place.

Protestant Christians particularly haven’t liked that idea since the 1500s when the Reformation began. And these Protestants wanted the word of God in the vernacular, which is good. It’s essential to say we want that today. And they were sick and tired of religious humanism, religion without Jesus. And so they wanted to expound the word of God and understand it more deeply. And that is very good. We should not back off on that at all. But to understand how human beings actually learn and embrace, inculcate, digest, assimilate, that psychomotor reality of interaction with life and with others. That’s not just a formula, there’s a mystery in there. And part of it is we have to imagine it.

RogerBut what you were saying before, too, is that imagination is not something that’s just unique to humans, but that has come from something. It’s part of the image of God. And you were even referring to a scripture passage that said…

ByronFor example, Isaiah 26:3. In the King James it says, “He is kept in perfect peace whose mind is staid on thee.” It’s not the Hebrew word for mind. It’s the Hebrew word for imagination. But we don’t like that word in English, so we don’t translate it that way. Actually, I checked it in Japanese too…

Anyway, we generally translate imagination in scripture as mind, form, or fashion. But those three words do not catch the fullness of the edgelessness, the bigness of what God has given human beings to enter into interaction with the infinite realities of his nature. As J.I. Packer said, the infinite perfections of who he is, his attributes. We have to have a design feature that allows us to move into the bigness and the greatness, which we will never exhaust. Paul said, “Oh, the depths of the riches, both of the knowledge and the wisdom of God. How unsearchable they are. How unfathomable they are.” And then he goes on, “Who has known his mind? Who’s become his counselor? Who has done anything to obligate him to pay that person back? No, all things are from him and through him, and go back to him, to him be the glory forever.” That doxology, which happens to be a first-century hymn, by the way, that he just lifted out of the culture, he didn’t make that up. It was a hymn that was being sung. It’s a didactic hymn that he plunked in the middle of this letter to the Roman Church and to others. He’s coming off of having explained this phenomenal reality of the atoning work of Christ.

RogerLet me just go back to the scripture passage you just quoted. It says that God basically had imagination. So it can’t be a bad thing.

ByronNo, it cannot be a bad thing. Isaiah 45:18 is another passage where it says God created the word God, “bara-ed” the earth. Okay? He made it out of nothing. That “bara” generally is assigned to only God because he makes all things from no thing. Humans don’t do that. But then he said, he did not imagine it to be empty. Then you go into the passage, you see he meant it to be full of people. Now, just think for a minute. If imagination is only making up something that isn’t true and pretending like it is true, then God would not have that particular attribute or that particular capacity, right? So God’s imagining people is a big deal. And he imagined people before he created us. And then when he created us, even the psalmist in Psalm 8 says, “What is man that you are mindful of him? The Son of man that you care, and yet, you’ve made him a little less than God.” The human creature, men and women, male and female, are phenomenal. We have imaginality. That’s why I suggest in looking at how the word imagine, the terms—“imagination” and “to imagine”—are used in the Hebrew scripture, along with forming in your mind before you fashion it in time and space, I see there are two other dynamics that I suggest. One is imagination is as we see it in scripture, seeing what could be before it is in terms of reality. God imagined human beings before we were and then in eternity past came to a place where he created. And then the highest of his creation was the human creation. And here we are. And he breathed on us and wanted special relationship with us. That in itself is creative and it’s far beyond a propositional statement or a piece of dogma as an intellectual philosophical statement.

RogerRight. And that to me, I’m thinking about that’s the whole foundation of missions, church planting in other countries, planting churches where there are no churches. You’re first imagining it. This could be. We could have a church here and then working to make that happen.

ByronThat’s exactly right. As a matter of fact, you say, why should we? You know, I’ve been praying where some of, for example, Japan has different diaspora groups all over the world. And those groups have become bilingual and they have also become bicultural as believers. I am hoping that there will be Japanese believers passionately in love with Jesus. Whether they’re Baptists or anybody else, Presbyterians or Pentecostals, doesn’t matter. They’re in love with Jesus seeking the will of the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit, in line with the word of God, Jesus. That’s pretty trinitarian solid, isn’t it? And in doing that, they reach out to people. As a matter of fact, you can’t just blab about the gospel. The currency of the kingdom is relationships.

RogerRight. Exactly. Community.

ByronAlright, and community cannot live without imaginative expression. Every community in the world…

RogerThe clothes we wear, the food we eat, the shelters we gather in…

ByronEverything. And you cannot deal with the unknown without metaphors, symbols, and expressions within the known that help us by faith connect with the transcendent reality of God. And then you can’t be human and live without beauty. For example, you know, we have truth, beauty, and goodness. Or truth, beauty, and virtue. You can’t have those without God. Matter of fact, Jonathan Edwards points out he believes that the ultimate beauty is God’s moral beauty, that’s primary beauty. And then he sees that secondary beauty is created beauty. Have you ever noticed that when you actually stumbled into something beautiful that strikes you as beautiful? It’s not passive.

RogerIt changes you. It impacts you.

ByronThat’s right. It’s life-giving. It’s energizing. It’s hope-giving.

RogerYeah, and we’ve really experienced that in the earthquake, right? There was the brokenness and the mud and the darkness. Electricity was out and it was cold.

ByronThat’s right.

RogerAnd I had no idea that in that environment, beauty would be important. But it’s exactly what you’re saying. It was hope-giving in ways that I had not foreseen. Maybe I believed intellectually, but then I was really experiencing it.

ByronAnd see, that’s not an intellectual discourse. That’s actually narrative experience or wisdom experience. Now you look back whenever you see words in the Hebrew scriptures—wisdom, knowledge, ability, skill, and understanding. All five of those words are wisdom words. So we’re dealing with capacities of wisdom, and we’re seeing that people with artistic…Do you see how I’m actually even shying away from using artists because most people, their idea of an artist is so incomplete, it doesn’t make any sense in real life. And plus, modern art says that art is useless. It’s only for sort of esoteric objects and activities of contemplation. Well, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You can’t live the love affair between a husband and a wife is very functional, procreation in most cases, and it’s also very beautiful. And frankly, I mean, Elkanah and Hannah, the father and mother of Samuel before she was able to have children, he said, “Is not my love for you greater than the love of ten sons?” Oh, that’s not sentimental. That’s substantively beautiful and life-giving.

RogerBut going back to this word wisdom, I find fascinating because involved in that is not just intellectual knowledge, but it’s a way of understanding the world around us that we interact with, how we interact with each other, how we interact with God. And so for you to say that the artisans in the Bible that are always referred to as having a certain kind of wisdom is really interesting to me.

ByronWell, I think we had to take note. I mean, even when Nebuchadnezzar captured Israel in the final captivity in 586, 87, whatever, and the preoccurring, there were two or three other times in that before he finally wiped everybody out…notice who he took from the community. He took the government leadership, the political leadership. He took the military leadership, he took the religious leadership, and he took the craftsman. Now, that says something about the status and understanding in probably a semi-literate community of the importance of the artisans and the musicians and such. And they were doing something way more than just, you know, singing in a bar. They were actually bringing a facilitation of community to bear. Now, there’s always generalists and specialists. My understanding is that specialists are not bad. Their job is not to be focused on themselves, but to facilitate the generalist into touching the transcendent realities of what they’re focusing on. Now, we still do that right now at a football game in our Americanism religion that we have. We’ve got our liturgies that we do and such, and we bring in a musician to sing the national anthem. I think they do that in most every country in their own cultural things.

RogerEven a more basic example is how do you wish someone a happy birthday without singing Happy Birthday? I mean, that’s the whole experience.

ByronThat’s right. And without something metaphorical, which people say that there’s nothing beyond what we can observe. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. You can’t walk down the street and feel happy. Show me happiness, you know? Come on.

RogerI can draw a smiley face for you.

ByronThere you go. And that might bring a smile to someone else if it’s your kiddo who’s four years old, and that deepens your bond together. Look, that’s why I often quote C.S. Lewis. Not many people know Barfield, but Barfield was even more, who was a colleague of C. S. Lewis. Everybody is happy about C. S. Lewis’s cognitive ability and his rational intellect, but even he says that without imagination, we don’t know…we don’t understand what we think we know.

And think about this. This is not just a religious and esoteric deal. To get a person to outer space and get them back again in an ordered universe, you have to imagine into those realities. They’re not non-realities, they’re real realities. Math is beautiful if you understand it, and it’s marvel-filled when we send up SpaceX or something else like that. So all that to say, if we do not have artistically inclined people here, we are going to, number one, be absolutely ethnocentric. I don’t care who is going to whom. And it’s not just an American thing or Western European thing. I’ve run into all over Asia, I’ve run into one culture group saying, my way is Yahweh (or your way is Yahweh) and that is not correct. Yahweh’s way is Yahweh. And he manifests himself differently. We need artistically gifted people to go and be a catalyst to the nationals, to the leadership there.

And we are often what I call the imaginable and emotional intellect specialists. Now, we can’t leave rational intellect, but we’ve got to have more than that to make sense, because we are not building a philosophy, we’re building a community. And there again, whether we’re Presbyterian or Pentecostal, we are relying on the supernatural work of God to move through our frail and dull selves and manifest himself, strike other people’s hearts and begin to build that human community, which is a mysterious but marvelous interaction, one with another.

RogerI think that’s a great place to end. This ethnocentricity…we don’t want that. We want to see God reflected in these different communities. Thank you so much for your time.

ByronYou’re welcome. And I just want to say one more thing, Roger. I’m so happy for you and Abi and the way that you’re giving such phenomenal leadership, servant leadership, in how artistic specialists are absolutely central to church planting. I talk about you around the world.

RogerOh my…

ByronThank you so much.

RogerYes. Thank you, Byron.

ByronYou’re welcome.

RogerThis is Roger Lowther, and you’ve been listening to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast. Don’t forget to check out my website, rogerwlowther.com, for a transcription of this podcast and various links. As we say in Japan, “Ja, mata ne! See you next time!”

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In the city of Minami Sanriku, on the northeastern coast of Japan, the Kanyo Hotel sits on a high cliff overlooking the ocean. This is a really nice hotel, which usually costs well over $300 a night to stay there. The food is amazing, and there is a really cool cave-like hot spring built into the side of the cliff, so you relax outside in hot spring waters while feeling cool sea wind blow in your face, and watch the sunset over the ocean. However, I didn't get to experience any of these things. ...

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Tremendous pain and suffering can give birth to life and beauty. For reasons I am just beginning to understand, pain and suffering in this world are catalysts for creation, especially for creating beautiful things. In the mud, in the devastation, in the dark, we crave something with beauty and hope and light. And we will do anything we can to hold on to it. This is the unmistakable power of art. This is the tool in the Creator’s hands, which he has lovingly put into our hands. May we always have the strength and wisdom and love to use it. ...

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During the month of March on this podcast, we’ve been telling story after story from March 11 and the terrible earthquake that struck Japan 10 years ago. The trauma that people experienced will impact them their whole lives. So many were lost, and there is nothing we can do to bring them back. Some things in this world can never be fixed. So, what do we do with that? Do we just despair? If we don’t make a conscious effort to do otherwise, this trauma will not only ruin our lives but the lives of everyone around us as well, and I've seen that time and time again here in Japan. ...

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Japan is no stranger to devastated cities. As I traveled giving concerts through city after city ravaged by the 2011 tsunami in Japan, my thoughts eventually turned to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No other city in the history of the world quite compares with their destruction. ...

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For the past couple of months, I’ve been sharing stories of my experiences after the 2011 earthquake in Japan. For this episode, I want to go back to the very beginning. I want to start with Day 1, the day the day the earthquake hit and how we got involved in the relief movement. I hope you’ll find it useful as we all think about how God may use us, all of us, especially as artists, in the tragedies and traumas of the lives of everyone around us. ...

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This week, I had the honor of talking with Peter Bakelaar, founder of Gallery NANI (Nagoya Arts Network International), about his exhibit at the Aichi Arts & Cultural Center in downtown Nagoya, "Scars: The Path Toward Healing" running from March 2-14. ...

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What’s that noise? Where am I? Heavy creaking in the ceiling above my head jolted my sleep-numbed mind into consciousness, as my eyes flew open to darkness. Nigero! Okiizo! “Everybody out! This is a big one!” someone behind me yelled. That was all it took. I blindly fumbled for my flashlight, always kept near my head for emergencies like this, and then grabbed my jacket. The floor moved chaotically, making it hard to keep my balance. But somehow I reached the door frame, grabbed it, and pushed my way outside. ...

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After the 2011 earthquake in Japan, Christians started art organizations to provide jobs and build community, and, just as important, to bring beauty back into a shattered world. They made jewelry, decorations, bags, and clothes. In the city of Ishinomaki, a small group of women made jewelry out of broken shards of dishes and teacups found in the rubble. They called themselves Nozomi Project, or literally, Project of Hope. The people at Nozomi pick up the pieces of their lives by making beautiful art, one necklace, earring, and bracelet at a time. ...

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On March 11, 2011, the world changed. Like the old photographs I occasionally found scattered amongst the debris, all the color was gone. Gray mud from the ocean floor coated everything, and gray dust constantly blew through the air turning our white masks black. Even the sun remained hidden behind the dull clouds, refusing to penetrate our colorless purgatory. ...

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“Go away! Leave us alone!" the voice thundered. "Too . . . many . . . volunteers!” We had just entered the high school gymnasium of a temporary shelter in the city of Iwaki. I turned to see a young man sitting on a cardboard box. He appeared to be slightly handicapped, with one leg shorter than the other. But it was his face, full of rage, that I noticed most. Time after time, strangers barged into this man’s “room.” In that brightly lit flourescence, he had no privacy, and he was obviously sick of it. Startled by the greeting, but not sure what to do, I followed the volunteers walking in front of me and placed the box I was holding with the others. The volunteer team proceeded to lay out big blue tarps, line up chairs, and set up buckets of freshly drawn hot spring water, still warm to the touch. ...

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As I walked through a garden on a hill overlooking the town of Otsuchi, Japan, birds flew overhead and the wind blew in gently from the sea. Leaves rustled on the trees, and the sweet aroma of flowers wafted through the air. I looked down to see goldfish swimming in a pond, and at the top of the hill I found a white glass-paneled phone booth. ...

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I looked up at the enormity of it. The tree was almost 100 feet tall. It grew here in the city of Rikuzentakata as part of a forest of 70,000 pine trees for hundreds of years. The trees protected the people from storms and strong coastal winds and were once chosen as one of the 100 most beautiful landscapes in Japan. But now they were all gone, all except for this one surviving tree. ...

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The food just after the tsunami was terrible. Every meal was treated like an emergency situation. Refugees and relief workers alike, we all lived off of emergency rations, canned and instant foods. This kind of food may keep the body going for a day, but it sure lacks the vitamins, nutrients, and life-giving beauty that we so desperately needed. ...

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The stars are full of stories: animals and gods, love and war, heroes and villains. From ages past, men and women have looked up at the stars of the sky and whispered their hopes and fears. ...

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The parking lot of the old Buddhist temple was packed full of trucks and vans. It sat on a hilltop, on the outskirts of the city of Higashi Matsushima, the only structure still standing that was big enough to hold a large group of people. One of the relief workers we met that day invited us to come here for a party. ...

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The tires of the van sank in the mud newly washed up from the ocean floor, made worse by growing puddles of rainwater. Lightning lit up the wall of debris that lined the streets and closed in on us like some dark tunnel. ...

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The "Cortège et Litanie" by French organist Marcel Dupré is perhaps one of the most famous organ pieces of the twentieth century. I’ve been thinking a lot about this piece during the spread of COVID-19. I would even go so far as to say that it has become a bit of a theme song for me. I will be playing it for our Christmas Day service here in Tokyo. ...

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When everyone else was moving their water-logged pianos to the street, they decided NOT to throw out their piano. It still had life in it. It was still breathing, in a sense. It could be fixed! There was hope! And they desperately needed that hope. During that time, there was a tendency to think it was pointless, that nothing would ever get better, that their town…and their lives…were beyond repair. ...

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During a season of Christmas concerts a number of years ago, I was traveling near the city of Kamaishi, Japan where the 2011 tsunami hit. Of 16,000 people killed by the tsunami, over 1,000 were killed in this town, and it’s not a very big place. Everyone there knows someone who died.

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At a webinar this week, I was asked, “What is the biggest challenge for Japanese becoming Christians?” The biggest challenge is that most Japanese have never met a Christian. Why would you become a Christian if you’ve never met one? The beauty of the arts creates those opportunities, bringing people together, where non-Christians can experience Christian community for the first time. ...

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When the tsunami siren sounded, Hiroko tied her dog, Kai, to a tree and headed for the shelter. “I’ll be right back,” she said. Kai waved his tail in reply. Hiroko didn’t think there was any danger. Why would she? Her town was protected by 13-foot sea walls. And sirens often went off after earthquakes. Forty-five minutes later, she watched in horror as the tsunami surged over those walls and tore through her town. ...

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There is so much brokenness in this world! Just by me speaking to you right now, it’s very likely that some of you are suffering, or someone you know is suffering. Especially now, during COVID-19. Life is hard, and we would be fools to think otherwise. It’s a terrible part of this world, and you know, frankly, it makes me a little bit angry. We want to protect the ones we love from suffering, but we can’t. So, where’s there hope in that? How can we keep on going? How do we overcome this? ...

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One of the joys of living overseas is being able to see the world differently, sometimes in ways I would never expect. One day when I was in Kyoto, in the Kyoto National Museum, I stumbled upon some clay bowls. Everything about the exhibit screamed, “These things are important!” They were individually encased behind panes of glass. They sat beautifully displayed on felt-covered small boxes. They each had their own special lighting, but the odd thing to me was that they were broken. ...

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One of the joys of living overseas is being able to experience different parts of the world. There are times when I think, “Wow, that’s exotic.” Sometimes it’s a smell in the air. Sometimes it’s a sound that I hear. Sometimes it’s the feel of the atmosphere. When we first moved to Tokyo, I had such an experience. ...

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A concert in a hospital near the broken nuclear power plants of Fukushima shortly after the 2011 earthquake in Japan brought us together. In that terrible time, music brought healing and helped us to mourn and cry for what was lost.

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My friend, Shannon Johnston, started The Scarf back in 2011 as a direct response to the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster here in Japan. It was a way for people to knit their hopes, thoughts, and prayers together for the people of Japan. Scarves are something you wear around your neck like a hug. The Scarf was a way people could give hugs without actually being physically present in Japan. ...

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Mayu is a visual artist in Tokyo. With the spread of COVID-19, like everyone else, she was stuck at home, with no way to share her art and no way to make a living. What bothered her most, though, was that people were hurting all around her. She wanted to do something, but didn't know what she could do. One day, her mother said, “Mayu, I think you should make masks.” ...

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