Using the Arts
June 3-8, 2013 (USA) and July 7-12, 2013 (UK)
Arts for a Better Future (ABF) is a one-week workshop that trains participants to spark local, Scripture-infused creativity that moves communities toward the kingdom of God.
The training content follows the 7-step process contained in Creating Local Arts Together: A Manual to Help Communities Reach Their Kingdom Goals (2013, William Carey Library). Participants join in a condensed application of this flexible model to an existing cultural context. They then develop plans to implement principles for encouraging Scripture engagement through the arts to a community in which they work.
ABF focuses on discovering all artistic forms of communication in a community, and then helping local Christians communicate Scripture in these forms by a process of critical contextualization. The workshop is drenched in warm, artistic personal interaction with other people and God. A wide range of people interested in increasing the penetration of Scripture into a group have benefited from ABF: missionaries with artistic gifts, cross-cultural ministry strategic planners, pastors, worship leaders, people interested in developing multicultural worship, artists of all kinds, and others.
Sponsored by the International Council of Ethnodoxologists, SIL International, Pioneer Bible Translators, and the World Arts program at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (and All Nations Christian College for the UK event).
Upcoming ABF workshops:
Dallas - June 3-8, 2013 (Registration ends May 15). See here for more details.
England - July 7-12, 2013 - See here for more details.
Videos:
England 2011 - http://tinyurl.com/AiMvideo6
Dallas 2012 - http://tinyurl.com/ABF2012video [more...]
Brian Schrag’s Creating Local Arts Together manual has both a stirring and exhilarating effect as the reader envisions the possibility of a community’s arts used for the purposes of God’s kingdom and, at the same time, is thorough and informative with respect to the research process involved in getting to know the arts and worldview of a community.
The manual contains seven sections which correspond to the seven steps of Creating Local Arts Together. They are:
- Meet a community and its arts
- Specify kingdom goals
- Select effects, content, genre, and events
- Analyze an event containing the chosen genre
- Spark creativity
- Improve new works
- Integrate and celebrate for continuity
Gunnhild Bremer has written a review of the book (downloadable below) which includes reasons why it is useful for Scripture Engagement practitioners. [more...]
"I realised that no translation was worth anything if my children didn't read it on their own because they wanted to. The burning question for me as a parent was how do I get my children into the word of God so that the word of God would get into them? As a professional illustrator the answer became obvious."
The Illustrated Bible - containing the historical books of the Old and New Testaments - is available in two formats: as illustrated pages and as video. Each Bible story selection contains the full Bible text with accompanying images.
The videos are made from the still images, with the camera moving over the illustrations, zooming in and out, and panning across. The images are realistic rather than using a cartoon style.
There are several free Bible stories and video clips to view online or download, as well as others to purchase. Translation and dubbing is possible into other languages. [more...]
 | Monday 20 August - Friday 14 September, 2012 The Wycliffe Centre, Horsleys Green, High Wycombe, UK Sponsor: European Training Programme |
This course comprises a number of short intensive modules, the availability of which varies from year to year depending on instructors. The modules that may be offered are:
- Research Methods for Performing Arts
- Applied Cultural Arts
- Audio Techniques for Field Workers
- Analysis of Music (Non-western)
'Arts' will encompass music (primarily songs or chants with communicative text); musical instruments; drama/ theatre; dance; and oral arts (story telling, poetics and proverbs). Visual arts (painting, sculpture) will also be discussed.
These modules are designed to help students with prior training/experience in an aspect of creative arts to develop a comprehensive approach to faith-based ministry using music and/or arts. They can be taken by anyone interested in using EthnoArts with any agency. [more...]
"We make posters, bookmarks - laminated and non-laminated, bookmark kits for groups to make their own bookmarks, refrigerator magnets, note pads, stickers..."
The Inakeanon People of the Philippines are seeing God’s Word in colorful attractive posters, bookmarks, key chains, greeting cards and more. The Inakeanon Scripture Promotion team has produced over 1,250 Scripture posters as well as hundreds of the other Scripture items. These were hand made, scrapbook style from used greeting cards, stickers and punched-out shapes sent from interested prayer partners.
This article contains samples of the posters that have been produced as well as links to images of many more. [more...]
"Learning takes place when the activity is (1) receptor-oriented, (2) context-oriented, (3) repetitive, and (4) participatory… Indigenous music embraces all four of these learning components. Not only are the words in the people’s spoken language, but the music is also in their traditional music system."
Research shows that music is an effective tool for memorisation. Mary Saurman describes what is needed for effective instruction and shows how music meets many of these requirements: it is receptor-orientated, uses repetition, is participatory, and has intrinsic motivation because it is a part of people’s culture. She offers examples of how music has enhanced literacy programs across the world. Finally she outlines several steps to incorporating music into a literacy program: consider music’s function in the community; ask questions of when it’s used; what it’s used for and who uses it; then consider which song categories and styles are appropriate for literacy; and finally begin to use it! [more...]
"The occasion in Yali culture which became the natural opportunity for initial and continued transmission of Scripture — basically in the form of Bible stories — was in the evening hours which traditionally were given to nunung and dindil ale story telling. Here was a time when the community was used to gathering, and ready and eager to hear a new story."
This paper highlights some of the assumptions about Scripture that can limit or hinder its communication in an oral culture. The author examines orality (as opposed to non-literacy) with a view to demonstrating the capacity and capability of oral media (stories and songs) for the effective transmission of Scripture. [more...]
"We often see the 'greatest message' presented in the 'poorest way'. This project is all about seeking to present the Bible in the best possible way for children."
Over 100 beautifully illustrated Bible picture sets, available in PowerPoint format to download. Designed for use when telling Bible stories, especially in children's ministry. [more...]
"Make a big effort to understand the full meaning of the text... Try to put yourself in the shoes of your character. Think of their character, their temperament, their behaviour. What do they like? What don’t they like?"
This is a list of advice for narrators and actors working on audio products for promoting Scripture Engagement. These could be dramatised Bible portions or Scripture relevance dramas.
The advice comes from a drama team with many years of experience in producing radio programmes in West Africa. [more...]
It is urgent and necessary for us to proclaim and to express the message, the life and the whole person of Jesus-Christ in an african artistic language, in our language which is the expression of our daylife, of our culture. Many people of different cultures have done it before us and will do it in the future, without betraying the historical Christ, from whom all authentic christianity arises.
'The Life of Jesus Mafa' is a set of 63 pictures from the life and teaching of Jesus, viewed by the artist as if the events had taken place in a village in Cameroon.
Millions of these images have been printed and distributed around the world since their creation in the 1970s. [more...]