President Kennedy on the Arts and the Future

This speech was given when I was one day old. It resonates with my heart, how about yours?

On October 26, 1963, in an address given at Amherst College, President John F. Kennedy said, “I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well.”

I’d like to think the president was preparing the world for me, but that is egotism to the extreme so I won’t go there. What I will say is this… The world has changed. Our schools were set up to make compliant factory workers, (check Seth Godin’s Linchpin for more on this) but the factories are closing down. What we need now are artists. Not just with a brush or a guitar or dance shoes or a script or a writing implement, but people who are willing to take whatever it is that they were created to do and creatively take it to the next level. When the world changes, doing things the way they have always been done before is a colossal waste of time. When the world changes,the creative, the ones who don’t waste time lamenting the bygone system, lead the way. What will you do with what you have been given?

Nowhere is this more important than the church. For how many years now have we lamented people falling away and hardened hearts to the Gospel. It’s time to stop that and create what comes next. We have a Gospel and a God that never change. They are our constants, our rocks, the foundation on which we build. Once we’ve established the non-negotiables, everything else is fair game. The materials given by God to forge a new reality. God is still God. His will is still in effect and this is not the first heart-hardened “generation.” Will we lament or will we create?

I don’t want to get into the politics surrounding this video, but it contains a good portion of the Kennedy speech and it’s worth hearing.

Don’t Babel…

I was talking to a friend about the challenges that happen to the faith of students as they enter college. This video and the corresponding message are the result…

I did this video of one of my worship paintings. It’s based on a message on the Tower of Babel from Genesis 11 and it’s a very unusual story, a story where it looks like God injected himself in history to mess up our plans. A casual reader of the story might be tempted to see God as the villain of this story. God can’t be the villain, God is always good so what really happened. Well a few chapters before in Genesis 9, Noah and his family have just left the ark and God commanded them to spread out and fill the earth. The rest of the chapter and all of chapter ten tell us how they did just that, but as we approach chapter 11 the people get a different idea.

They decide to stop spreading and gather, build themselves a city with tower that reaches the heavens to make a name for themselves. You might think, what’s wrong with that. Well first of all it’s the opposite of what God told them to do and it looks as though what they were really trying to do was build a life and a world apart from God and to try to reach heaven in their own human efforts. That’s why God put a stop to it. What did he do? He confounded their language so they could no longer understand each other, when that happened they gave up the project, spread out and filled the earth.

In our world we see the same thing. There are so many people that try to live a life apart from God. They try to explain Him away. They believe that believing in God and following Jesus is stupid or antiquated the choice of lesser IQ’s. When we fall pray to this, we start to really try to make a name for ourselves, to claim glory for our accomplishments and we try to build our own heaven here on earth. But heaven apart from God or for that matter life apart from God is not heaven. It’s the opposite. When the people in Babel tried God confused their language because he loved them and He loves us. We can’t get to heaven apart from Him. He had to stop them to save them.

In Acts 2 though God did just the opposite. Centuries an millennia have passed since Babel and God Himself has provided the only way to heaven, through His son Jesus. By now the people of the world speak many languages, but God has brought about salvation and that is too important to miss because of a language barrier. So God provided a miracle. He gave His followers a gift, that allowed them to speak in such a way that everyone no matter what his language heard the message of salvation through Jesus in his own language. Jesus is the way to heaven and church this needs to be the core of our message to the world around us. People may belittle our faith but that doesn’t make it wrong. The very people who belittle us are the ones God put us here to reach with this truth. We need to share boldly with everyone God gives us. We can’t make our own way to heaven but God in His grace has made a way, one way. He gave us HIs only son to die on the cross for your sins and mine. His name is Jesus. If you’re a believer, Don’t babel, speak it clearly. Jesus saves.

2011 A Year In Art

On January 1, 2011, I set out on a journey to create at least one new work of art every day for the whole year and to record them on my website. It’s December 31, 2011 and mission accomplished. The video above shows all 365 pieces. If you want to see them a little closer go to http://www.amokarts.com/ayearinart.html. It has been a great year and I can honestly say I believe I have grown as an artist through the process. Now here are the questions that I ask and you may be asking as well.

Did you really do a piece of art every day?
No. For the most part, yes I did, but like everyone else there are days where busyness, fatigue set in. I have a job, a ministry and a family and some days my schedule got the better of me, however on other days the creativity was really flowing and I did a couple of pieces. Also some of the projects took much more than a day so I had multiple projects going at times. All 365 of these pieces were done between January 1 and December 31, 2011.

Am I happy with every piece I did here?
No, but by and large I see growth from beginning to end and I have learned a lot of new things and that was the main purpose.

Was every one of these pieces divinely inspired?
Many were, but all? Probably not. There were days where I’m sure I did something simply because needed a piece for the day. Consequently these are the pieces with which I am less pleased.

Will I be doing this again in 2012?
No, in 2012 I am starting something new. For some time now, I have been feeling led to really develop and grow my speaking/painting ministry and so my goal for 2012 is to do something each day to advance the Kingdom of God and work toward the speaking/painting ministry goal. More on this tomorrow, Lord willing.

What did you learn?
Doing a unique and different piece of art every day for a year is somewhat unrealistic. Unless you have nothing else to do, it will mess with your priorities as it did with mine. I ended up some days just doing a piece to get one done which is not a great reason to do art or anything else. On the other hand, disciplining myself to create each day was helpful. I did grow as an artist over the year and learned many new techniques which I will no doubt carry into the future, Lord willing.

I learned something of my own creative process. When a new project comes to mind, creating a logo for it or a graphic for it tends to make it real for me. Giving a concept a physical representation early in the process tends to help me focus on it. You’ll see several logos in the video. Some of them didn’t pass the “reality test.” Others are at varying positions in the launch cue. Getting ideas down on paper helps me not to lose them.

Also I was able to help several friends and ministries with graphics this year and a few of these projects opened doors to more ministry. I didn’t do them for the sake of opening doors, I did them for the Kingdom and God blessed it. This is a key, serve he Lord faithfully and trust Him with the blessing. Also I learned of new venues for my work, like IllustrationFriday.com doing projects on there helped me to meet some friends outside my usual circle and it challenged me to create work that communicates the Gospel. This was very beneficial in connecting my work with my faith.

Lastly, seeking God for a project every day did help me to learn to hear from God. I wish I could say I did this perfectly but of course I didn’t. I have some regrets from this year and I wonder how may times this project took me off task, but on the other hand, seeing a project like this through to completion was a wonderful blessing in itself. All in all it was a great year in a lot of ways and I am glad you in the tribe have shared this journey with me. I look forward to seeing what God does with 2012.

Enough?

Have you ever caught yourself saying, “Well I would do this or that or the other thing, if only I had enough of__________”? Today’s video blog challenges you to get beyond that to look at what you already have and be faithful with it. Don’t look at what you don’t have, get creative with what you do.