"This is Joe, let me tell you his story..." Tree by brionnasweetie2 on flickr

Do you know any missionaries… personally?

I remember the very first conversation that I ever had with a missionary… I was 11. The conversation was about Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, which had just hit theaters. He was excited about the movie and I was feeling very mature because a bona-fide grown-up was having a conversation with me.

One minute we were debating whether Darth Vader was lying about being Luke’s father… the next minute, we were talking about hand-carved jewelry from Sri Lanka and how selling it was changing the socio-economic landscape of the village where he worked.

It’s been like that with virtually every missionary that I’ve known or talked to… They simply can’t help but tell their story.

Let’s help them…

Phil Cooke observes that “branding” is the visual hook for your story (in his book, Branding Faith: Why Some Churches and Non-profits Impact Culture and Others Don’t).  What a number of independent missionaries need is a branded presentation that provides audiences with a visual hook. For a skilled graphics designer, this isn’t much more than a doodle. I work with a missions organization that recently had a pro designer volunteer to rework the branding… it has had a tremendous impact.

The other thing that could really change the impact of a missions presentation is a video or some quality photo images.  We’re going to talk later in the week with a student filmmaker who has put together a brief documentary-style presentation for a missionary.  Watch that video here. It presents the vision and mission in a powerful and engaging way that makes a great opener for the missionary’s presentation…

I mentioned poor photo quality yesterday and I wanted to touch on that again. Church groups that go on mission trips should take a photographer and let that be her designated job for the duration of the trip. I have been trawling through Flickr.com, looking for mission trip photos to invite to our Flickr Friday slideshow. There are LOTS of photos of the “people on the team” but almost never any with the missionary and very few good shots of the people being served. In other words, the photos are for the home church, not the missionary. I met a guy on Flickr who goes on missions trips with his church as “the photographer” and I’ll be sharing his story in the FeaturedArtist slot sometime in November…

This is where the focus needs to change and this is the practical reason that the artist should initiate contact with the missionary.  We’ve got to find out what his story is… then we’ll know which photos to take, what footage to grab, which of the people being served has a story that the missionary likes to tell in presentations.

The other reason that we need to initiate contact is spiritual… Artists have so-called critical thoughts like, I could take a better photo than that one, often because the Holy Spirit is speaking to our hearts about a need we can fill in that person’s ministry. Initiating contact becomes a matter of obedience to God.

In the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt 25:31-46), Jesus makes it clear that once we become aware of a need, we are responsible to meet it as if it were Jesus himself in need. These missionaries that we’re talking about live that out in their daily lives and we can contribute to that work in ways that are empowering and engaging.

And remember that offering the works of our bodies as living sacrifices is our own spiritual act of worship (Rom 12:1)…

Are you getting any ideas?

"I want to tell you a story about Joe. He's the little boy on the left... the one looking at the camera... can you see him?"

Bring a missionary with a compelling story into my church for a presentation and I am almost instantly reduced to a blubbering wad of tears and snot… It doesn’t matter if they have slides or media or authentic costumes… I am drawn into the stories.

I am the exception… not the rule.

Most people, especially in the US, are over-stimulated by media.  So, if the presentation is dull or too long or not visually engaging, they check out about 45 seconds into it.  And we’ve all seen that mission trip picture: underexposed foreground that makes the 4 African children playing in the street 100 feet away look like tiny, black specks.

Take a quick look and go back to text-messaging your girlfriend… and totally miss the amazing story of Joe (third speck from the left) and how he came in dying from malnutrition and malaria three years ago…

Great stories + lousy media = boring presentation.

So, in the minds of church-goers there are basically 2 types of missionaries: interesting and boring.  The interesting ones raise lots of money and the boring ones struggle to get the support they need to make ends meet.

Ironically, the interesting ones often get the support of a couple of rock bands who end up raising money for them so that they can keep doing the work of their ministry… But the boring ones tend to spend a third of their time going from church to church asking for support which comes in the form of pathetic, little love-offerings.

The sad thing is that the boring ones almost always have a great story to tell.  They just need a little help in telling it.

And that’s where we come in…

We’re artists:  photographers, graphic artists, media designers, filmmakers, songwriters, indie bands… The visual and emotional flash that these missionaries need to engage their audiences, hold their attention and get help for Joe and other kids like him… it’s just a “doodle” for us.  Seriously, a day of pro-bono work from you could make the difference for a ministry that provides food for street children in India or an orphanage in Uganda.

THURSDAY: Why artists should make the first move…

Why is it that all of the Christians that I know seem to struggle through life? With rare exceptions, we all have some area of fear or weakness or wounding… And I have my doubts about the exceptions…

A Christian teen who is a contact on my social-grid made an interesting statement about sexual abstinence this week… He said it “doesn’t work.” It wasn’t completely clear whether he was talking about “abstinence education” or individual, moral abstinence… But here are a few little factoids to chew on:

The Bible clearly teaches that 1.) the Spirit of God dwells in the heart of everyone who submits to the Lordship of Jesus (Romans 8:9). 2.) This Spirit is characterized by power, love and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7). 3.) Self-control is evident in the life of a person who is filled with this Spirit, in the same way that you can tell that a tree is an apple tree because it has apples on it (Galatians 5:22-23).

In the life of a believer, something like abstinence certainly does work… At the very least, it can work… it should work… A Christ-follower who believes that it can’t work or doesn’t work doesn’t understand the power of God’s Spirit at work in a person…

(At this point, I cannot emphasize enough the power of God’s grace at work in us when we fail to walk in self-control… but that’s a different discussion.)

I’m talking about the potential power that lives in your heart… Potential for power over our weakness… Potential for love to heal our wounds… Potential for self-discipline and stability…

The trick is tapping into that potential.

Our culture has conditioned us to follow our urges… emotional urges… financial urges… sexual urges… But God has called us to a life of potential and tapping that potential requires that we control those urges. So, God expresses the expectation that we control our urges and then provides us with the means to do it…

Got that? We experience the power of self-control when we practice self-control… The willingness to obey God’s expectation fuels the spirit of self-discipline, which gives us greater power to obey under greater pressure…

Older English translations of 2 Timothy use the expression “sound mind” instead of “self-discipline” but the intended meaning is the same… A person who has a “sound mind” is consistent, purposeful and not a slave to “urges”… and that’s what self-discipline looks like too.

Jesus promised that we’d have trouble… But the wacky, constant struggle to make it through another day that some Christians experience is the very opposite of what God desires for us. That’s the reason He gave us this Spirit of power and love and self-discipline…

Cultivating discipline is a process with many nuances, but the most important thing to keep in mind is this:

God is for us and has given us what we need to finish well.

I knew I should've packed a map...

Good decisions leading to firm commitments are vital to developing discipline… BUT making good decisions requires discipline… This is the circular reality that always seems to bite me on the tush… So, I’ve given it some thought and reading this week and wanted to share with you guys…

Good decisions grow out of a life lived in conversational relationship with God… I can link almost every bad decision that I’ve made in my life to a lack of consistent prayer and Bible study… I have found that practicing this kind of intimacy with God is both energizing and exhausting, but well worth the effort in the face of any significant choice…

I don’t want to sound too mystical, but the truth is that when we saturate our minds with God’s Word and devote our hearts to intimacy with Him, He speaks… Often in an almost audible way (and I wouldn’t totally throw out the possibility of actual audibility either) to the simplest request for guidance…

Poor decisions grow out of a focus that is off of Jesus. So, make sure that your mind and heart are tuned to Him before you leap…

I recently found myself in the position of having already made a bad decision… I’ll tell you about it because it has a happy ending:

About a year ago, I wrote a post about artists helping missionaries tell their stories… After that, I had the opportunity to do a brand development and web presence project for an orphanage in the Philippines. This led to a similar project for the parent-ministry… Which led to an offer to join the administrative team of a small, but internationally-placed missions organization…

Up to that point, I was just using my gifts to serve these missionaries… Suddenly, faced with the decision of whether or not to join the leadership of this significant ministry, I jumped without really taking enough time to consider the decision…

I almost immediately regretted it… It wasn’t the kind of work that I feel called to do… I didn’t really enjoy it and it played to my administrative weaknesses… And it significantly sucked time away from my areas of deepest calling and vocation…

Fortunately, I was not financially bound to the position and I was able to pull-out of the higher administration role and stay connected to the promotional and marketing aspects that originally drew me into the organization…

There have been times in my life that I could not easily opt-out of a decision… I have several of these looming on the horizon… As I look forward to them, I see very clearly a truth that I’ve missed in the past:

Making a bad decision to a long-term commitment is not the end of the world IF you are positioned in close relationship to God so that He can guide you through the process of making the best of the situation… One bad decision doesn’t mean that you’re life is totally derailed… God is much bigger than that… But you may have to take the long road through the dessert to the Promised Land…

Wave encouragingly at the people you meet on that road, we like that…

NEXT in this series: A Sound Mind…

Forgive me for being a bit obvious, but that’s simply not the case… In fact, it never was. A few weeks ago, I had a long talk with my own pastor about my heart for ministry. I told him that while I would never discount the possibility of serving on a church staff, I am absolutely convinced that my ministry will not be one of a traditional pastor…

I see my own calling as a “pastor” to artists in the sheer numerical response to the content here on WOP… There is a hunger among artists to discover ways that their talents and gifts can translate into something transcendent: calling and vocation.

While I was interviewing Jason Tockey for the FeaturedArtist post, he talked a lot about this idea of calling and vocation. He believes that the main Biblical emphasis “in understanding what it means to be a Christian, stems from our creation as image-bearers of God.” In other words, the big epiphany is that we should and CAN reflect what Jesus is like in everything that we do… We were literally created for that and then REcreated for it when we started following Jesus…

And by everything, I mean by my relationships, my speech, my ethics, my morals, my work, my play… my artistic pursuits… everything.

So, it’s not just the Pastors and the church-staff that surrender their “vocation” to Jesus… It’s the ditch-diggers, the daycare teachers, the bus drivers… Yeah, it’s the painters and dancers and filmmakers and writers…

Which is not to say that a Christian who is a filmmaker should only make “Christian films”… But shouldn’t her films reveal something of the nature and truth of Jesus? Not in a trite or canned way, but in a truly artistic and authentic way…

For Jason, that means that finding his identity in Jesus’ kingdom is centered, at least in some measure, on discovering what it means to be “a photographer who is a Christian.”

What does it mean for you?

It seems like a pretty miserable existence to me… Constantly stressed about every detail of every project… Unable to collaborate, delegate or overlook the tiny flaws…

Don’t get me wrong, I stress about project details and I get focused on correcting issues, and sometimes, I have been known to push a little too hard.

But I learned a long time ago that outcomes are rarely perfect, but most of the time no one notices…

Except the perfectionists.

I hesitate to hate on the perfectionists too much, because I have some perfectionist friends… And I LOVE having a perfectionist on my team. As a leader, it’s a huge weight off my shoulders to have someone else that I can count on to stress about the details…

Truth is, I feel bad for a person who is locked into a destructive pattern of perfectionism… In general, perfectionism is “destructive” when it looks like this:

1. If you are always on edge…. The stress of getting every detail arranged according to your vision is unmanageable.

2. If it limits the scope of your leadership because you (like any micromanager) can only lead as much as you can do yourself…

3. If the fear of failure is paralyzing for you or you would rather not work on a project where the outcome is likely to be imperfect.

The ex-perfectionists that I know all understand a very liberating reality:

They aren’t perfect and (in spite of best efforts) never were.

So, after you suck it up, don’t forget to cut yourself some slack… Your heart will thank you.

Now, I gotta go look at revision 17 of this graphics project I’m working on…

NEXT in this series: Making Good Decisions…

Aw... Poor thing... Suck it up...

The “path of least resistance” is virtually the same as the “road of good intentions”…

Think about this: If you have a goal (let’s say you intend to lose 10 pounds) but you skip the gym every time you come to an obstacle or time conflict, you are never going to reach that goal…

Because all of our worthy aspirations are met with resistance…

I don’t really have an explanation for this, but I have a theory:

Since our best, most worthy goals are designed to improve us or our world, they are likely to run afoul the status quo…

I’ve never made it my goal to gain 10 pounds of fat, unlearn an instrument or narrow my friend-network to something manageable like 2 or 3 people… Those outcomes can happen all by themselves because I am introverted, lazy and tend to medicate with Oreos…

Paul has this to say:

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.     – Paul, The Bible, Philippians 3:13-14

It always makes me smile when I hear Christians talking about “pressing on” or “pressing in” because that’s so 15th century… Modern paraphrase: “Suck it up.”

To conquer the inertia of the-way-things-are, I have to suck it up to reach for the-way-things-could be…

Here’s an example:

I’ve been trying to interview an artist for the site for 3 months. We’ve set appointments and I’ve missed them… sometimes through no fault of my own… but I feel like a schmuck every time it has happened. The temptation to just quietly stop trying is overwhelming to an introvert like me…

But the goal is more important than my insecurity… The prize more appealing than the comfort of retreating into my embarrassment…

So, I suck it up and keep trying…

The payoff is that I’ll have the opportunity to learn from this artist, share his encouragement with you and move closer to my own larger goals…

So, what inner turmoil is holding you back? What does it look like when you “suck it up” and push toward your goals?

NEXT in this series: Cut Yourself Some Slack…

For the record, this is the first animated bling to ever appear on WOP...

And guess what? There are 5 art degrees on the list… For the right-brainers, that’s 25%… Degrees involving children also account for 25% of the list… Ministry studies made 10% of the list in 2 separate categories as well…

I don’t expect that anyone will be surprised… I’m certainly not, since I’m sitting-pretty with a dual major in Religion and Theatre Arts…

My question is: Why do we study art? or theology? or disciplines that involve children? If it’s not for the bling…

I can answer for myself, after six years in a job that was math and engineering focused, life is more than the sum of your net worth and satisfaction is more about passion than about my personal balance sheet.

But I gotta eat and nobody wants to pay me to believe in the power of my dreams…

So, most of us will have to find a way to pay the bills while we work on the artistic pursuits that fuel our passion…

The CBS article ends with this clever dig:

If you’d rather end up with one of the best-paying college degrees, you’ll have to major in something that requires a lot of math classes.

I think if somebody had told me this going in, I’d have picked a more lucrative, third major… Of course, I could’ve been a doctor in the same amount of time…

How about you?

And I don’t wanna…

I’m not whining, just generalizing in a way that I hope will challenge you to think about this…

Jesus told his followers that this world would throw hardship and trouble at them (John 16:33) but “take heart,” He said, “I have overcome the world.”

Could character be fueled by the discipline to do things that are difficult, painful or heart-killing?

This promise that Jesus overcame the world sometimes seems hollow in light of the very real pain that the world dishes out. But the same power that fueled Jesus is alive in those who follow Him…

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
- Paul, the Bible (Romans 8:35)

When Paul wrote these words, he was facing tremendous persecution, in the next verse he says that he faces the threat of death continuously… Then he goes on to answer his question:

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  (above, verse 37)

So, there is a supernatural work going on inside that gives us the potential to more-than-conquer (overcome even) some pretty extreme hardship… But I find that I am often way-laid by some simple slight… or thrown off-course by someone’s harsh words… or discouraged by the decisions of those in leadership…

Where’s the disconnect? What happened to all of the overcoming and more-than-conquering that I was supposed to experience? After I pray and repeat the promises to myself… After I conjure all of the spiritual-sounding jargon that has ever been thrown at me… If I’m still way-laid or off-course or discouraged, what am I missing?

Discipline?

Really?

I’m throwing this out for your consideration… I think I’m onto something life-changing.  You see, lately I’ve been discouraged and it effects every aspect of my life: I don’t feel like writing, don’t feel like balancing the checkbook, don’t feel like doing anything around the house, don’t feel like taking my daughter to the library… You get the idea, right?

But when I push past the feelings and do these things (that’s discipline, right?), something cool happens: I find that I have just a bit more “feeling” for the next thing… and the next thing… and the cumulative effect:

I’m overcoming that discouragement.

I think this is why Paul compares the life of a Christ-follower to the life of a distance-runner:

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training… I beat my body and make it my slave…
- Paul, The Bible (1 Corinthians 9:25, 27)

There is a balance between the work that Jesus did (when He overcame the world) and the discipline I need in order to access that work (to overcome obstacles in my own life)… Does that seem right to you? Do you see a similar truth in your own life?

NEXT in this series: Habit-forming…

Your gift will die before it gets a chance to grow if you don’t prepare the soil of your life… You’ve got to give your gifts a safe and satisfying place to be nurtured and grow…

I think the imagery of the path is really appropriate in our context: there is a tendency in life to fall into habits… we pace over the same bit of ground long enough and we wear a path there. For me, this is a particularly intense struggle…

I could eat at the same restaurant every day… Camp in the same park… Hike the same trails… Visit the same attraction… It’s a kind of joke between me and my wife: If I ever say something crazy like, “Let’s try that new Mexican restaurant,” she will mock me relentlessly.

The “paths” in my life are well worn and tightly packed… I like them that way. These ways are safe… they are comfortable. There is little risk in walking these roads, unless you consider it risky to avoid my own potential.

Because sowing the seeds of my potential on this well-packed soil is pointless… It will either be trampled on by passers-by or consumed by scavengers.

So, for me, breaking up the fallow ground starts with plowing up my comfortable path… or leaving it altogether and casting my potential onto the fertile soil of risk…

This metaphorical outlook points to a single, profound principle:

I must develop my character in a way that gives my gifts a safe place to grow and be fruitful.

See, this is the place where our leaders failed us… We received the most applause when we performed or produced or succeeded. This is especially true of kids growing up in church. I was 8-years-old the first time I sang a solo in “big church.” People started talking immediately about Tim-the-Music-Minister. It would be 20 years later that I first heard the suggestion that talent-alone was a poor substitute for substantial character…

Here’s another example:

As creatives, we have a tendency toward pride… In fact, most of us will always dance on the fine line between self-confidence and arrogance.  The first gives boldness and voice to our work, the second brings opposition from God Himself (James 4:6).

Pride packs the soil of our lives in the same way that routine does… and we have to plow it up and abandon the path in the same way.  In this example, humility is the fertile soil where our gifts and talents will grow and be fruitful…

What has packed the soil of your life into a well-worn path? It could be fear of failure or a critical spirit or deceit… It might be 2 or 3 of these examples or one that I haven’t listed…

NEXT in this series: Character and Discipline…