Page 27 - Empowering Missional Artists - Jim Mills.pdf

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INVESTING IN THE NEXT GENERATION

“Some people call them teenagers; we call them the future!” Dr. Jim Mills

The Culture House, School of Dance

That brief moment of inspiration lingered in my memory through the summer. That fall, I

received a phone call from a pastor friend from one of the fastest growing and largest churches

in Western Germany. He told me that his church was in the process of forming a Bible school

and he requested my input for the formation of an arts department. Next, he told me that he was

flying his pastoral staff to Brussels to meet with me. I was honored and challenged at the same

time. I had never developed an arts department for a Bible school before. When they arrived, I

decided to be ruthlessly honest with them, so I said: “I have never formed an arts department in a

Bible school.” I went on to say, “the only thing I can tell you really is how not to do it.” “What you

need to understand,” I went on, “is that you cannot make artists out of young adults who have

passed up their prime opportunity for their development.” After that I found myself sharing

passionately from my experience with the art sessions. Over the next thirty minutes God

enabled me to articulate a vision-strategy for the future. I had not prepared to say what I shared,

it simply poured out of my heart.