The origin of my ministry called Noah’s Other Boat:
I ran a ministry for many years called Noah’s other boat. Here’s a little bit of its story.
Someone asked me recently, why I decided to be a father in arts. Mainly it was Noah, a drifting artist who taught me at age 12 how to read abstract art; then that same month, killed himself.
Since that event, i always wanted to build a metaphysical metaphorical ministry boat for those who simply didn’t fit, in the church or anywhere really. I got a heart for the misfits, the uncategorizable- those who didn’t quite fit the mold or bill.
Especially those whose creative vision left them ostracized. Those who felt like outrages instead of blessedly outrageous! Raging against or for something they didn’t understand but which burned in them. Those chosen as symbols, as overt poems, who also created poetry, but were themselves meant to highlight His Creative Nature.
The misfits, the over and under sized. Not intentionally, or out of reaction, but genuinely different. People you notice because of how unusual they are. The lost and losers, freaks. I related to the uncategorizable ones. Most became artist because that was one place where they were allowed to be and become. But I learned that the art world also boxes identity, just as the church can. There is the celebrity gallery circuit, and the desperate need to be seen, leads many into branding themselves prostitutionally or just becoming a label maker for companies etc. I though, there must be a larger kingdom context for us all, but especially the creative ones, i recall thinking even when young! And I myself also never felt my clothes fit down here. And was always open to trying on costumes from another world-a spiritual one.
When I was a kid, my parents used to host gatherings. Mostly those who came were hippies and seekers from universities or the streets. In those days it was common to come together to discuss spiritual topics. And we had all sorts come through.
My favorite was Noah. He was an abstract painter and philosopher. A very thin tall man, who later reminded me of Giacometti’s sculptures. He was a dreamer, but also a teacher. He gave my mom a black and white abstract painting he called Genesis. It was his response to the creation story. But no one would have known it. I did, so he taught me. And I learned. Later than month, he killed himself.
I didn’t know much about artist or healing at that point. It would be years before I studied art therapy to try to see how artist were both healers and how they could also be healed.
I just knew even at that age, that i wanted to make a space for artist to be understood and healed and free to dialogue in their own terms. And not just used to brand Jesus. Art is more than evangelism. It is more than decoration for the church building. Art is a place where we can meet The Artist, and be changed by that collaboration.
My mom is an artist and so am I, but something about this fellow not finding a context in the church or in life bothered me for a long time. It itched my heart.
As my dad is a pastor, i knew the church—both the cultural church and the true church. And I knew there was meant to be a place in the Body for the Levites, the Priest, the singers and poets. I studied David’s life and could see the possibility of true integration of the creative and spiritual aspects of our relationship with God.
I also saw this integration in the lives of the prophets! Someone like Ezekiel or Isaiah who would artfully and intensely express what they saw in vision, dream or direct visitations.
Over the years, I got to meet many well known Christian artists as well. I studied at L’abri under Shaeffer’s ministry, which had created a theology of the arts; and recognized the need for Christ’s Lordship in the area of culture and arts.
I was given permission there to be an artist, and to be a spiritual person in one breath, or bring them under one roof.
I realized, though, that many artist lived under this dualism. If I create, it must be religious or overtly christian. I had experienced this dualism myself between sacred and secular. But it never felt right to me.
If God is One, and Jesus is Lord over all, why would art be over there, and my spirituality over here. They were meant to be integrated.
So I sought to learn from those who had integrated their creativity and their spirituality. I found real artist who were also real christians-not just cultural christians but who actually knew and were growing in their relationship with Jesus. I got to meet some of the best artist who worked from a christian framework. I saw it was possible to make art as part of our relationship with Him. God could animate the whole self, not just the gospel information, but the actual good news of His Life in us more fully which continuously and progressively edits every dimension of who we are, and causes us to become who we were ultimately meant to be.
Artist tend to highlight identity and uniqueness. They tend to be one of a kind, and are born with a need to see deeper. To see the tree behind the tree as Van Gogh put it. They do not see things just as they are, but in terms of what things participate in. The background, the metaphors supporting the literal. They contextualize things in a bigger container. They see beyond the veil. Some see the backstage as demonic, others as God filled, but all note and notice the backstage of life.
If they meet Jesus, they see and reveal the Kingdom behind all things.
As with all gifts, artist can worship their own imaginations. This is one danger. There are many others for artist. They can be very narcissistic, self involved to a fault, and never really put their remarkable gifts on His Altar. Never fully visit The Cross.
But when they do, they are teachers. Teachers of how to see Reality for what it really is—a multi-dimensional expression of God.
They teach us that there is more than meet the “eye”. And that we must engage our deeper “I” to see it.
I personally encountered God first in my imagination. Through dreams and making art, He made Himself obviously present. Tangible in color line design composition. Not just in Nature. But in vision and while painting or writing poetry, I came to know He was there.
Most artist already know there is a spiritual dimension. That’s not usually their question. They are usually dealing with the alienation which comes from being a seer of other dimensions. And never really fitting into the normal cultural categories.
When they meet Jesus, they are brought home to Reality, and see why they see. He teaches us, why we are extra sensitive to Reality, and how to express it, in order to love and bless others.
Having grown up in both the church and art world, i have learned that The Kingdom of God engulfs and edits both. It also contextualizes art for artist, why they create, and helps guide how they see.
For the church world, art brings freedom to be. It also delivers us from legalism and rigid views of life. It delivers us from religion into a living spirituality. A dynamic relationship with Jesus Himself, beyond mere ideas of Him. It is a place of encounter, thus contact with the Living One and His Nature.
When we allow our imaginations to be baptized into His Being, we are able to experience another level of renewing our minds. Our Vision is altered by His.
Our categories of perception start to take on His contours. We start to allow Him to see through us! He wears us like a costume! This is healing, and our own gaze then becomes an agent of making things more whole, more as they actually are in Him. We becomes agents of healing. This is one of the true roles of the arts—to help us see well, and thus partner with Him in reconciling all things to their true selves.
In this sense, again art deals with identity and the nature of Reality.
My friend Noah could not find a model to be an artist in the church or the art world. I was blessed to find one in Christ, and to discover that His Kingdom is actually bigger than our categories, and includes the arts.
He, being The Creator, is an artist. That is obvious by looking around; but He also has a keen heart for those who highlight His creativity; those who spotlight His expression. He is a lover of the arts, and a lover, more importantly for the artist.
He came to show this love to us. The Creator bent down and entered His Own painting of Himself. And we are His little paintings or poems, as Ephesians puts it.
He wants to pronounce us in Him. He is rapping about Himself through us.
And artist are meant to be fully yielded to His Self Expression. Some of us are more abstract paintings, others more realistic, some romantic, some more surreal. But we are all His Art. And we are those in His Image becoming the pieces we will be for eternity.
There is a place in Father God for all artist, and that little boat I’ve been building holds millions of us in Him!
Over the years i’ve met an endless array of high impact artist. Some have found home, some are still searching. I believe Jesus is that home, and a gateway into life eternal. I believe He is able to whisper our names to us as we create. I believe that He can come and make His Studio in us. I’ve experienced it, and He is the way of the artist.
We please God by allowing Him to make us new creations—to make us what we truly are. We come to Him, and He reveals us to ourselves. One medium He uses to do this is our creativity. He does this for individuals and cultures. He can heal the imaginations of our cities as we let Him in, and meet Him through our creativity.
Some are called to overtly reveal His messages; others just to create in His Presence as a prayer, an offering, a pleasant fragrance to Him. But our creativity is part of who we are, and He understands and wants to meet us there.
He cleanses the windows of our perception and draws us into His Heart and His Imagination. We start to move in His atomic perception in the Mind of Christ. We can directly collaborate with God through Christ. What a high calling!
My friend Noah died not knowing how cool He was to Christ. There were no categories for Him to exist and become in. I always wanted to provide an alternative to that limited vision of life for artist. I wanted to be Noah’s other boat. The one he could get on and belong to; the vessel of The Kingdom, where all are welcomed and intensely loved, and care free to express from this Love, which never ends. And like the animals which were gathered into the Ark when the floods came, i wanted there to be a preserving vessel for those who would otherwise throw themselves overboard.
So that’s why I created Noah’s Other Boat. And that’s why it still needs to keep floating on earth for those who need a mobile studio to become within, a safe ship of passage through this life; a place to call home, while we are heading towards our eternal home in Christ. A place of dream color and symbol. A place where symbols can be interpreted. A place where freedom to express is a given. A place like Jesus is.
Seeing is more than believing, seeing can cause things to be what they truly are. When we see with and through His Eyes, we are part in making things whole in their identities!
I was given a vision once from the book of Joshua. I saw all the priest going over Jordan first, and doing their strange rituals, which caused or ushered in the presence and power, for the water to part. I saw that this made the atmosphere readied for the fuller incarnation or movement of God through the whole people. Symbol precedes and empowers fuller incarnation. This is why cultural movements often start in the arts. The music plays, then people start to get the message.
In times of oppression, the arts are always attacked first, and redefined into the propaganda of the dominator. This is because the enemy also realizes the power of the arts. We interpret reality through symbols, so when they are changed, our perception alters. If we have Christ in our imaginations, we can aid true interpretation. When the communist in eastern europe, built their ugly housing in the name of equality, they robbed people of beauty and life. We can do the opposite—be bringers even harbingers of beauty and the dynamism of His Life! You see that all true movements create new art, and often the art itself is the place of birthing them.
In our time, artist have an intense opportunity to symbolize what God is up to. And we can go first, in this sense leading the parade into His Kingdom! We get to build the metaphysical highway into the grand circus above. We get to be forerunners and jugglers, poets and singers, dancers… sculpting what is to come, and is also mysteriously already here! We are creative downloaders, who can prepare the way for Our Lord! What a privilege to be Christ’s artist. A yielded artist is a mighty agent of lasting change in the hearts of humanity, which far outlast their lives down here.
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