In 2022, Mrs. M and her daughter, A, began attending children’s English classes at Nagoya Central Church. Mrs. M noticed my artwork on the church walls, and the biblical themes in the exhibition caught her attention and stirred her curiosity about Christianity. That curiosity led them to a workshop at Gallery nani on the theme …
Category Archives: Blog
News from Bangkok
This summer, MTW Thailand hosted artist Sarah Esther Merry as a part of an internship at Grace Fellowship Prawet Church. Sarah Esther stepped into a number of spaces in the broader community to lead ceramic workshops, minister to college students, and encourage many through her kind demeanor and love for others. Our local team of …
Russian Book Club Turned Japanese Bible Study
Mami had studied Russian. Loved Dostoevsky. Would I be willing, she asked, to have a Dostoevsky book club with her? Mami could tell I was about to decline. “Could you help me by explaining all the biblical allusions in Dostoevsky? Could we learn the Bible through Dostoevsky?” I was pregnant and exhausted and soon going …
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A Place To Be: Gospel Resonances in Classical Music
Art talk for the Eliot Society by Roger W. Lowther
Patrick & Regina Lennox
I am ordained in the PCA and serve with Mission to the World in partnership with Occom Ministries. The Lord has blessed me with my wife Regina and three children, all of them gifted by the Lord in creative ways. As an artist, I have explored various disciplines. As a musician, I am a guitarist, …
God’s Beautiful Mess: A Christmas Meditation
I recently rediscovered how much I love drawing with charcoal. It’s a traditional drawing medium, and it’s fun. It produces beautiful texture and above all it’s messy. Really messy. As you apply charcoal to paper, it turns to powder and gets everywhere. One day when in college, a classmate asked a friend about me, “Why …
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The Bridge of Dance: How Ballet Became a Surprising Gateway to Faith in Japan
One year ago, I had a phone call with a woman from Mission to the World. I wanted to serve, but I didn’t know where or how. I told her, “Here I am, send me!” I wanted to spend my summer serving the Lord and sharing the gospel. As a ballet dancer, I also understood …
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GCAMM Report
The GCAMM Conference (Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions) took place September 11-14, 2023 at Southwestern Baptist University in Fort Worth, Texas. Past conferences have been in Nairobi, Kenya, Chiang Mai, Thailand, and Singapore. It is the largest gathering in the world of missionaries serving the body of Christ through the arts: music, …
Hope in the Passion
I gathered with thirty or so others on the top floor of an art space in West Tokyo for a performance of “HOPE” between Good Friday and Easter. The wind blew a light rain through the window as a man danced beneath the dull orange glow of the setting sun. Through the hour-long performance, the …
She Couldn’t Resist: A Nashville-Bound Songwriter Follows God’s Call to Japan
• “No!” the owner exclaimed as Alana Essex stepped inside the share house. Alana had just landed in Tokyo and was anxious to get settled in her new room. She had doubted her decision to come to Japan right up until she boarded her plane yesterday, and the first words spoken to her after she …
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