The Yellow Ochre Newsletter
Turn your art from a hobby into a purposeful blessing for your community and culture.
Poverty of Art
Calvin Seerveld, “Imaginative Grit and Everlasting Art in God’s World” (Lecture):
“My conscious condemns me for thousands of children dying to malnutrition and preventable malaria in distant places.
But I also am aware the ten thousands of youth dying from formulaic meretricious songs.
Listeners are deceived and cheapened, musically anesthetized.”
Follow the One
If we walked around with the Spirit throughout the moments of the day, what would we witness Him do?
Follow the One, on His hands and knees, serving mankind, all their needs.
Follow the One, who smiles amidst all. Filled from above, while this world crumbles and falls.
Follow the One, His weapons laid down. Though at war, no violence be found.
Follow the One, who puts up with others. Thousands of years, no sheep and no slumber.
Follow the One, watch Him respond in kind. While all be reacting, He has soundness of mind.
Follow the One, watch all the good of His works. The garments of kindness and all of its perks.
Follow the One, Whose steps I can trust. A billion promises, not one a bust.
Follow the One, Whose able to crush me. Yet always able to hug me so gently.
Follow the One, watch Him speak and act. Every and all circumstances, emotions in tact.
Ignore 90% of What You See
Artists can teach us to be hyper focused on something specific. What is the simplest way to tell this story?
Just because we see the whole of something doesn’t mean we have to focus on all of it.
For the Artist Wrestling With Purpose
On a warm, Miami, Christmas night in 2018, a drunk driver hit our car.
During the post-crash officer small talk, one of the cops murmured, “Five years couldn’t come fast enough,” regarding his impending retirement. You could commend him for years on the force, but he was clearly worn down and empty. Somewhere along the way, he’d come to believe his life’s worth was just about doing the job he was good at. His comments made me think of Titus’ life.
Titus reminds us that our calling isn’t locked into one role. Titus wasn’t just “the church planter guy.” He was, of course, well known as the one entrusted with the church planting work in Crete. Scripture actually showcases a seasonal range to Titus’ life of ministry.
In one season, he was a Paul-follower (Galatians 2:1), in another, a news-bearer (2 Corinthians 7:6-7) and a fund-collector (2 Corinthians 8:6, 16-17), and finally, a partner Paul entrusted to Crete (Titus 3:12). Seasons changed, the jobs shifted. But what stayed the same was that he was faithful, willing, and useful to God.
That’s the pattern: God puts certain loves in your heart. He nudges you through leaders you trust. He opens doors, and he leaves you in places for a time.
Your part? Be a trustworthy worker. Be a lover of people. Step into the projects God puts in front of you, whether they last five months or five years.
So if you’re an artist wondering if your work really counts, take heart. Your art doesn’t have to look like “ministry” to be kingdom work. It just has to flow from the gifts God embedded in you and a heart willing to serve. That’s how you’ll find yourself caught up in something bigger than you imagined.
As I think back to that night of the car accident, I ask myself, “who crashed harder, the car or the officer?”
Don’t Be A Banana Tree
One of my most favorite plants in our yard was our banana tree. We received it as a gift as a tiny baby tree. Sadly, it lasted only a few years.
On at least three or four occasions, my banana tree could have died.
One year in particular, we had a severe cold front, followed by an intense summer heat wave.
Even though it still had the appearance of a banana tree, it slowly rotted from within.
It finally met its demise.
As artists in God’s mission, If we don't make use of our gifts, we’ll starve to death through the heat and chill of culture, world, and church.
Art As An Ash Offering
The Lord saved me while in art school. One problem…Becoming an artist was not a very spiritually-serious career path. So, I chose foreign missions.
I thought that by choosing the path of missions and church planting, I was laying my arts interests at Jesus’ feet and considering it an offering to be burned up, turned to ash, and rendered useless.
Thankfully, Jesus can build sculptures from ash.
The Disgruntled Artist
I recently had a conversation with a disgruntled artist-friend. Formerly a missionary where he witnessed incredible kingdom impact through the arts in a secular culture, he’s returned to the States like the beggar looking for a willing churchman to hear the power of his stories.
He had all his funding because he was in a “sexy” non-American country.
But now that he’s down to part-time stateside staff, he’s lost many donors. He’s tapped out of his network for new ones who believe the vision.
When it comes to using his arts to serve the American church, he’s tried it all.
He’s created graphics for the leaders to use in evangelism,
He’s made sermon slides,
He’s created a series of paintings based on word studies of books of the bible.
Each time he’s offered them to the church leaders, they simply replied, “that’s not the vibe we are going for.”
While he knows his anchor is in Christ, the bride is finding lesser and lesser use for him.
Yet, at the same time, his gifts are being celebrated among a niche non-Christian community.
When the secular world values artistic believers more than the church does, is it any wonder there aren’t many artists in the church?
When Everyone Is On One Mission
Every day, Rod Kitson paints 1 square painting of a view of his apartment.
This is what it looks like when one singular vision becomes depicted by various elements at the same time. When placed together, it’s not perfect. It looks collage-y. It appears more like a tapestry. It captures the raw moments from the vantage point per painting.
If you only look at one painting by itself, you’d be tempted to applaud the beauty of the one, isolated, painting. And its true, one by itself is beautiful.
But when put together, these form a singular vision of a master painter. You see the greater work at work.
This made me think of God’s mission. When we fragment the global church, exalting one version of it over another, we miss the bigger picture. This is God’s, and God’s-alone, work. It’s a singular ,multi-thousand-years-and-generations kind of project.
Let us not forget this when we’re working on our little canvas he’s entrusted us with.