Roger Varland, Part 2: Seeing Beyond the Obvious

I’m finishing up my interview with photographer Roger Varland, Associate Professor of History and Art at Spring Arbor University in Spring Arbor, Michigan. Two years in Kenya and a semester in China have shaped his photography and classroom perspective. He and his wife Deborah, also on the faculty, have taken students on fifteen cross-cultural study tours to countries including Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, Costa Rica, and Gautemala.

Roger’s photograph “Night Money” won the Exceptional Merit Award at the 2007 Statewide Fine Arts Competition at the Ella Sharp Museum in Jackson, Michigan. His photographs have been featured in juried exhibitions such as “The Faces of Christ” gallery on the Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA) website at www.civa.org. Here are a few links to his work:

http://www.civa.org/gallery.php?subID=103&galID=8&art=206
http://www.civa.org/gallery.php?subID=103&galID=8&art=207
http://www.civa.org/gallery.php?subID=103&galID=8&art=208
http://www.civa.org/gallery.php?subID=13&galID=3&art=72
http://www.civa.org/gallery.php?subID=13&galID=3&art=71
http://www3.baylor.edu/christianethics/GlobalWealthArtVarland.pdf


LeAnne: How has the time you have spent in Kenya, China, and other parts of the world helped to shape your photography?

Roger: Just today in my Photo I class, we were watching a video on the history of photography that explored the classic "Family of Man" exhibit from the 1950s. It talked about the post-WWII shrinking of the world and the leveling of humanity—that more of us were beginning that journey of seeing each other as equals.

Though I had always heard that we are all God's children, it only made sense when I stayed awhile in other parts of the world. It's so easy to think that God speaks English and that the rest of the world needs to have his voice translated. My images in the "Faces of Christ" gallery at CIVA [the links are above] probably come the closest to explaining what my overseas time has done to me and my image making. Beyond the people themselves, it has also made me an amateur anthropologist. This interest in culture, started by overseas observations, has followed me home and fueled my questions about who we are.

In a sense, my nodes project is a cultural inventory. What does the American landscape say about who we are? Is this what it means to be human in the 21st century? Does our landscape give evidence of our connectedness?

Much of my work is about selecting views of the world and holding them up as commentary. Though certainly not always religious subject matter, I work from the assumption of this being God's world and we are his greatest creation. Our imprints on the planet then say something about who we are and indirectly about our relationship to our Creator.

LM: You've touched on this a little but I'd like to hear more about how your faith informs your work and vice versa.

RV: My faith is a starting point that eventually works into a Christian worldview, a lens of sorts. The meanings of what we see and how it all pieces together relies on some sort of meta-narrative, in my case my faith. Coming back the other direction, I think all art, photography included although it has its own unique quirks, has the power to help us see beyond the obvious. My photography has helped me to think more deeply about God's world and how my piece of the puzzle fits in with the other six billion.

The other side of the cycle, work informing faith, happens through the process of learning to see more clearly, to see beneath the surface. In the words of the rearview mirror, "things are not as they appear".

LM: You are associate professor of art/history at Spring Arbor University, a Christian liberal arts university. Do your students struggle with integrating their faith with their art? If so, how do you address that struggle?

RV: Overall, I don't think the art students at Spring Arbor struggle enough with integration. In the interest of helping students avoid an "obligation" to do "Christian" art, it is avoided almost in total as subject matter. Excellence as offering is the mantra, but I want more than a perfect aesthetic. Having said that, I think I'll let it stop there unless you want me to open a can of worms.

At the same time, one exercise I do every term with my Photo I students is to tell them to take a Christian photograph. I explain no details other than I want them to think about it. Of course we get the range from literal to generically symbolic, but it starts some very good discussions about the connections between faith and the visual world.

Roger Varland: Looking at the Ways We are Connected

Roger Varland is Associate Professor of History and Art at Spring Arbor University in Spring Arbor, Michigan, where he teaches courses in photography, art history, and the school’s CORE program. Two years in Kenya and a semester in China have shaped his photography and classroom perspective. He and his wife Deborah, also on the faculty, have taken students on fifteen cross-cultural study tours to countries including Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, Costa Rica, and Gautemala.

When not photographing other cultures, Mr. Varland explores the American cultural landscape as a student of the New Topographers. Like them, he captures unsentimental images of the landscape and everyday moments filled with meaning. His photograph “Night Money” won the Exceptional Merit Award at the 2007 Statewide Fine Arts Competition at the Ella Sharp Museum in Jackson, Michigan.

Mr. Varland’s photographs have been featured in juried exhibitions such as “The Faces of Christ” gallery on the Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA) website at www.civa.org. Here are a few links to his work:

http://www.civa.org/gallery.php?subID=103&galID=8&art=206
http://www.civa.org/gallery.php?subID=103&galID=8&art=207
http://www.civa.org/gallery.php?subID=103&galID=8&art=208
http://www.civa.org/gallery.php?subID=13&galID=3&art=72
http://www.civa.org/gallery.php?subID=13&galID=3&art=71
http://www3.baylor.edu/christianethics/GlobalWealthArtVarland.pdf


LeAnne: In February of this year, you won the Exceptional Merit Award at the Ella Sharp Museum 2007 Statewide Fine Arts Competition for your photograph "Night Money." Congratulations! Tell me about the piece and about the night you shot it.

Roger: It's a dusk shot of an ATM presented head-on with about 40 feet of space on each side. The sky is a graduated blue and signs glow in the distance. The light over the ATM is a combination of green and yellow due to the different types of sources. There was nothing remarkable about the night. I just wanted to shoot it at dusk and my timing was on.

LM: “Night Money” builds on your MFA thesis work at Eastern Michigan University. Your master's show, "Ubiquitous Nodes," is a collection of "landscapes documenting the endpoints of social networks." Tell me more about it and about what draws you to ATMs, dead-end road signs, and more.

RV: The network idea grew out of looking at all the ways we are connected, the systems that we all participate in. Most of these have hubs and nodes that appear seemingly everywhere, hence "ubiquitous". I am also fascinated by typology studies, what I smugly refer to as "same thing only different". This led to shooting all the post offices in our county, then all the pay phones along a 15-mile stretch of Michigan Avenue, then the dead-end signs, and finally the ATMs. By the time I got to the dead-end signs, it became obvious that the central interest of the project was the spaces around the hubs and nodes, not the objects themselves. I am still adding to each of these categories, but am not sure what will be the next node.

More with Roger on Thursday.

Jean Janzen, Part 2: A Place of Amazing Grace

Today I’m concluding my interview with poet Jean Janzen.

LM: What are you working on now?

JJ: I am just now closing my seventh collection of poems entitled PAPER HOUSE, which will be published next year by Good Books. Also I am working on essays which I hope will become a collection. These are a mix of memoir and meditations on various topics that intrigue and amaze me.

LM: What would you say to encourage young poets who are Christians?

JJ: Being a Christian involved in the arts is a place of amazing grace. We not only have the gift of a narrative by which to live, but also the permission to explore everything that exists in its relationship to the Creator who desires us and our best work. I would encourage young poets to be patient, not to force work, and to remember that the most important thing is to allow a rich, maturing self to develop, one who is open to learn, change, and give.

LM: Is there anything you’d like to add?

JJ: At a time when endless information is at our fingertips, and when war continues as solution to world problems, we desperately need the arts for focus, for honesty, and for correction. If we take the call of Jesus seriously, we can see how the arts are essential to worship and work. All true art is subversive to misuse of power, to lies, divisiveness, and self-promotion. Artists in our churches, then, are essential to pull us out of feel-good worship toward the holy, the mystery, and the disciplines and possibilities of the Kingdom of heaven to transform us.

On Monday, I’ll be featuring award-winning photographer Roger Varland.

Jean Janzen: The Ultimate Gift of Poetry

Jean Janzen is a poet living in Fresno, California, who has taught at Fresno Pacific University and Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia. She is the author of six poetry collections, the most recent one entitled Piano in the Vineyard (Good Books), and a book of essays on writing entitled Elements of Faithful Writing (Pandora Press). Her work has been included in numerous anthologies and many journals, including Poetry, Gettysburg Review, Christian Century, and Image. Janzen received an NEA grant and other awards. She also has written hymn texts which have appeared in various hymnals, and some of her poems have been set to music, including an oratorio written by Alice Parker. She has an interview coming up in Stonework, an online magazine from Houghton College, where some of her poems have also appeared. Her poems also appeared in New Pantagruel. Along with two other poets, Jean interviewed poet Philip Levine at http://www.lineonline.org/4P.html.


LeAnne: What can we learn from poetry?

Jean: As with all the arts, poetry teaches us in ways which can transform us. We may learn, as in gaining information, but the ultimate gift of poetry is that we can be changed by it. Poetry with its intensity of language and its distillation of thought set in the beauty of musical language and cadence, awakens our bodily senses and our minds together. We are invited into large spaces, even as we are moved into better understanding of what is hidden and deep within us.

LM: Why do you write poetry?

JJ: Having grown up with hymns and the King James Version of the Bible, I was exposed to the power of language. Who can explain why a child responds with her own words? I wrote poems occasionally and studied English literature in college. My first attempt to study the craft came after my children were in school, when I gave myself permission to continue my education at graduate level. I had grown interested in telling my father's history in an artistic way, his journey as an orphaned teen from Ukraine to Canada. That moved into a poetic investigation of all of life. I write because I sometimes am able to make connections in unexpected ways, and I find places in my soul that continue to long for discovery of meaning and mystery.

More from Jean Janzen on Thursday.

More Thoughts on Story

“When we read a story, we inhabit it.” John Berger

“The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency—the belief that here and now is all there is.” Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (1987)

“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.” Ursula LeGuin, Dancing at the Edge of the World (1989).

Coming soon: a poet, a photographer, a painter

Steve Broyles, Part 2: Learning to Lead with Love

Today I’m continuing my interview with Steve Broyles, actor, teacher, screenwriter, consultant, and CITA region director.

LeAnne: What has been your experience as a Christian in theatre?

Steve: The communities I did theatre in were fairly conservative. In that atmosphere, there wasn’t a demand for edgier shows, so the issues of morality in terms of show content rarely came up. I don’t think there are as many obstacles in theatre in general as we imagine. Some people who work in theatre are often there because it is a last refuge of acceptance. Naturally, if I walk in as a stereotypical Christian—judgmental, condescending—I will have created my own obstacles to genuine relationships and potential ministry. Christians need to learn to lead with love. It is there we find more opportunities than we can imagine.

LM: For the last few years, you have been a member of the Creative Team of Art Within, an arts and media organization that develops scripts for stage and screen “that are relevant to contemporary culture and that explore Hope and Truth from a Judeo-Christian perspective” (www.artwithin.org). What is your involvement with them now?

SB: At this point, I’m a distant supporter of Art Within. Since they moved their offices, I have been unable to make the weekly Creative Team meetings. There has been talk of reviving a screenplay I wrote for Art Within three years ago. So now I have to determine whether or not I can dedicate the time it would take to recommit to such a task. I have several other writing projects in various states of completion that I would love to finish. However, recently I have done more work consulting with others on their writing projects. But God’s purpose for me right now is clear; I just need to continue to practice my art and be ready for the opportunities when they arise.

LM: Tell me about your role with Christians in Theater Arts (CITA, www.cita.org).

SB: As a CITA regional director I am the point person for the CITA south region. In addition to being a rotating member of the CITA board, I am also charged with coordinating regional meetings and events. Right now, we’re in the process of planning new long range goals for the south region as well as the national organization.

I believe in the vision of CITA to equip Christians with practical tools in the dramatic arts and to create networks for artists across our region and the country. The south region is overflowing with talented artists, working in their local communities to glorify God in the dramatic arts. We need to foster a greater awareness of each other’s work and a chance to learn and grow from each other’s expertise.

For more info on CITA, check out LeAnne’s Q&A with Dale Savidge, Executive Director, at http://christiansinthearts.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html.

Steve Broyles: Storytelling the Oldest Art Form

Steve Broyles wears many hats: actor, teacher, screenwriter, and more. He is currently Director of Middle School Drama for Wesleyan School in Norcross, GA. In addition to directing two shows each year, he teaches music and drama to grades 5-8. Steve is also a member of Atlanta based Art Within, whose vision is to develop, produce and distribute scripts for the stage and screen that are relevant to contemporary culture and that explore Hope and Truth from a Judeo-Christian perspective (www.artwithin.org). Steve graduated from Regent University in 2001 with an MFA in Script and Screenwriting where he received the Outstanding Graduate Student Award of Excellence. Prior to entering graduate school, he managed the Foothills Playhouse in Easley, South Carolina, and directed large scale musicals for Covenant Presbyterian Church in Easley.

Steve has designed sets as well as designed lights and sound for over 40 productions. He has also consulted on theatre construction projects. He has toured the country with drama and music groups and directed high school and college drama teams. Steve has acted and directed in community, church, school, college and graduate school theatres. He was a commissioned writer for Art Within in 2003 and is a graduate of the MTI Broadway Classroom in New York and a member of the Thespians Society and SETC. Steve is also the regional director for the CITA (Christians in Theatre Arts, http://www.cita.org/) south region.

LeAnne: What is your background in acting? Why do you love theatre?

Steve: My theatre background is scattered. My first play was in the 10th grade—I was a sophomore in a senior play. I played Earnest in The Importance of Being Earnest. Theatre, though, for me, didn’t really kick in until after college. I began to make a name for myself in the local community theatre. When we moved to South Carolina in 1989 I began to look for new connections. Eventually I found two. Besides directing large scale musicals for my church, I hooked up with the Foothills Playhouse and soon began managing, directing, designing and acting. It didn’t take long for me to realize a door was opening and that walking through the door was going to be a huge step for me and my family. So, in the spring of 1998, we sold our house and many of our possessions and moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where I attended graduate school at Regent University.

In many ways it would be arrogant for me to say I was making conscious decisions all along the way. As a child who grew up with undiagnosed learning disabilities, all I knew was that I, somehow, understood the world from a perspective I couldn’t seem to express scientifically or mathematically. For me, story telling is the oldest art form—when it is done well, it activates all the senses and intellectual faculties to get its meaning across. That is Theatre. Naturally, my Creator didn’t give me an option. One way or the other, I was going to come back to theatre at some point in my life.

LM: You are a drama teacher. Why do you believe students should be involved in theatre?

SB: I always remind the students that, whether they want to do theatre ever again, a theatre class can change their life. It is a proven fact that a person’s level of success in whatever field they choose bears a direct relationship to their skill in public communication. In theatre we ask students to overcome their stage fright and get on stage. We show them that they communicate with their whole body. We ask them to memorize a script and perform it. We ask them to write a script and perform it on our main stage. All of this prepares our students for times when their performance up front will be for much greater stakes.

LM: What made you decide to teach? What do you like most about it?

SB: Teaching, for me, was an acquired taste. I think I finally got to the point where I understood that teaching was just another form of telling a story—albeit a very structured, organized one in which the student has to learn to tell your story before they tell their own. When I made that transition to telling my own story is when I realized that I wanted to teach. I enjoy the discovery of teaching. To watch a student realize they have a comedic side or to hear a student learn to speak clearly and with power is a rush.

More from Steve Broyles on Monday.

Dancing in the Park

Saturday was a beautiful blue-sky, puffy-white-cloud, cool-breeze kind of day. My husband and I went to the park—Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta. Not only did we get to spend part of the afternoon in a pretty park, we had the special opportunity to go to a dance concert sponsored by Project Dance (www.projectdance.com). “Art should reflect the beauty of our Maker,” says founder Cheryl Cutlip, “and Project Dance is committed to the art form of dance and its significance in society as a vital part of the human experience.”

The mission of Project Dance is to bring hope and healing to culture through the universal language of dance. The Atlanta event took place over the weekend, with classes for and performances by participants, who came from all over the country to dance, to learn, and to be inspired. This year, Project Dance events have also taken place in New York and Sydney, Australia.

Saturday’s dance concert in the park was open to the public, and a crowd had gathered in the amphitheater facing the stage. After we spoke with Katherine Gant, the Atlanta Event Coordinator (I featured her on my July 30th and August 2nd posts) and Cheryl Cutlip, we sat down to watch. Every group’s performance was different from the last—from a traditional ballet piece using an instrumental rendition of "Amazing Grace" to an edgy contemporary retelling of the death and resurrection of Christ.

At one point, five young women wearing college t-shirts took the stage. We were too far back to read the name of the college. Early in the song, the CD skipped a few times so the audio technicians started it over. When the CD skipped again, the young students proceeded to dance without music. Occasionally we could hear one of them singing or humming the notes to keep time as they calmly went through their movements. A moment later, Cheryl Cutlip, founder of Project Dance, took the microphone and explained that this group of dancers was from Virginia Tech—their piece was a tribute to those who were killed on campus last year. Cheryl said that perhaps the dance being done in silence would allow us to reflect more on what the piece meant. As the girls danced, we all shared a moment of silence for the victims whose lives were lost in a moment. It was very moving, and the girls received applause and cheers when they finished.

As I watched each group perform, I felt encouraged and inspired. I felt grateful that dance overtly glorifying the Lord Jesus could be seen and enjoyed in a public park. Kudos to Cheryl for her vision for Project Dance and to her, Katherine Gant, and the rest of the team who brought it to Atlanta.

On Thursday, I’ll be featuring Steve Broyles, actor, teacher, screenwriter, and CITA region director (www.cita.org).

Artists are…

“Artists are the antennae of the race.” Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading (1934)

“In all my work what I try to say is that as human beings we are more alike than we are unalike.” Maya Angelou, Interview in the NYTimes (Jan. 20, 1993)

“…this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, as my friend Dale puts it, How alive am I willing to be?” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“The greatest thing in style is to have a command of metaphor.” Aristotle (384-322 BC)


Coming soon: an actor, a photographer, a classical musician and more

Paxson Jeancake, Part 2: “King of Glory”

Today I’m concluding my interview with Paxson Jeancake, Director of Worship and Arts at East Cobb Presbyterian Church in Atlanta (www.ecpca.org/worshipmusic) author of The Art of Worship: Opening Our Eyes to the Beauty of the Gospel, and founder of Rhythm of Worship, a ministry that seeks to serve the church and cultivate the creative process by offering musical resources, foundational teaching and practical training (www.rhythmofworship.com).

Earlier this year, Paxson issued a Call to Artists at his church to create works based on the theme of the Ascension. The work that resulted was fascinating and meaningful for the church as a whole.


LeAnne: Let’s talk about the submissions themselves. There were paintings, collages, photography, poems, essays, and more. Describe one or two pieces that stand out in your mind as particularly powerful or compelling.

Paxson: Sally Apokedak, one of our newer members, wrote a parable called “The Kingdom of Heaven is Like a Pregnant Woman.” She used a dialogue between the woman and her quadruplets in her womb. They asked her questions about the world and told her how comfortable they were in the womb. She said to them, “Oh, but you don’t know what you’ll be able to experience here—or how much more wonderful the things are that you’ll be able to see, taste, and touch.” Sally’s parable showed the tension of living in the world with the presence of Christ (and with darkness too) and the longing for our final home. But one day the King of Glory will be with us!

Another example was of a poem by Linda Drummond, who recently became a Christian and is filled with the newness of that relationship. She was going to encourage her son to write something for the literary arts category but she started reading the scripture texts herself and before she knew it, the words to a poem came almost faster than she could write. She only made two changes before she submitted the poem, which she titled “You Choose.” She had planned to encourage her son but ended up submitting something herself.

LM: Would you say that you have a large number of artists in your church, perhaps more than other churches of similar size?

PJ: We may have one or two professional artists, but for most of the people who participated, this was a way to express something latent in them, a passion that they have not had the time or the focus to reach back and pull out. I love giving people the opportunity to express themselves and a theme to work with. It’s a way that we can all value and celebrate the arts.

For Sally Apokedak, it was encouraging that her new church home holds the arts up as a high value. It shows that we have a place for creative people to use their gifts to edify the body. We’ve been intentional about trying to draw them out. These are small steps. We have also bought paintings and commissioned photographs that we have hung in the narthex.

And we’ve recently issued another Call to Artists as our church is about to be immersed in the Gospel of John. The theme is “Signs”, which comes from the heart of John’s Gospel narrative found in John 20:30-31, which begins, “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book…”

LM: This sounds like a great theme—there’s so much to work with, both graphically and otherwise. Before we finish today, tell me how we can listen to “King of Glory,” your song that kicked off the Ascension theme.

PJ: Our CD, Ascension, is on iTunes. Just search under my name and it should pop up. “King of Glory” is the second track on the CD. Also, the Ascension CD is available for purchase from our website, www.rhythmofworship.com.

Paxson Jeancake: Call to Artists

I don’t usually cover the arts within the Church but the topic we’re discussing today captured my imagination. I’m interviewing Paxson Jeancake, Director of Worship and Arts at East Cobb Presbyterian Church in Atlanta (www.ecpca.org/worshipmusic) and author of The Art of Worship: Opening Our Eyes to the Beauty of the Gospel. He is also founder of Rhythm of Worship, a ministry that seeks to serve the church and cultivate the creative process by offering musical resources, foundational teaching and practical training (www.rhythmofworship.com).

Earlier this year, Paxson issued a Call to Artists at his church to create works based on the theme of the Ascension. In March, he distributed a brochure outlining the idea and, to help artists get engaged with the theme, he included relevant scripture texts from Psalm 24, Luke 24:50-53, and others. The work that resulted was fascinating and meaningful for the church as a whole.

Participant Molly Blass, who introduced me to Paxson, had this to say: “The Call to Artists has been used of God in many ways in the life of our church. Chiefly, it helped showcase the creativity of our Creator God but it was also a great display of the way He has gifted His children. The positive reaction to my essay has been a huge encouragement to me to pursue writing, and to use it in a way to bring glory and honor to Christ.”


LeAnne: Tell me where the idea for this Call to Artists came from and how you arrived at your theme.

Paxson: We had actually done a call to artists about four years ago based on the theme of images of servanthood. Fewer people participated in that one but it set a precedent for the one we did this year.

The Easter Season includes the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ as well as the sending of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday. But Ascension Sunday and Pentecost Sunday are often not as recognized as Good Friday and Easter Sunday. So, in order to help our church engage fully with the Easter season, we asked artists to submit creative works on the following theme: “Ascension: Setting Our Sights on the Realities of Heaven.” The works fit into three categories—literary arts, visual arts, and performing arts—and were displayed in the gym on Ascension Sunday, which was May 20th.

I’ve always wanted to celebrate the arts. Music is my first passion, but I also love photography, dance, drama, and the visual arts. My wife and I were finishing up our second CD worship project. On my way to the church one day, I had a chorus going through my mind which seemed to have some potential. When I got to my office I immediately began to craft what became the song, “King of Glory.” As I began to study and meditate on Psalm 24, the biblical foundation for the song, I was led to some interesting insights regarding the ascension of Christ, an often neglected aspect of His life and ministry. One commentator noted that, with respect to the ascension of Christ, the disciples saw His “going.” Psalm 24, however, is a view into his heavenly “arriving.” For me, this was a profound insight and I’m still thinking about its implications.

LM: How many people participated? How was it received by the church at large?

PJ: We had sixteen submissions which were displayed in the gym on Ascension Sunday. The worship service focused on the theme of Ascension and after that, people had a chance to explore and linger in the exhibit. The whole day was an immersion into the Ascension.

Our pastor called it a “win/win” because we were able to celebrate the arts as well as an aspect of the life and ministry of Christ that often gets overlooked.

LM: You provided a program for people to use as they walked through the exhibit, right?

PJ: Yes. I had asked each artist to include a brief paragraph about the creative process behind the work. I love the creative process, both mine and hearing about others’. I wanted to be able to educate our people on the creative process, to give insight into it, since a lot of our members don’t live and move in the creative world.

On Monday, Paxson will talk about two of the pieces submitted.

Madeleine L’Engle: Heaven’s Gain

In case you haven’t yet heard the news, Madeleine L’Engle died on Thursday in Connecticut. She was 88 years old. L’Engle is probably best known for A Wrinkle in Time, which won the Newbery Medal as best children’s book of 1963 and is still going strong. Although I’ve read and enjoyed many of her novels, my favorite book of hers is Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, a work that inspires me every time I pick it up. When I think about her life, I feel both sad and glad about her passing: sad for us, glad for her. As a good friend of mine said on Friday, our loss is heaven’s gain.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes from L’Engle.

“What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint or clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter what our vocation or how we earn our living.” Walking on Water, pps. 89-90.

“Too much concern about Christian art can be destructive both to art and to Christianity. I cannot consciously try to write a Christian story. My own life and my own faith will determine whether or not my stories are Christian. Too much Christian art relies so heavily on being Christian that the artist forgets that it also must be good art.

"When we write a story, we must write to the absolute best of our ability. That is the job, first and foremost. If we are truly Christian, that will be evident, no matter what the topic. If we are not truly Christian, that will also be evident, no matter how pious the tale.” The Rock That is Higher, pp. 199-200.

And here’s the obituary in the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/08/books/07cnd-lengle.html?ref=arts

On Thursday I’m featuring Paxson Jeancake, a worship arts director who conceived of and organized an art exhibit at his church based on the Ascension. The results were fascinating. You won’t want to miss this.

Dena Dyer: Who Has Called Us

Several years ago, I met fellow writer Dena Dyer (www.denadyer.com) at a speakers’ conference and liked her immediately. In addition to being a speaker, author, wife, and mom, Dena also performs several shows a week with a professional music theater company in Texas. These shows have been wildly successful, even thought they include a hymn and message of faith. I wanted to know more...

LeAnne: Tell me about these shows.

Dena: We are employed by a 375-seat professional music theater company named Rockbox in beautiful Fredericksburg, Texas. We do a 2 hour, family-friendly music variety show 4 times every weekend for locals, groups, and tourists. (Fredericksburg has about 1.2 million tourists a year.) The music changes week to week but we perform oldies, country, rock n' roll from the "golden age" of that genre, comedy, and gospel/patriotic numbers. It's a great mix...and it's always G-rated!

We do "Amazing Grace" at every performance, along with an original song that thanks our country's veterans and servicemen. The Rockbox staff-- from the administration down to the concession stand workers--are all committed Christians and see the theater as a marketplace ministry opportunity.

LM: How does the audience react when you perform “Amazing Grace”?

DD: At times, we've had people who were offended by our rendition of it and our confession from the stage (during the song) that our faith in Jesus gives us eternal life. But more often, we've had people thank us because we take a stand and confess Him before men.

LM: Have other Christians criticized you for performing what could be called secular music?

DD: Yes, at times (though rarely, thankfully!) we've had Christians who don't "get" what we do. And we just thank them for their opinion and move on--because it's God who has called us, and we have to answer to Him. We try not to take it personally, though it's hard. Not everyone is going to understand our calling, and that's okay. But you know, if we did a two-hour gospel show, it wouldn't be a marketplace ministry. We are able to speak the name of Jesus to so many people who might never, ever step inside a church. It's amazing!

LM: In addition to your singing and acting abilities, you're also a writer. Tell me about your books.

DD: I was inspired to write Grace for the Race: Meditations for Busy Moms after searching for a devotional for young moms and not finding what I was looking for: one that was funny, inspirational and didn't talk down to me. The forty-five meditations in Grace offer true-life situations, humor and a practical life principle, and they each close with "Notes from the Coach"--scripture that ties it all together.

The Groovy Chicks' Road Trip to Peace and The Groovy Chicks' Road Trip to Love are both compilation books I put together with a friend. We like to compare them to "Chicken Soup meets Laugh-In"--but with a Christian twist. Some of the pieces are hilarious and some are moving, but all point to the true path to peace and love--Jesus Christ.

LM: Is there anything you'd like to add?

DD: God is so good to call me into something I enjoy so much. It's a privilege and joy to share His grace and peace with others through writing, singing, speaking and teaching. Thanks for letting me share a little bit of my story with your readers. I hope it encourages them.

Coming soon: a sculptor, a photographer, a composer, an arts enthusiast, and more.

On Labor Day

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving (Colossians 3:23-24, NIV).



Coming soon: a sculptor, a photographer, a composer, an actor/singer/writer, an arts enthusiast, and more

Coming Soon & Quotes to Inspire

Soon I’ll be marking the blog’s one-year anniversary, and in honor of that occasion, I’ll be changing the look of the blog a little as well as launching my own website. I’m excited about what's coming soon.

Also, in the next few weeks, I’ll be featuring a sculptor, a photographer, a composer, an actor/singer/writer, an arts enthusiast, and more. If you know of someone you’d like to see featured on the blog, leave a comment and I’ll get back with you.

Now, for the writers and quote-lovers among us, here are a few thoughts for your day:

“A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.” William Faulkner, Writers at Work—First Series (1958)

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Anton Chekhov

“A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.” Joseph Conrad

“A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” Thomas Mann

“I have always liked to let things simmer in my mind for a long time before setting them down on paper.” William Somerset Maugham

“The pen is the tongue of the mind.” Miguel de Cervantes

Dick Staub, Part 3: To Artists

Today I’m concluding my interview with Dick Staub, author of The Culturally Savvy Christian and two other books. He is an award-winning broadcaster and speaker whose work focuses on understanding faith and culture and interpreting each to the other. He is the radio personality behind The Dick Staub Show, a nationally syndicated daily broadcast he hosted for fifteen years, and The Kindlings Muse podcast at www.thekindlings.com. His commentaries can be read regularly at www.dickstaub.com.

LeAnne: What advice would you give artists who are trying to bring salt and light to the culture?

Dick: The first thing would be to cultivate their personal walk with God. When my dad was a teenager he got the chance to chauffeur A.W. Tozer around to his speaking engagements. Thinking this was his chance to get insight into how to go deeper in faith, he asked Tozer the secret to growing in the knowledge and practice of the holy. My father expected a deeply intellectual and profound response, but Tozer’s pastoral response lacked any lofty theological pretense. “Young man” he said, “read the Bible and pray everyday and you’ll grow like a weed.”

Secondly, I would advise them to hone their craft. I'm reminded of what Samuel Johnson said regarding one writer’s work, "Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good!”

Third, I would urge them to stay true to their artistic vision instead of allowing it to be subsumed by economic drivers. We need to provide for our families, but we also need to make good authentic art.

Fourth, if you have the talent and are called to do so, serve culture by making art as a Christian rather than simply creating art to be consumed by a Christian sub-culture.

Dick Staub, Part 2: Fully Human

I’m continuing my interview with Dick Staub, author of The Culturally Savvy Christian and two other books. He is an award-winning broadcaster and speaker whose work focuses on understanding faith and culture and interpreting each to the other. He is the radio personality behind The Dick Staub Show, a nationally syndicated daily broadcast he hosted for fifteen years, and The Kindlings Muse podcast at www.thekindlings.com. His commentaries can be read regularly at www.dickstaub.com.

LeAnne: How can Christians be culturally savvy without becoming culturally saturated?

Dick: This is the 'in the world not of it' challenge. Ultimately we find our place in culture by going deeper in our faith. Only the person who is experiencing God's loving, transforming presence personally is in a place to offer the same to culture.

A person of deep faith will also take seriously our three roles in culture. We are countercultural like aliens, in that we should be different from the world around us. We communicate like ambassadors, learning the language of both faith and culture and interpreting each to the other. We are creators of culture like artists.

There is a paradox here. I find many Christians eager to transform the world, but not so willing to allow God to transform them. I'm learning that God isn't interested in transforming me so that I can transform the world; God wants to transform me so that I can become fully human. Transforming the world is the by-product, not the aim of being fully human, and it only occurs when transformed individuals seek and do God's will as Jesus did.

The key to cultural transformation is personal transformation and the key to personal transformation is the deep presence of God in the human life.

LM: Why are the arts and artists so important to transforming today's culture?

DS: The artist's first calling is to make good art to the glory of God. Loading them down with an agenda crosses the line from art to propaganda; a bad thing to do!
Artistic influence is a by product of art not its aim.

Having said that, I do think artists operate in a creative mode like God in Genesis 1, where the creator God sees potential and brings things into existence that were not there before. The artist is like a prophet in that when he or she sees something, they want to communicate the good, true and beautiful as they see it.

This truth telling is essential for anyone creating authentic art and inevitably carries the possibility of transformation. This is what journalist Malcolm Muggeridge meant when he said, "Only mystics, clowns and artists, in my experience, speak the truth, which, as Blake keeps insisting, is perceptive to the imagination rather than the mind. Our knowledge of Jesus Christ is far too serious a business to be left to theologians alone. From the Middle Ages these have monotonously neglected art and the imagination as guides to religious truth. I find myself in complete agreement with those who wish to reinstate the mystics, the clowns and artists alongside the scholars. To modify Wittgenstein; what we cannot imagine, we must confine to silence and unbelief."

More from Dick on Monday.

Dick Staub: The Culturally Savvy Christian

Dick Staub is an award-winning broadcaster, author, and speaker, whose work focuses on understanding faith and culture and interpreting each to the other. He is the radio personality behind The Dick Staub Show, a nationally syndicated daily broadcast he hosted for fifteen years, and The Kindlings Muse podcast at www.thekindlings.com. He is author of Too Christian, Too Pagan and Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters. His commentaries can be read regularly at www.dickstaub.com.

He’s also a friend. I’m pleased to have him on the blog discussing his new book, The Culturally Savvy Christian.

LeAnne: Describe today's culture as well as what you call Christianity-Lite.

Dick: My interest in popular culture began in the 60s when we all had high hopes of ushering in a spiritual, intellectual and artistic renaissance. Instead we’ve created an unbearably light popular culture that is diversionary (entertainment), often mindless (amusement) featuring celebrities known for being known. Profit motives, targeted marketing and new technologies drive this enterprise instead of good art and ideas.

American Christianity, particularly evangelicalism, in its quest to be ‘relevant’ has become like the culture instead of transforming it. The result is a diversionary, mindless celebrity religious culture that is good at marketing for numeric growth. Evangelicals are known as a voting block, a purchasing niche but not as an intellectual or aesthetically enriching force.

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn said at Harvard University in 1978, “After the suffering of decades of violence and oppression, the human soul longs for things higher, warmer and purer than those offered by today’s mass living habits, introduced by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor and by intolerable music… If the world has not approached its end, it has reached a major watershed in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will demand from us a spiritual blaze; we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life.”

I think Christians are supposed to be that spiritual blaze in culture and to do so requires that we be culturally savvy Christians of deep faith.

LM: What are some characteristics of a culturally savvy Christian?

DS: Christians have fallen into three unproductive relationships with culture. We cocoon ourselves (circle the wagons keep the ‘good guys in’ and the ‘bad guys out’), or do combat with culture, or we conform to culture, becoming like it.

Jesus was a loving, transforming presence in culture. He was in the world (he could not be cocooned), he loved people (so he did not just want to combat culture), but he also wanted to transform culture (so could not be conformed to it).

In that sense Jesus was the prototype for the first culturally savvy Christian!

I define the culturally savvy Christian as someone who is serous about faith, savvy about faith and culture and skilled at relating each to the other. To be savvy means "to get it", and we need to be savvy about both the culture and faith we are in.

We have forgotten that for centuries Christians were known for their intellectual, artistic and spiritual contributions to society. Bach, Mendelssohn, Dante, Dostoevsky, Newton, Pascal and Rembrandt are but a few who personified the rich tradition of faith, producing the highest and best work, motivated by a desire to glorify God and offered in service of others for the enrichment of our common environment: culture.

It is time for Christians to discover and rekindle our spiritual, intellectual and creative legacy.

More from Dick Staub on Thursday.

Words from the Wise

I have posted these quotations before but they fit so well with Robert Benson’s interview that I decided to give them to you again. Enjoy.

"The poet is not a man who asks me to look at him; he is a man who says “look at that” and points." C. S. Lewis, The Personal Heresy

"My assumption is that the story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all." Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life

Next week: culture expert Dick Staub, author of The Culturally Savvy Christian

Coming soon: a sculptor, a photographer, and more

Robert Benson, Part 3: Digging In

Today I’m concluding my conversation with Robert Benson (www.robertbensonwriter.com), whose books include Between the Dreaming and Coming True (HarperCollins), Living Prayer and The Game (Tarcher), That We May Perfectly Love Thee and A Good Life (Paraclete), The Body Broken (Doubleday), Home by Another Way (WaterBrook), and Digging In: Tending to Life in Your Own Backyard (WaterBrook). He lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

LeAnne: Your definition of the word poet is broader than most standard definitions. How do you define it?

Robert: A poet to me doesn’t just rhyme things. It’s not just a person who works in a certain form. In the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads—William Wordsworth was given credit for having written what Samuel Coleridge probably wrote in the Preface—but at any rate, in the Preface it says that a poet does not see or hear things that nonpoets do not see or hear. It’s just that the poet has the ability to recall what he or she has seen and heard and then recreate it in some way so the nonpoets who didn’t notice it can see or hear it again. And then there is some chance that they can actually notice what they saw and heard.

Being a poet is not about a particular medium. It includes painters and singers, essayists and novelists and landscapers, as far as I am concerned. Teachers and preachers and priests and nurses are poets. If Annie Liebovitz the photographer is not a poet, I don’t know who is. I gave my wife her book for Christmas. It’s breathtaking. If Beethoven was not a poet, I don’t know who is. One does not have to be an artist who works in a particular medium to be called a poet. Poetry becomes a much larger thing and therefore the definition of a poet is a much larger thing.

LM: Let’s talk about your latest book. What are some of the things you’ve learned from Digging In?

RB: My two younger children came to live with my wife (their stepmother) and me when they were 12 and 14 (7th grade and 9th grade). And we had this back yard that had nothing in it. And we had these two kids that we had seen every other weekend for years and taken them on vacations. It’s not like we didn’t know each other or ever spend any time with each other. But we had a way of being together when we saw each other every other weekend and then suddenly we were going to be together 24 hours a day, more or less, so we had to learn everything about each other almost all over again. We had to have structure and rituals and habits and routines. Digging in for me involved all of that. It’s not just about building a fence and building a garden—it’s about building a life together.

I learned that everything I really cared about was in my own back yard. I learned that the real world wasn’t out there someplace, it was in my own yard. Everybody that I loved, everything that mattered, everything holy was all in my own back yard. And I don’t think I ever noticed that before. You know there’s a tendency for all of us to think that the real stuff, the good stuff, is out there somewhere. It was fun to discover that what really mattered to me was about 12 feet from my back door. That’s what I loved the best about it. Also, I discovered my daughter is the hardest working yard worker in the universe, that my wife can actually talk roses into blooming, which is an extraordinary talent, and that my son is really smart and really fun. I learned a lot about patience, a lot about waiting. It was fun.

Coming up next: culture expert Dick Staub

Robert Benson, Part 2: Writing as Art

This week I’m featuring writer Robert Benson (www.robertbensonwriter.com), whose books include Between the Dreaming and Coming True (HarperCollins), Living Prayer and The Game (Tarcher), That We May Perfectly Love Thee and A Good Life (Paraclete), The Body Broken (Doubleday), Home by Another Way (WaterBrook), and Digging In: Tending to Life in Your Own Backyard (WaterBrook). He lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

LeAnne: When I heard you speak at the Mount Hermon conference several years ago, you talked about writing as art. I had been writing for magazines for a while and had attended several Christian writers conferences by then, but that was the first time I’d ever heard anyone in the Christian market refer to writing as art. It was a breath of fresh air. In the Christian market, the message is emphasized more than the art. Is there a way to balance the two?

Robert: There are writers and there are authors. Writers write sentences; authors make books. Writers write enough sentences that go together that they finally end up a paragraph. And then they end up a story, then a chapter, and then [writers] end up with a book that looks remarkably like this thing that is made by people who are authors. They look so similar it’s really hard to tell the difference but they are not the same thing. One is a message packaged in such a way that it can be sold on the shelf where people sell books. It’s propaganda, or it’s instruction, or it’s how to, or it’s teaching, or whatever else. It’s not art. It’s not writing. It’s not done by writers—it’s done by people who own typewriters. Those are two different things. Does that make sense?

Now I’m not making a value judgment. There is no value judgment being made by me about authors who write books, who have messages that they want to get out that end up being packaged between a hardcover and a spine. That’s a lovely way to do something. I’m glad for those people.

But writing is done by artists who learn the craft, find their voice, and figure out what it is they have to say that no one else has to say. That crowd of people is a smaller crowd of people. For one thing it’s a very hard life. My life is lovely—I’m not whining or complaining—but it’s not easy work. The hours are terrible. There’s a quote that goes like this: “Most people aren’t writers and very little harm ever comes to them.” But the people who are writers—it’s not an easy thing to do. It’s the only thing I would do. But if you’re going to do it, the art is all that matters.

And if you want to write, there are two questions you ask of your work. You write something and when you get to the end of it you ask, “Does this scare me to death?” Does it scare you because it’s so self-revelatory and honest that you’re afraid someone will think less of you? Does it scare you because you think it’s so out there and pushing the edge so hard that you’re afraid you’re going to get into trouble? Because if you start down this rabbit hole, the book that comes out the other end of this is going to be really scary? Does it scare you because you think you can’t sell it to anybody because you think it might be too good? So the first question is: Does it scare you?

The second question is: Does it make you gasp? Nearly everything that was ever any good scared the writer to death. And it made them gasp. It was breathtaking. It’s scary to go into the room because you’re afraid you’re going to mess it up. You think, “Oh, I’m so close to something, if I could just get it right. I can hear this in my head and if I could just get it close to right.”

Now if the answer to both of those questions—does it scare me to death and does it make me gasp—is yes, it doesn’t guarantee that what you’re going to end up with is actually any good. I will say this: if the answer to either of those questions is no, then the chances of ending up with anything that’s any good are slim and none. If you get one no or two nos, then I can guarantee it’s not going to be any good. But the craft, the work, the profession, whatever word you want to use, is in those two questions.

Generally my sense has always been that art is best served if [the message] is basically ignored. Because if you get [the art] right somebody will put it between two covers. Because editors are dying to read artistic work again. They got into this business because they read one of those and it changed them and it shaped them and they grew up saying, “I want to be a part of that.” And when they find one, they will put it between two covers. And nobody knows but you who made it, the audience that you manage to find, and the person who bought it from you.

The reason these books are not published a lot in religious markets is because not enough religious writers have the nerve and the gumption and the discipline and the dedication to write them. If you hang around religious publishing and people who write in this area long enough, you’ll hear someone start complaining that the stuff being published is not very good, that nobody publishes artistic work. The reason nobody publishes the artistic kind of work is because not enough of it is being written.

Which now gets us back to the original question—the part about the message. If you want to make art that is somehow connected to your faith, the trick is not to make it good Christianity—the trick is to make it great art. The reason you don’t get great art from writers who happen to be Christians (I prefer that way of saying it to the phrase “Christian writers”) is because they don’t have enough nerve or enough discipline, or they don’t work hard enough to find their voice, or they don’t actually learn their craft, or they don’t make things that scare them, or they don’t make things that make them gasp. They fall down not on the theology or the message side; they fall down on the art side.

It’s too easy for those of us who try to do this kind of work to say, “The market’s not interested, the publishers aren’t interested, the stores aren’t interested.” It’s just too easy. We’re letting ourselves off the hook. What we have to do is write something great. Most of us give up too soon and blame it on [publishers] and say they don’t want it. And it simply isn’t true.

More from Robert Benson on Monday.

Robert Benson: Getting to Original Work

Robert Benson (www.robertbensonwriter.com) writes and speaks often on the meditative life. His thoughts have been featured on NPR’s national program “Studio 360.” Known for his warmth and creative style, he invites readers to seek and savor the sacred that is to be found in the ordinary of our lives. His books include Between the Dreaming and the Coming True (HarperCollins), Living Prayer and The Game (Tarcher), That We May Perfectly Love Thee and A Good Life (Paraclete), The Body Broken (Doubleday), Home by Another Way (WaterBrook), and Digging In: Tending to Life in Your Own Backyard (WaterBrook). He lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

A few years ago, I heard Robert Benson speak at the Mount Hermon Christian Writers conference. As the keynoter, he spoke for an hour or so every evening. He talked a lot about his story, about faith and art and writing and prayer. His words both renewed my vision of doing something different with my writing and motivated me to dust off my softball glove.

Robert’s a huge baseball fan, and when he read from his book The Game, I remembered my own love of softball growing up. I thought of how my big sister and I would spend summer evenings in the back yard with our parents teaching us to field grounders, snag flies, and hit the ball. Those memories are so gorgeous to me that they take on a hazy sort of glow, soft around the edges. I enjoyed reliving them.

One afternoon about halfway through the conference, I saw Robert in a courtyard with a small group of young people. He was throwing a ball with an attendee who had the foresight to bring her glove to the conference with her. The fact that it had never occurred to me to pack my own did not deter me. I walked up and asked, “Can I play?” He grinned and said, “Sure. You can use my glove.” As the young writer and I threw a few, we all talked about our favorite baseball teams and about our writing. Pretty soon, Robert needed to leave for a meeting and I needed to find a quiet place to put pen to paper.

What Robert said that week inspired me and continues to do so even now. Last month, I had the opportunity to sit down with him and have a lengthy conversation about writing and art. He was in town for ICRS, the International Christian Retail Show, for the release of his new book, Digging In: Tending to Life in Your Own Backyard. Because we talked for quite a while, I have more material than I usually do and will be featuring him this week as well as next Monday. It’s a pleasure to share his insights with you.

LeAnne: When you spoke at the Mount Hermon conference, you talked about three things that writers should do. What are they?

Robert: I was taught and I believe that a writer has three jobs: the first is to learn the craft, the second is to find their voice, and the third is to figure out what they have to say. It’s hard for one writer to speak for all writers, because writers operate differently. However for most people the first pile of stuff you write is easy because you’re running on pure talent. It comes out of pure talent, pure joy, and pure exuberance. If you want to figure out how to make a living of this—I love art for art’s sake, it just doesn’t pay very well—then at some point you have to be paid to do it. Otherwise you don’t have time to do it. And if you want to be paid to do this, you’re going to have to learn the craft.

The way to learn the craft is to do it every day on a disciplined, organized, rigorous basis. Do it and get better at it. I knew I wanted to write books when I was 13 years old. I spent 15 years writing corporate communications copy, figuring that if I could ever get a guy to pay me by the hour to write sentences, then I’d learn to write sentences well enough to get somebody to read them if I ever got them published in a book. You’ve got to learn the craft and the only way to learn it is to do it all the time and, frankly, see if somebody will pay for it. If nobody will pay for it, and nobody will listen, nobody will run your columns, nobody will run your essays, you haven’t learned it. Getting the first one published is easy. It’s the next one and the next one and the next one and the next one that aren’t necessarily based on true talent—they’re based on craft. Learn the craft.

The second thing is you have to discover your voice. It takes a while to figure out your voice and the only way to do it is to keep working until you begin to sound like no one else. I discovered I had my own voice within about a six week period of time. When you write corporate communications copy, your job is to take a company’s story and write it in their voice so that when a prospective client or customer reads it, it’s a Rand McNally way of talking or a Wheaton College voice. You have to learn those voices and write the way those companies talk. So, I was turning in some work to six of my best clients and they all kept throwing it back saying, “It doesn’t sound like us.” At the end of six weeks, I was thinking maybe I couldn’t do this anymore. Then it occurred to me: It all sounds like me.

You discover a way that you have—a lilt, a rhythm, a pace, a structure—and it doesn’t sound like anyone else. A lot of times, especially for young writers, the first crowd of compliments is “oh, that reminds me of Fred Buechner” or “that reminds me of Annie Dillard” or “that sounds like…” We don’t actually need an Annie Dillard, we don’t actually need a Fred Buechner, we don’t need a Thomas Merton. We already have one of each. You can tell you’ve begun to find your voice when people no longer say “oh that sounds like...” It’s really a subtle kind of thing. Every once in a while someone will say something nice and compare something I do with someone I admire and that’s a lovely thing. But if it happens very often, it occurs to me that I’m not working very hard, and I’ve gotten sloppy and lazy.

So you’ve got to learn the craft, find your voice.

And the last part is this: you have to figure out what it is that you have to say, preferably that no one has either said or has to say, stories you can tell that no one else can, the stuff you care about that nobody else seems to care about. Annie Dillard said in The Writing Life (I’m paraphrasing): “A writer looking for subjects does not look for what other people love but for what he alone loves.” In the Christian publishing market, I suppose that any of us who can write sentences can probably write Bible studies. I suppose I could do that but then no one will tell the stories that only I can tell.

What I’m interested in is a writer who says, “These are the things that only I can do,” whatever it is. It’s how you get to original work. For me as a writer, for me as a reader, for me as a participant in conversations with other writers about writing, original is all that matters. Publishing doesn’t actually matter. Original writing matters and the only way to get that is to learn the craft, to find your own voice, and to find out what it is you have to say—the stories you have to tell that no one else will tell or can tell. Everything else is derivative.

More from Robert Benson on Thursday.

Katherine Gant, Part 2: Freedom Through Surrendering the Gift

Today I’m concluding my interview with dancer Katherine Gant, who has danced with Classical Ballet Memphis, Ad Deum Dance Company (www.danceaddeum.com), Project Dance (www.projectdance.com), Ballet Magnificat! (www.balletmagnificat.com) and more. Katherine continues to teach and dance and is a founding member of the Atlanta Christian Dance Community (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/atlchristiandance).

LM: How has your faith affected your passion for dance?

KG: I once danced for my own glory and satisfaction but it left me feeling very empty. When I realized that my gift of dance comes from the Lord and can be used by Him, a whole new world opened up. The burden of perfectionism that comes with this art form vanished and a new freedom to simply dance came. I deeply desire to help all dancers find the freedom that comes from surrendering their gift of dance to be used by Him.

LM: Have you found that other Christians don’t understand why you are involved in the arts?

KG: It is tough to address dancing within the church to other Christians. They are always opposed simply because they have never been shown what the scripture says about it. My favorite verse to take them to is Psalms 149:3: “Let them praise His name with dancing.”

LM: What would you say to encourage other artists who are trying to live their faith and their art in the world?

KG: I think Christian artists really struggle with being artistic and still being a Christian. I think too often we try to separate the two when really they go hand in hand. If we are truly hidden in Christ, all we say, do, write, dance or speak will reflect Him, even our art. We shouldn’t focus on asking “Is this Christian art?” but on listening with our heart and fleshing out what He has shown us deep inside.

Note: Katherine is Event Coordinator for New York-based Project Dance’s inaugural event in Atlanta to be held in Centennial Olympic Park on Sept. 22, 2007. The event, which occurs over a three-day weekend, includes dance classes, motivational forums, networking and a free all-day dance concert held in the heart of the city.

“The purpose of the free dance concert is to share our talents with the people of Atlanta and to communicate a message of hope and healing through the language of dance,” explained Cheryl Cutlip, founder of Project Dance.

Project Dance was born out of a desire to serve the people of New York directly after the events of September 11th and it has managed to do just that for the past six years.

Next month, at the first event in Atlanta, about 200 dancers will gather to take part in the festivities. Although the weekend is designed to give participants the opportunity to perform and take dance classes, Project Dance also strives to inspire dancers as artists and individuals. All of the activities over the weekend focus on faith and personal growth.

Katherine Gant: Blessing through Dance

This week I’m featuring dancer Katherine Gant. Katherine received her dance training in Memphis, Tennessee, under the direction of Pat Gillispie at Classical Ballet Memphis. Trained in the RAD syllabus, Katherine graduated with honors, RAD’s highest mark. During her years at Classical Ballet Memphis, Katherine performed many leading roles and was Assistant to the Artistic Director. She also performed as a guest with Yuma Ballet Theatre as Cinderella in Thom Clower’s “Cinderella.” In 2002, Katherine joined Ad Deum Dance Company as an Apprentice and was promoted to Company Member later that year (www.danceaddeum.com). While with Ad Deum, she performed works by Steve Rooks (formerly principal dancer with Martha Graham Company) and performed at Project Dance in New York City (www.projectdance.com). [Note: I featured Steve Rooks on the blog last month: www.christiansinthearts.blogspot.com/2007/07/steve-rooks-part-2-god-given-honor.html] Katherine then went on to dance with Ballet Magnificat! under the direction of Kathy Thibodeaux. Since moving to Atlanta in 2005, Katherine has continued to teach and dance throughout the Atlanta metro area, including being a founding member of the Atlanta Christian Dance Community (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/atlchristiandance). Katherine and her husband David have two children, Elizabeth and Caleb.

LeAnne: How did you get involved with Project Dance? What do you do?

Katherine: In 2003, I attended Project Dance’s New York event as a member of Ad Deum Dance Company and I fell in love with the idea of dancers from around the world coming together to bless a city. Since then, I have become friends with Cheryl Cutlip, Project Dance’s founder, and I felt called to bring Project Dance to Atlanta. I am now the Event Coordinator for the Project Dance’s inaugural event to be held in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta on Sept. 22, 2007.

LM: Tell me about your dancing and teaching in Atlanta.

KG: I teach for Atlanta Ballet and I am a dancer/director of Refuge Dance Company, which is made up of mostly members of the Atlanta Christian Dance Community.

LM: You are a founding member of the Atlanta Christian Dance Community. What is the purpose of the group?

KG: Our purpose is to build and grow the network of Christian dancers and other related artists in and around the metro Atlanta area. It is very easy to get discouraged, thinking that you are the only one out there doing your type of ministry. The community provides a safe place for artists to gather, collaborate and encourage one another.

More from Katherine Gant on Thursday. Next week I'll be talking with essayist Robert Benson.

Robin Parrish, Part 2: INFUZE

This week I’m featuring Robin Parrish, founder and editor-in-chief of INFUZE Magazine (www.infuzemag.com), a unique intersection between art and faith. In addition to his work at INFUZE, Robin has written two novels in a trilogy: Relentless and the newly-released Fearless.

LM: So give me a few examples of some people you’ve featured who stand out in your mind.

RP: Some good outside the box examples: one of my favorites—we’ve interviewed him twice now and we post news about him frequently as well—is an actor named Doug Jones. He’s one of those actors with a loyal following and nobody knows who he is. If you ever see him in person you’ll never forget him. He’s very tall (about 6’ 6”), very skinny and lanky. Doug’s a Christian. He’s a character actor and usually plays characters under very heavy makeup. He has done a lot of small bit parts and this year he really broke out and did some big things. He was the title character in Pan’s Labyrinth. He was the Silver Surfer in the Fantastic Four movie. Right now he’s filming Hell Boy 2. He plays the character Abe Sapien, an aquatic character.

Don’t let that name Hell Boy throw you off. That’s another movie with a lot of great redemptive ideas in it. It’s a fable. It’s outside the box. It’s not realistic, it’s not theology. But I can’t imagine any Christian watching that movie and being offended by it. There might be a little bad language and a little cartoony violence so if that’s over your boundaries, then don’t go. But there’s nothing that is in any way offensive to Christianity. It’s respectful of it, actually.

We talk to author Ted Dekker all the time. He’s got tons of fans who read our site. He’s a great example because he is in the Christian industry but he’s starting to appeal to [people] outside of the industry. And he’s interested in the things we love to talk about. He’s very big into asking the big questions in life. He’s creating this rich mythology with the books he’s writing now. We’re fascinated with this stuff. There are characters with superheroic powers. We’re very big on superheroes at INFUZE because superheroes are almost always an allegory for our human need for Christ to save us.

LM: Let’s talk about your own books. I’m really intrigued by this idea of serializing your novel on INFUZE. How did that come about?

RP: I was trying to find a way to get back to my first love of writing when I first created INFUZE. I wanted to use these great contacts I have so I knew it had to be a media website. But I also knew I had to get into publishing original stuff ourselves: creative works, short stories, poems, and artwork. I’ve wanted to write a novel forever but on a practical level I knew I needed a deadline to make it happen. Without a publisher as pressure there was nothing to make me do it. At the time I was into 24 and Lost—serialized TV shows and comic books—so it just seemed like a natural idea to do a novel in installments. I did a chapter every other week and it would come out every other Friday. That was the book that eventually got turned into Relentless, my first novel. In the original book there were 18 chapters—they were much longer than they are in the book now because I wanted it to feel like you were getting a full installment of a TV show like 24. I always tried to end on a little cliffhanger to keep you hanging until next time.

As soon as I put the first chapter up, people started coming out of the woodwork. I even heard from people who had never been big fans of my reviews but they said I could write. Because all of the earlier chapters were still there, I could pick up new readers as we went. We had done a contest for short stories with editor David Long, who has the blog “Faith in Fiction” (http://www.faithinfiction.blogspot.com/). When the book was finished, David, who’s at Bethany House, asked if I would like to publish it. I didn’t have to seek out a publisher, which is an amazing thing that I don’t take for granted.

I pitched him some other ideas and, to my great astonishment, he wanted to make it a trilogy. I wasn’t interested in taking the original story and trying to stretch it out over three books. I felt like it was a good solid contained story as it was so I wanted to add more to it. I went back and reworked it, rewriting and adding a lot of little seeds that would grow and play out in the coming books. It’s not like a book and two sequels. It’s a continuation: the 1st part, 2nd part, 3rd part of this 3-part saga. It’s very much like the Lord of the Rings. When it’s done it will be one big story with a definitive beginning, middle, and ending.

LM: Tell me about your books.

RP: Most of my influences come from TV, movies, and comic books. I suppose that’s why my books are so fast-paced. My editor actually coined the term “bullet-paced” for the first one. The short answer is that my trilogy is “suspense thriller” but in my mind it falls under many categories. There’s a big mythology aspect. It’s set in the modern day but is a step outside of reality. There’s a big cast of characters. It’s got drama, a little romance, a lot of suspense, and a lot of mystery. Mystery is important in any genre. You need some kind of unanswered question, a little hint of mystery to keep people reading. So there are a lot of unanswered questions that eventually we’ll answer.

Robin Parrish: INFUZE Magazine

Born Michael Robin Parrish on October 13, 1975, Robin's earliest writing efforts took place on a plastic, toy typewriter, and resulted in several "books" (most between 10 and 30 pages long) and even a few magazines. After college, he entered the writing profession through a "side door" -- the Internet. More than ten years he spent writing for various websites, including About.com, CMCentral.com, and his current project INFUZE Magazine, which is a unique intersection between art and faith which he conceived of and created 3½ years ago with the help of a private, local investor. (INFUZE is now published by iTickets.com). In addition to being editor-in-chief of INFUZE, Robin has written two novels in a trilogy: Relentless and the newly-released Fearless.

LeAnne: INFUZE “examines the place where art and faith intersect.” What does that mean?

Robin: I’ve talked to many people over the years and have gotten great quotes that helped me formulate ideas about how I wanted to do this. One of the people I talked to said that we were created to create. We were created by a creative Being to be like Him, and one of His greatest qualities is that He is creative. Something powerful happens when we express that. Just like when we worship, when we do something that’s in devotion to him—creativity is an act of devotion.

The thing that most Christians stumble over is that creativity is not relegated only to the Christian market. Plenty of things outside the Christian world not done by Christians still have illuminative qualities. They still shed light on what it is to be human and the magnificence of our existence and why we’re here. You can find purpose and meaning in a lot of things that were not even meant for that and we try to find them. We try to find things with redemptive qualities.

Now we go pretty far across the board. We do cover R-rated movies and we always tell you if it’s an R-rated movie but we’re not a watchdog group. We’re not a parenting group that will tell you, “Don’t go to this movie for this reason.” There’s plenty of that kind of stuff out there and if you want that, go for it. We report what’s good in a movie, what you can take with you that might [make you] feel uplifted and inspired and apply it to your life. It’s not always Passion of the Christ. Sometimes it might be a PIXAR movie or Spiderman movie. The Spiderman movies are some of the most spiritual movies made because they are so powerfully rooted in forgiveness and redemption themes. We cover everything: books, movies, video games, comic books, music, you name it—if it’s a creative outlet, we try to plug into it and see what we can find. And get our hands messy so you don’t have to.

LM: Have you always been interested in culture and the arts and creativity?

RP: Yes. My career in this industry started in covering Christian music for about 11 years in various places. I got burned out with it. I had done over 1000 CD reviews and I felt like I had said everything I wanted to say.

My first love was always storytelling. I always wanted to be a writer. I always wanted to tell my stories. I love other people’s really great stories. The offer was there from this local investor if I wanted to do something different, we could create something. I was trying to come up with something new that would challenge and grow me and allow me to get back to my first love of storytelling, something that wouldn’t waste all of these great contacts I had made in the Christian music industry. So I got to thinking, what do storytelling and music have in common? They are forms of artistic expression so that’s where I came up with the art and faith intersect idea. I see it in my mind very clearly as a grid of lines: there’s a line called faith and a line called art and we try to stay right there in that sweet spot where the two of them meet and are happily co-existing.

LM: Who is your audience?

RP: It’s eclectic. I would say the majority are probably college age to early 30s but we have young kids and we have senior adults. It’s mostly people who are intuitive and savvy when it comes to popular culture and the arts. You hear that word “the arts” thrown around and it sounds like this high-minded, Boston Museum of Art kind of term with people buying turtlenecks and being stuffy but we don’t consider the arts that way. We take on pop culture and the arts so anybody who’s into pop culture, who’s into superheroes, who’s into where entertainment and art are going right now, that’s who we try to appeal to.

We don’t go out of our way to say we’re Christians. There’s nothing wrong with doing that—it’s not that we’re ashamed of it in any way. But as soon as you put that out there and say “this is a Christian website,” anyone who’s not a Christian is going to come to the website and say immediately, “Oh this is meant for a club of people that I’m not in.” It builds walls around us and creates a big “us versus them” mentality. We don’t try to turn anybody off that way. It’s sort of an advanced form of evangelism. We talk about Christian ideas, messages, morals and values, and you’re going to see it if you spend any time there but we don’t draw attention to it.

We recently opened up a message board where people can have discussions on their own. We’d like to create a place where people can come together from all walks of life and discuss the big questions of life: does God exist? What is our purpose as human beings if He doesn’t exist? What is all this about? Why are we here? It can’t all be chance, can it? Those kinds of conversations can happen where there are no walls between us.

More from Robin Parrish of INFUZE on Thursday.

Chris Tiegreen, Part 2: Artistic Prayer

This week I’m featuring Chris Tiegreen, author of Creative Prayer (Multnomah), and editor of indeed magazine from Walk Thru the Bible (www.walkthru.org).

LM: You write in Creative Prayer that sometimes words are not needed when we pray. Explain what you mean by artistic prayer and give us some examples of how we can pray this way.

CT: A picture is worth a thousand words, right? So why do we fumble around with a thousand words when we pray? There’s nothing wrong with verbalizing our requests, of course, but why stop there? I think sometimes we tend to explain to God every detail of our prayers, when really we could say, “Lord, you see this picture in my mind? That’s my prayer.” And it’s even better to draw it, write it, sing it, dance it, act it out, or whatever. When we do that, we won’t be able to pray detached prayers, and we’re not likely to forget them the next day. The more senses are involved, the more engaged we are with God and the more we’ll remember our prayers and His answers.

Some people are reluctant to do this because they don’t think they’re creative or talented, so they think their prayers will be insufficient. But the truth is that our words are also insufficient. Paul made that clear (Romans 8:26). Our creative prayers are like a three-year-old bringing mommy a drawing, and she can’t even make out what it is. Does she reject the art? No, she sees the heart behind it and she loves it. I think that’s how it is with God.

LM: What are some ways we can communicate more creatively with God through our senses and circumstances?

CT: Again, the sky’s the limit. (Actually, not even the sky is a limit!) But for a few starters, here’s what I like to do:
• Write your sins or trials in the sand and watch the waves wash them away, asking God to give you a fresh start.
• Eat an ethnic dish to identify with a certain nation, as though it’s becoming part of you. (You are what you eat, right?) Then pray for that country not as an outsider but as its representative.
• With whatever instrument you have, play a melody that reflects your current situation. Then play one that reflects what the situation would look like if God intervened. That tune becomes your prayer.
• Draw a picture of your heart and write all your ugliest attitudes on it. Then erase them and ask God to do the same. Or better yet, throw the whole drawing in your fireplace and ask God to refine and purify you with the flame of His Spirit.
• Act out one of your prayers. You may look like a bad mime, but that’s OK. God won’t mind at all — He’ll love it.

Coming soon: Robin Parrish, creator and editor-in-chief of INFUZE magazine, which “examines the place where art and faith intersect,” and author of two novels, including the brand new Fearless

Chris Tiegreen: Creative Prayer

From time to time I interview people with a special interest in creativity. Author Chris Tiegreen takes that interest one step further--into his prayers. Author of Creative Prayer (Multnomah 2007), Violent Prayer (Multnomah 2006), and several other books, Chris is an editor and writer for indeed magazine at Walk Thru the Bible. Chris has also been a missionary, pastor, and newspaper journalist. He and his family live in Atlanta.

LeAnne: In Creative Prayer, you write that many of us have an unbalanced relationship with God when it comes to how we communicate with Him. What do you mean by that?

Chris: If we think about all the ways God has communicated with us, and then compare that to the ways we communicate with Him, it looks pretty lopsided. Not that we can ever match His style, of course, but we can certainly do more than just talk to Him at a set time each day. I look at it like a couple in love, where the guy expresses himself every way he knows how — music, poetry, meals, flowers, dances, etc. -- and the girl just leaves a message on his voicemail every once in a while. That’s the kind of imbalance I see in our relationship with God, and I think we’re missing out on a lot.

LM: You mention that the purpose of your book is to discuss creative expression to God. What is creative prayer?

CT: Creative prayer is praying with our whole being — using all the gifts God has given us to express ourselves. We can draw or paint our prayers, act them out, dance them, sing them, dress to match the mood of our petitions, and much, much more. The possibilities are limitless. We see some very tangible communication with God in the Bible: sights, smells, sounds, movements, etc., through the sacrificial system, the psalms, the lives of the prophets, and in Jesus’ ministry. God’s language seems to be primarily visual, but it covers the whole range of our senses and beyond. That’s an invitation to speak back to Him in a variety of creative ways.

We come into the kingdom through a very narrow gate — Jesus alone — but once inside the gate, the pasture is enormous. God encourages us to get outside the box in our communication with him. We’re never to violate His character or His will, but the means of communication in Scripture is never formulized or even specified. There’s shouting, dancing, instruments, sackcloth, incense, blood, bread, weeping, rejoicing, and on and on. God made us individually for a reason: to express ourselves individually.

More from Chris on Thursday.

Oh My

In a keynote address at a Christian writers conference I attended at Mount Hermon several years ago, Robert Benson (www.robertbensonwriter.com), author of Between the Dreaming and The Coming True and the brand new Digging In: Tending to Life in Your Own Backyard, tells the story of his visit to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. After their eyes adjusted to the darkness inside, he and his wife realized they were “standing in the presence of as much art as we were ever going to see again in our entire lives and perhaps all that we would ever need.” His wife whispered, “Oh my.” He said, “Oh my—that someone would do something like this just for the glory of God.”

Even though he and his wife didn’t want to leave the beauty that brought tears to their eyes and lumps to their throats, they caught a plane to take them home again. Robert says, “If I am to do anything just for the glory of God, it will have to be at my house, in my studio, with my dreams, with my blank pieces of paper, and with my sentences.”

This week at the International Christian Retail Show (ICRS, www.christianretailshow.com) I’m going to be interviewing Robert about his sentences—about writing and art and storytelling. I’m looking forward to seeing him again and to featuring him on the blog very soon.
I’ll post again on Thursday.

Steve Rooks, Part 2: A God-Given Honor

I’m continuing my interview with dancer Steve Rooks. Steve began his dance training in Washington D.C. with Jan Van Dyke and Greg Reynolds, after graduating with honors from Dartmouth College. He joined the Martha Graham Dance Company in the summer of 1981, and was a Principal Dancer with the company until 1991. In October 1989, Mr. Rooks’ solo, Outside, was selected to be presented in the New Choreographers series during the Graham Company's fall season at the City Center Theater in New York, and one of his works, Cool River, became a part of that company's 1996-1997 Repertory after its World Premiere at Lincoln Center in August 1996.

Mr. Rooks is currently Resident Choreographer and Associate Professor of Dance at Vassar College, and was one of the founding faculty members for the Dance Degree Program at Howard University. He is also a Guest Instructor at the Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham Schools of Dance. Steve would like to thank Jesus Christ for all that has happened to him.


LM: How has your faith affected or impacted your passion for dance?

SR: Particularly now as a teacher, I feel it is a God-given honor to dance and to serve others (as a mentor/teacher) through dance. I don’t think that I could love the art if the Lord had not given me that love. It is pretty impossible for any dancer not to feel that there is a “heavenly endowment” that he/she has been given to experience the world of dance, and I believe that as one passionately seeks to know the giver of all good gifts, it will ultimately lead that person to the feet of Christ.

LM: Have you faced challenges from the world because of your faith?

SR: Yes, but not any different from those challenges that most Christians face as we live in our world. I have had to turn down a couple of opportunities that might have been lucrative but would have put me in a questionable light. And there have been and will always be scoffers who simply believe it’s not possible to call yourself a dancer and serve Jesus.

LM: Have you found that Christians don't understand why you are involved in the arts?

SR: As a young believer many years ago, there were many Christians who simply thought that dance was much too worldly and that God really couldn’t be pleased with any dancer working in a secular world. I have had well-meaning saints tell me that they felt that God wanted me to start a Christian dance school or that dance would only be a pit stop on the way to what the Lord “really wants me to do.”

But things are different now, and there is an entire generation of Christians who are solid in their faith and feel called to serve God in their craft—whether that be in ministry at their home church, or as a Broadway artist, concert dancer, or studio director. In the past, we have made God “too small” and I feel that Christians shunned away from many arenas that desperately needed to have the light of truth. But this is a great day, and I believe that we will see an even greater calling for believer artists!

Steve Rooks: Pursuing Excellence in Dance

Steve Rooks began his dance training in Washington D.C. with Jan Van Dyke and Greg Reynolds, after graduating with honors from Dartmouth College. He joined the Martha Graham Dance Company in the summer of 1981, and was a Principal Dancer with the company until 1991. Mr. Rooks has appeared in the Metropolitan Opera House presentation of Martha Graham's Diversion of Angels televised for "Celebrate! 100 Years of the Lively Arts at the Met". He has appeared in television commercials, and as a featured dancer on the television special, "The Martha Graham Company in Japan." In October 1989, Mr. Rooks’ solo, Outside was selected to be presented in the New Choreographers series during the Graham Company's fall season at the City Center Theater in New York, and one of his works, Cool River became a part of that company's 1996-1997 Repertory after its World Premiere at Lincoln Center in August 1996.

Mr. Rooks has been a guest artist with the Hakodate Ballet in Japan, and toured with the Morning Star Classical Biblical Theater in their 1996 International Tour to Israel. He has portrayed Joseph in the 1996 International Christmas Television Special of Billy Graham Ministries, and in May 1997 appeared as a guest artist with the Great Day Chorale in their performance at Carnegie Hall. He was also the recipient of a Vassar Research Grant for an Artist Residency in Riga, Latvia in May 2002.

Mr. Rooks is currently Resident Choreographer and Associate Professor of Dance at Vassar College, and was one of the founding faculty members for the Dance Degree Program at Howard University. He is also a Guest Instructor at the Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham Schools of Dance. He was a 2001 Artist-in-Residence at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and has been a member of the International Association of Blacks in Dance. Mr. Rooks has taught internationally at several dance festivals and as a guest instructor for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Symposium on Dance at Yale University and others. Mr. Rooks would like to thank Jesus Christ for all that has happened to him.


LeAnne: For ten years, you were a principal dancer with Martha Graham. What was that experience like?

Steve: It was a formidable experience—to have the opportunity to study under the tutelage of one of the leading artists of the 20th century. Even in her latter years, when many of her works lacked the searing impact of some of her earlier classics (like "Appalachian Spring", "Cave of the Heat", "Primitive Mysteries"), Martha’s concept of theater and the dramatic use of the stage space was unparalleled. Her approach to dance still impacts my teaching and creativity to date (under a great shadow!) and at a time when this term has lost a lot of credibility, she was truly a “genius.”

LM: You're an Associate Professor of Dance and Resident Choreographer at Vassar College, and you teach regularly elsewhere as well. How would you encourage your students and other artists trying to live their Christian faith in the world?

SR: The call to be light and salt (a “witness”) in the dance world is no different from the call to live out one’s faith as a lawyer, a stay-at-home parent, a plumber, or a pastor. So much of our effectiveness as a believer is how we approach and execute our craft. There is a scripture that has been a kind of “blue print” for my walk—Colossians 3:23-24 says:

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."

The bottom line is that we need to pursue excellence and integrity in our work not to make us look good, but to give God glory. Once people find out that you are a follower of Christ, your life immediately goes under a microscope (and that is a good thing!). We need to reveal God’s nature in how we approach life in our successes—and in our failures.

More from Steve Rooks on Thursday.