Page 22 - Empowering Missional Artists - Jim Mills.pdf

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There, but the message the church often proclaim is the God who is NOT-there: Why?

Because we are absent. The God, who is there, is revealed most tangibly through our there-

ness. We have abdicated our presence in the real world and consequentially, we have lost

touch. Therefore, we have no ears to hear the cry of the heart of our cultures. Is it any wonder

why there is a total erosion of Christian values in our societies? We are horrifically disconnected.

There are consequences. Lesslie Newbigin declared, “The Christian message can fail by failing

to understand and take seriously the world in which it is set, so that the gospel is not heard but

remains incomprehensible because the church has sought security in its own past instead of

risking its life in a deep involvement with the world.” (Johnston 2001, 10) In response to

Newbigin’s statement, Graham Johnston when on to say, “God was not seen to be actively

involved in the real world except in a private, subjective encounter within the believer.” (Ibid) We

must do more than simply survive the decadence of our dysfunctional societies; we must

mercifully and relevantly serve them. Of course, we do have our outreaches: we know how to

serve soup, visit the sick; hand out tracks and preach on the streets. Yes, all marvelous and

compassionate expressions to a hurting world. These activities are not wrong, but there is much

more to our service in the real world than this. Again, we as church leaders must ask ourselves:

are we affirmatively commissioning those in our charge as agents for healing change in the real

world? Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so send I you.” Are we sending with Jesus?

Sending with Jesus means that we send servants who enter through the back door of the world

into the boarder-mainstream culture and serve on the stage of life.

In our work in Europe, called Creative Arts Europe, this is what we call an ‘in-reach’

mentality. Both concepts of outreach and in-reach of service are valid and enable us to fulfill our

Biblical mandates. (I.e. Matthew 5:13-16, Matthew 28: 18-20; I Peter 4:9-10) However, the arts

are a fundamental means for in-reach as they are the languages of culture which enable us to

connect and dialogue with our world. God’s artists can disseminate truth as light through their