# Transforming Communities Through the Arts: 
 Developing a Community-Focused Arts Ministry (original) (raw)

Integrating Arts and Preaching

Wondering how to bring arts into preaching? This article is laden with examples of various artistic expressions that can give a sermon more impact.

THE PREACHER AS CULTURAL ARCHITECT: Building Alternative Communities through Biblical Proclamation

Revista Batista Pioneira, 2013

The church exists as an alternative community, gathered around a message that challenges and contradicts prevailing world views. In this context, preachers must exegete and engage the surrounding culture, as well as define and cultivate the alternative culture. This paper taps insights from missiology, Christian ethics, the early church, and NT Wright’s outline for world view analysis, to propose an interpretive matrix and a creative process for shaping a community’s culture through biblical preaching. Key Words: Preaching. Bible. Culture. Mission.Ethics. RESUMO A igreja existe como uma comunidade alternativa, unida em torno de uma mensagem que desafia e contradiz cosmovisoes predominantes. Neste contexto, os pregadores devem interpretar e envolver a cultura circundante, bem como definir e cultivar a cultura alternativa. Este artigo explora ideias de missiologia, de etica crista, da igreja primitiva e de esbocos escritos por N. T. Wright para analise de uma cosmovisao, propondo uma ...

Can the arts change the world? The transformative power of community arts

New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 2007

This chapter describes the insights and learning produced by a group of community activists and educators who participated in cooperative inquiry into the question, How and when does art release, create, and sustain transforming power for social change?

Engaging the Word of God in Community: An Approach to the Ministry of the Word

DMin Thesis, 2023

In the ministry of the Word, the church tends to treat the Bible like a laboratory specimen. Often the Bible is dissected to examine each word, sentence, and passage to help believers hear and see. However, the result is that we “keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.” We know about God as an abstract concept in our mind, but we don’t know God in our hearts as our heavenly Father. The relational features in the Bible narratives are often overshadowed by a juridical view of the Bible that puts the emphasis on the outward obedience and behavioral compliance of a believer, turning the Bible into a rule book of prescriptions on spirituality. This thesis proposes a more relational and affective approach to engaging the Word of God. It is based on the heart-based Trinitarian theology found in the Augustinian tradition, emphasizing the Heart-to-heart and Spirit-to-spirit communion between God and man. Under the Augustinian tradition, the Bible is not an object to be studied and mastered, but the story of God gathering a bride to enjoy communion with the Son through the Spirit. By rediscovering the theme of bridal union in the Bible narratives, we can experience the abundant life that God desires us to have, a life of enjoying God’s love and sharing his love with those around us.

Music Outreach - Communicating God's Gospel Calling

Communicating God's Gospel Calling, 2012

Jesus desires that we should be set apart to a holy way of life, and then “sent into the [evil] world [system in opposition to God established by Satan]” to carry out God’s plan in spreading the good news of redemption to those who oppose and hate Him (John 17:17 - 18). Christian performing artists are to communicate God’s Word amid opposition from the world’s sin, its values, and its goals e.g., “cash rules everything, get drunk, have random sex, and party till you drop."