In this world, what is right and what is wrong have become so twisted and turned and convoluted that we find it hard to understand which is what, more often than not.

We are small, struggling people in a mad, upside-down world...

In our attempts to right it, we retaliate against terrible wrongs with other wrongs, wrongs which seem less evil in our eyes, justifying these actions by the need to do something, in a world where only drastic measures seem to catch anybody's attention.

I watched the movie Leon the Professional some little while ago. Leon is a sensitive man, a man with a heart that loves. Leon is also a hit man, a man with no respect for human life, a man who removes human obstacles for money. Leon is a contradiction.

But somehow, that depicts real life. And it is a sad and confusing thing.

Sunday evenings I attend a worship service for college students, called 180, at a Baptist church in Savannah. A few weeks ago at 180, a woman spoke about the missions opportunities for students at SCAD, and the various organized mission trips around the world. She also shared about previous trips, and how they had impacted the towns that the students visited.

Something that I think is a little overlooked in the world of Christian Missions is art. Speaking is a valuable tool for reaching people, as are leadership abilities, and education, and all that fun stuff, but art? Art is just a little too useless on the mission field, dontcha think? Just nonsense and frippery, something fun and extracurricular but not much of a basis for  reaching the world for Christ.

Not so.

What these mission trips do is take groups of art students who go in groups into towns and cities and make art. That's all. They don't come as Christians with an agenda to 'reach out'. In fact, they don't even witness conventionally, sharing the Gospel in an organized fashion to revive and reconcile masses of poor sinners. But the towns and cities where the students (usually 10-15 in a group) visit are places that are so strictly against Christianity that people can't come and shout the Gospel from the rooftops. They can't just give out Bibles or Christian 'propaganda'.

So instead, they make art. They go in for about two weeks, create their art in an open studio (anybody can wander in and talk) and then have a gallery showing at the end of it, where people come and look at the art and talk about it. The only way they can share their faith, really, is by answering the questions people ask honestly, explaining how they felt God move and why they created what they did to glorify Him.

The response has been amazing. People really wonder where the art came from, why, what does it mean? And that is how the students share the love of God.



Art affects people. Much like music, people see it and it makes them feel, and wonder. I think that too often it is shoved aside for more 'useful' qualities, though. Even I, as a (young) artist, sometimes have a hard time recognizing that God can really use what I create to affect people's lives. I create the art projects assigned to me, making them tidy and neat and hopefully imaginative - without once remembering to ask God to use it, and to work through it. I'm not even a particularly talented artist; I'm at an ART SCHOOL, for cryin' out loud, quailing in the shadows of the Great Studio Art Majors. But that doesn't mean that the little bit of gift that I have isn't something that God gave me for a reason, something that I can use for His glory.

Don't forget, as an artist, that no matter how little talent you feel like you have, God gave it to you. And if He gave it to you, it is worth giving back to Him. It means enough to Him, even if you feel like it isn't significant. It's worth just as much as all the other 'useful' tools in His box.



Now, I'm a Fashion Design major, and I'm still puzzling over how God can use that to reflect Himself. But hey, God is great, eh? If anybody can use it, He can, and I'm going to trust that He will!