The Summer I turned Thai: Art on Mission

Many people have asked me "what does it look like to be an artist missionary?" And I think it's important to start by saying that being an "artist missionary" is more about taking a creative outlook on life which influences how we approach missions and kingdom work.

Of course, art is going to be involved... but a lot of the front facing work has more to do with helping others to see the world through the "artist eyes" of God. It's about living our daily lives in a way where we are willing to be interrupted by beauty. It's about looking for the people that need to be reintroduced to their own inherent beauty as an image bearer of God and recognizing places that need to be redeemed by beauty. It's about finding the pearls at the bottom of the ocean, hidden in the oysters that wouldn't surrender their treasure unless prompted to.

But we can’t always know which waters to dive into until we are immersed. This is what I did as best as I could while I was in Thailand. I had to gain context of where I was going to be & who I was working with before I could even begin to integrate what I thought might be helpful forms of reaching people… because often our methods will change and should naturally adapt when we better know our place and the people more clearly.

And one of the most beautiful things about Thai culture is the room they give for ideas to run wild and develop as they go. Where some may disqualify themselves from a type of craft

or skill because they can't master it within the first 5 minutes of trying, Thai people tend to have more bandwidth to simply try things out because art is more than a hierarchy that one must climb.

For them, art is a space where connection, expression and healing happens.

This was something I had to learn upon arriving because I didn't know how people would respond when I asked them if they were interested in art. So I spent a lot of time looking at art in the museums, the markets, the pop ups... wherever I heard about art was where I wanted to be. Because I truly wanted to understand what draws the people of this culture and how there is such a thriving art scene. I talked with artists who are from Thailand and also those from different parts of the world who happened to find themselves in Bangkok. Through engaging with all these people alike, I gathered better context for what people are saying and contemplating in this part of the world… and what needs to be said.

Artists are like the mailmen of "beauty"... carrying the message to those who most need it… and sometimes getting barked at by the people who didn't like the package it was delivered in. But I think the artists who most get it are the ones who are not easily phased by the people who misunderstand or don’t even appreciate their art… because they never anticipated being fully understood, they just wanted to be heard. So I took time to listen, observe and turn over what the overarching themes were that radiated throughout Thai art.

And unsurprisingly, a lot of it showed how deeply people want to have meaning and purpose in the world, but are overwhelmed and even discouraged at the emptiness that propagates the society and dictates how we must spend our time and energy. If all we are cut out for is to eat, sleep, make money and try to make enough merit to earn good karma, then our lives do begin to feel pretty empty.

If we always have to keep face and never reveal what is actually going on inside of us then we might be tempted to give up. Because what is the point after all? Who cares enough to stop and listen or try and change let alone challenge some of these bedrocks of belief which are so deeply set in the culture? Where would one even begin?

This is what art is for! What one is unwilling or unable to say in words, they are free to express and wrestle with in art. If the art is emphasizing the darkness and depravity of our world and the broken state and effects of the Fall on creation, we fall in response before our God out of a need to worship and plea for him to return and make everything new again. Even if the subjects of our art are beautiful depictions of flowers or landscapes or humans, we are still directed back to praise our Creator who designed and invented the original things for all of our mutual pleasure.

I believe true beauty carries the glory of God, so it ultimately points us back to the one who defines, bestows and radiates the most glorious beauty imaginable... and in response, we worship him for it. So when we create things that inspire deeper worship of God, we begin to bridge parts of heaven to earth.

But it is in these darker places where the art becomes more of a cry for restoration and renewal that the church can become a haven to those who resonate more with the depravity depicted in some art. Worship doesn't have to always look pretty, in fact I think the worship God most desires is the kind that takes us by surprise. How we gasp at the way the sunrise hits the seascape, or how we fall in relief at the breakthrough we have prayed for years to come, or the tearstained face just praying they can make it to the end of the day. This is when art can be a very tangible way to worship.

I have witnessed the way that art gives people permission to not be on, even if it is just for a few minutes. The way that focusing on the materials right in front of us helps our brains to shut out the noise that often clouds our ability to just be present and listen to the Lord can be a gateway to bridging the hearts of people who are closed off to Christ. Because of the framework God has shown us he laid out in scripture for us to better understand our relationship to him, we can actually begin to better understand ourselves and God when we create.

"Yet you, Lord, are our Father.

    We are the clay, you are the potter;

    we are all the work of your hand."

Isaiah 64:8

I presented this verse to women who are currently living lives in prostitution and asked them how it makes them feel to know that we are the clay and God is our potter?

I was struck by their response when they said,

"He must have been so intentional when he made me."

Where most of their lives have not been characterized by people handling them with gentleness and care, it was amazing to see that they understood how fearfully and wonderfully God made them to be and how that truth was just further emphasized after spending time making their own clay creations.

The internal state of our heart is not something that most are willing to offer up for display, but the artist is doing this the majority of the time. Whether or not it is evident in the art itself, offering a creation to the world is always putting the creator in a vulnerable position. Artists do this because they are trying to get straight to the root of what most affects and captures our souls... so they offer a piece of their own.

And this is key to what role artists can play in missions. Where some might be timid when it comes to sharing the gospel, or swing to the opposite end of the spectrum by unpacking way more than is necessary with people that only just learned their name, the artist goes right to the heart of the people. They ask them what they need, what they desire, and how they can help. Then from this servant-posture they listen, creating space for things to be shared, the good, the bad, and everything in between, and intake the foundations of the person in front of them,

because if they are going to

depict someone truthfully, it usually helps to understand some aspect of their story and what makes them who they are. And because human artists must ideate out of something (unlike creating out of nothing which only God can do), they can't bring out the picture until they have the materials and they know the subjects they intend to portray.

Artists are also extremely observant, so they take notes of things that other people may bypass, and sometimes those details are paramount to reaching someone who needs to be seen. Because I am coming from a Christian artist perspective, I see the world as God's canvas, and individual people as unique components of his masterpiece which is being developed every day. It doesn't matter if you are the most successful businessman or are working the streets trying to make ends meet. We are all expressions of the Almighty God because he made us in his image.

I think the purest form of art is that which is done with no stipulations, regulations, or commendations. Art as a bestowal is a perfect example of the kind of art that is created out of the overflow of the heart, with love or charity for someone or something dear to the creator. It's when there is no expectation for compensation or return, but only a desire to bless the recipient. This is the kind of art that I began to make after reading a book called Theo of Golden by Allen Levi. This is my new favorite book not only because art is a central theme, but because it puts authentic humanity on display. I think the city of Golden might be a little glimpse of what Heaven will be like, so I tried to imitate the heart of the town in the best way that I could by painting those people who had most affected me in Bangkok and giving them a glimpse into how I see them.

Choosing to participate in art as mission doesn't mean you always have to break out the paints and pencils... but it's about taking ownership for the brushstrokes that your life and your choices might contribute to other people's lives, and the other way around. It's considering how you might be an offering to someone else's day and how someone else might radically shift yours if you were open enough to letting them. If we began to perceive people as the eternal beings that they are, and held them and their stories as seriously and intentionally as we might hold the Mona Lisa, how might our lives look different?

How would the way we engage with other people change?

How might Jesus be known more distinctly as the sole author of our lives?

I want to end with saying that choosing to integrate an artistic perspective into your approach in life may not be easy if it's not your natural bent, and it will definitely not be a quick shift. Because artists are those people that stop and smell the roses, and then sit down so they can study every way the light hits each petal, and then they come back the next day and do it all over again. There are a lot of ways that it may seem inconvenient, inefficient, unconventional and painstakingly slow... but these are also characteristic of the way Jesus lived on earth.

One of my favorite Bible stories is when Jesus healed the man born blind. He healed multiple blind people during his time on earth, but the method that he uses to do it in John 9 is so remarkably "unremarkable."

"He spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud ⁷ and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing."

It seems so simple, so matter of fact! But in reality, God, the Creator of the universe, who originally made man from clay (dust), thought it proper to use a similar means to heal a man's blindness. Jesus used his own saliva, from the same mouth that breathed life into us from the start, to mix with the earth to create an "ointment" (aka clay mud) with which he opened a man's eyes.

In the absence of sight, Jesus brought that which was not, into being. He altered the unnatural condition of this man with the same materials God first used to create mankind in the beginning (Genesis 2:7). The original Artist recreated someone before the disciples' very eyes to prove his power and position to do so, since he was the One who created both the man and the mud in the first place.

I share this because it is a reminder to me to always be submitting myself and my creations back to the one who brought it all into being. And when I do this, I find that there is more purpose than I even realized in the art I am creating, because I am actively inviting God into it. I believe God loves for us to join in the continual creation dance that was enacted in the garden of Eden, and he invites us to ideate with him. He is the inspiration after all, and if the whole world is a reflection of who he is and his love for us, then why wouldn't we tell those who don't know about it?