I'm getting geared up to teach the 2nd semester of the Certificate in Creative Arts Minsitry program at TCA College. Theatre Arts & Ministry Applications. An overview of just about anything about theatre that is not the performing part and can be crammed into a fun, informative, and practical 15 weeks.

Here's the online description of the course: http://www.tca.edu.sg/pdf/coursebrochure/tca_sca.pdf

TCA College Website.

For last semester's Performing Arts Course, I had the students use a blog for photos, videos and course assignements. A good way to archive our work, and for prospective students to get an idea of what they're getting into!

November Rained on My Parade

I've been hit by a snooty artist ego monsoon and am now stuck in the mud.

Last night I attended a performance put together by many of the people I've come to love here. Have spent a lot of time with learning together, creating together, teaching...And it was torture. For all their work and effort I can't think of anything but critical things to say about it. Of course art is subjective but this.... I'd better not say anything more until I come up with a way to be constructive. Lord help me.

My heart is torn. I want to encourage everyone to be more creative. I want to be part of helping people experience the joy that comes from being part of the creative process. I get great joy in unlocking God's image in believers so they can freely experiment and grow. But then I see it up on stage for an audience and I am embarassed that this is the best the church has to offer and wish that there were some way to filter what is allowed to be presented under the banner of the Lord of Creation. I don't claim to be an expert or master artist, I'm learning like the rest. But the bar is so desperately LOW in what believers are putting forth as their best in the creative arts. Oh me. Oh Lord. How do I reconcile these two strong and seemingly opposing callings?

Followers of Christ: We must make more strides in craftsmanship. The gap between our experimentation and our public productions of "art" is too too narrow. But keep working at it. Let's humbly keep learning and growing together.

Attack #1: Inadequacy & Fear of Humiliation

After our Last night of class one particular student, our wonderful foreign student from Nagaland, admits his feelings of inadequacy and fear regarding his academic performance in another class and his ability to be what the teacher expects of him. Never mind that he's a NEW Christian taking theological courses. OR, that he's studying in English - a second language for him! Both factors that reveal he's a man of great courage. As usual I was too full of advice but hopefully I'm learning to ask more questions than give answers...and take my own advice:

Q:
Inadequate to WHO?
Who is it you are fearing?

Certainly not THE LORD. God of heaven and earth who according to Zephaniah 3:17 "takes great delight in you. Quiets you with his love, and rejoices over you with singing.

This little afterclass conversation also reveals that feelings of inadequacy and fear of being humiliated are what has kept or is keeping most of us from being all that we are meant to be. It's pan-cultural. The Enemy's univesal-no-fail-power-attack.

Even if you're from Nagaland!

Singlish Speaking Pig Farmer from Mark ch5

Here's a recent guest performer my Tuesday Night class. Christine Yong, of a local drama ministry, dusted off this monologue from a performance in 2003 (search this blog for Traveling Light for a production notebook of the show). The sound's not too great, and if you're not from around here, you may not understand much. But to us it's pretty funny to see a peripheral character from a Bible story sound like a local.

The Power of (Short) Story - LeadershipJournal.net

The Power of (Short) Story - LeadershipJournal.netI love to hear stories. Hear them from the people who expeirenced them. Not just read the stories, but hear them. Maybe this idea (from the article) is something that the folks in my church would take on. I'd help them "coach" the people who's stories are chosen!

My Unbuilt Bridge Between CRM's Focused Leaders and Focused Artists

K!M: Work in Progress: The Unbuilt Bridge Between Focusing Leaders and Focused Artists I've gained so much from the tools Jim uses with pastors and ministry leaders to help them know their calling and live focused lives of following that unique calling, growing from the input of mentors and staying intimate with God and hearing from him about direction. I enjoy helping Jim out as a "table coach" when he's leading a retreat. But I still haven't had a chance to convert it for use with artists. I wrote about why at this link.

SMS Log, or Why It’s Tough to Plan a Party

A fantastic actor from USA/Netherlands was here this weekend.
Bruce Kuhn
He was performing a one-man show: The Gospel of Luke. Arranged to meet up with him after his last performance in Singapore. As a Christian, I hoped it would be a rallying and encouraging time for some of the believers in theatre I've come to know here. Since I don't think any of them read this blog, they won't know how things turned out. But here it is:

Here's the tally
Invited: 21
No reply: 5
Attended: 0

Ah well. Their loss. I enjoyed a short time meeting him and his host. It's almost humorous reading my cell phone's sms log of those responding to my invitation and reminder messages. Here's a couple:

Wed 9/20 Can’t make it, but did you get wedding invite?
Wed 9/20 Why does all the good stuff happen when I’m out of town?
Wed 9/20 Hey dear, I’ll be in Spain from this Sunday til next so Monday’s out to me. Let me know how I can help spread the word about the meeting.
Sat 9/23 Hey kim, can’t make it. Would you be willing to post a review of the show?
Mon 2:27 PM Hi dear kim I’m disappointed to say I can’t make it. Hope u will share your workshop experience with me one day. Thanks.
Mon 9:24 Can’t stuck at ____...been running around all day.
Mon 9:33PM I’ve actually forgotten about this! Sms you later and see if we’re still up to it?

New Course: Certificate in Creative Arts Ministry

I'm back in Singapore after 8 weeks away this "summer."
One of the most exciting things about being back is diving into the planning for a new course.

Here's the info:

The Theological Centre for Asia in Singapore is starting a new Certificate in Creative Arts Ministry.

PERFORMING ARTS on Tuesday evenings 7-10:10PM 28 August to 24 November.
Video examples, live performances, and individual course activities will give students an overview of the fundamentals of performance. Using voice, body, and imagination students will learn various styles of performing arts used by Christians in ministry. The instructor's teaching style will also give students an understanding of the role and responsibilities of a director (see photo below). Class text: DRAMA MINISTRY, Steve Pederson, Zondervan, 1999.

Deadline is August 20th (there is a $30 late fee if after that).
Download the brochure for Certificate of Creative Arts course
The fees for this 3 unit course add up to $210 if you apply before the deadline. (p18 of Term 3 brochure).

Pray with me that students in her Performing Arts Survey Course will not merely get a good overview of performing arts in ministry, but that the process of learning and experimenting, students will come to know the Lord in a more intimate way.

A One Night Workshop on Physical Worship

Last night was a highlight of my summer in USA. I was able to do a workshop on Diamond Ensemble and Enacted prayer with people from the drama ministry of an Orange County church. Here are some of my reflections on the evening.

HE: It’s kind of cool to be able to use your whole body in worship. To be given the ‘permission’ to move and not feel weird about it.

SHE: I believe we have 3 new guys for our dance ministry.

HE: This isn’t really ‘dance’ though, is it?

SHE: (with 2 Master’s Degrees in Dance) Oh yes. It is.

HE: Please don’t tell my father-in-law.

And then later in the evening…

HE: I often have asked myself, why did God make me to love artistic expression if there is no acceptable outlet for me to use it?

This last comment had the deepest effect on me. Even into the next day I am thinking about it. I drove down the street this morning thinking about the loss of creativity and beauty in the world because so many people feel exactly the same way. And I wept.

It wasn’t just a stranger saying it. The person who said it was someone I’d grown up with; in the same Baptist church youth group. Somone I haven’t seen for more than 20 years, sometime back when I was a kid and feeling like the oddball artist in a family of atheletes. My family was a lot like his: Sports was the appropriate activity for spare time outside of church and work and school. Certainly not dance! Good little Christian girls don't take dance classes! In a leotard? Showing your body? But I was a GIRL. It’s acceptable to be silly; to prance around, to be in plays, and like music and drama. How much harder would it be for a BOY with the same inclinations?

This guy was a Dude in a big family of Rugged Men. I remember him as an athelete. Baseball, I think. And to look at him now he’s a grown up “Man’s Man.” I suppose he had a few acceptable outlets for creativity over the years through music, or a funny skit to advertise Church Camp. But obviously nothing serious. After the session tonight; seeing him enact the prayer of an artist who longs to be accepted and validated by the church, and seeing him move in worship, fluidly and beautifully to music, I’m confident that this was a special night for this closet artist old friend of mine. For at least one night he found acceptance, satisfaction, and masculine wholeness, in physical worship of God. The Creator God who is the one who placed the love for artistic expression in him to begin with.

What a shame that God has given creative gifts to so many and then they don’t really get opened. How many men live their lives with the same unmet holy yearning to have an outlet for artistic expression? Thinking about it today, I weep more for those other men who do open their creative gifts and get ridiculed out of it, or ridculed into an alternative lifestyle where those gifts are celebrated. Why isn’t the church a place where everyone is empowered to exercise their gifts? Why are some gifts more valuable?

I start asking these questions and I just get get homesick for heaven. I can do what I can to fullfil this calling of mine to “add spice to life.” I can empower and encourage some to develop and excercie their artistic, poetic and sometimes prophetic gifts. I can make a small difference in some people’s lives who are burdened with that tyranny of beige. But this side of heaven there are a lot of problems that just ain’t gonna get solved. War in the Middle East, terrorism, and AIDS give perspective on the tragedy of my little artist’s issues.

Christians & Theatre in Singapore

"We live in what is, but we find a thousand ways not to face it. Great theatre strengthens our faculty to face it." ~Thornton Wilder, 1958


A Christian Response to Theatre.
I was asked last May to write a chapter for this new book
SIGHTS & SOUNDS: A CHRISTIAN RESPONSE TO MEDIA & THE ARTS.
Initially I thought this was an easy topic to address. As the quote above states, people don’t like to face the truth, and great theatre forces us to look at life truthfully. As Christians we know the source of all truth. If we can understand and harness the power that theatre has in touching people memorably and deeply, our practice of this art form can reach into the human heart and reveal there the innate longing for relationship with it’s loving Creator God and his son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. How to respond to theatre as a Christian? Embrace and use it.

If it were that easy, mine would would have been the shortest chapter in this book. However, as I began to write, I found the subject too daunting. I ended up passing the assignment off to Dale Savidge, the Executive Director of Christians in Theatre Arts (THANK YOU DALE!!!). My simplistic answer "Embrace and use it." is not as easily explained or carried out as I first thought when I eagerly took on this writing assignment. It also has not been as easy to live it out as I thought it would be when I first moved to Singapore. Here's a link to my article, but you can order the SIGHTS & SOUNDS book from the order form I've posted on flickr.

I'm at Westmont this week

"Most of us live in Christian neutral, cause if you do something
right, God is given the credit, but if you do something wrong, it's
your fault, so we play it safe and do nothing so that we make sure we
don't do anything wrong. Christianity has become more Buddhist than
Christian."

"You don't have to do the right thing all the time. You just have to
make sure what you're doing you're doing for the right reasons. God
can fix up our messes when we make them. He's good at that."

"Create the future."

- Erwin McManus (speaker at our CRM conference in Santa Barbara this week)

Managing Summer Media with kids

No more homework, baseball practices, or rigid bedtimes. And, if your house is like my house, no more obvious rules about when media can be on and off. This is a dream for my kids. To me, it often feels nightmarish trying to get them to tune out of their media and tune into the real world.Free Blog about Kids and Media - Common Sense Media Blog

GoFest Opening Night, The Lord's Prayer in Asia

It's always so amazing when performances pull together. The little picture doesn't capture the beauty of how each segment and group was orchestrated with minimal rehearsals (one afternoon on the stage for all 4 dances for the week).

It wasn't flawless, but I want to say that as a person who best worships God through beauty and my senses, this was the most satisfying corporate worship moment I've had in a very long time. Thank you for all you work to give us a taste of the asian aspect of heaven!

Habakkuk 2:14
For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

GOFestAsia, June 6-10

These dancers will be performing every night for the plenary sessions. 7:30 Singapore Expo. Here's some video of their rehearsal. Rough, in a much smaller space than what they'll be using, but still very, very beautiful and worshipful. Lord bless them in these last days of rehearsing before the conference begins.



These gals are working in a space much smaller than the stage they'll use next week, and Don't have ample mirrors to really check for details as they work at unison. But there were no complaints. A sweet group of hard working dancers, a mix of professional and amateurs.



I hear some complaints from artists in Singapore that we don't have enough good training, or opportunities to grow. But I know that if we are feeling impoverished for inspiration, our brothers and sisters in neighboring countries are culturally destitute. We want to offer these little videos as a way to share virtually how art can be used in worship.

Urban Poets-Arts Performing Group in LA

Urban Poets %u203A What We Do
Here's an interesting group that is from MOSAIC a church in Los Angeles...I've heard about them having a unique arts ministry, but only today read about it online. Gotta go check them out. Meet them. Worship together. I'll report back later!

Finished it 2 weeks ago.

I was so jazzed about it, I read the extensive AUTHOR'S NOTE aloud to Jim. My son Cameron, who is 9, is reading it now. He's really loving it. The whole time I was reading it I kept thinking, "She's really inside the head of an 8 year old who's trying to figure out his world." Hope I don't mess up his head between fact and fiction on what we know to be true from the Gospels and the rest of the immaculate research she did.

DaVinci code opens here in 3 1/2 weeks, so I'm rejoicing that a BETTER author than Dan Brown looked into the conspiracy theories (and a lot of other theories) and found them severely lacking any evidence. NOW her intellectual brain has submitted to this Lord and hse is writing about it for all of her vampire following (and others to read). Yeah!

Ministry thru Theatre as a Profession

Part of my reply to a dramatist friend in North Orange County considering her future using drama as ministry:

I've never made much $ from doing drama as ministry. I wrote an article for a magazine (for free) about this issue and have had a number of people write me that this was helpful in the way they viewed their ministry at the church. Here's a link to it from the blog.

http://spicetolife.blogspot.com/2005/02/should-christian-artists-work-in.html

There are some churches who have an "artist in residence" or a drama ministry director, but not the church where my husband was on the pastoral staff. For a few years, the Lord made a way for me to work 2-3 days a week, and have the rest of the time to "work" on the drama ministry stuff. I kept track of my hours and made up a job description, just to have a record of it in case the church were to ever need it. Happily, there NOW is a person who is part time staff over drama at the church. She's one of the people who was doing drama there before I ever got on the scene in 1985, and was faithful in serving as a volunteer all those years (doing professional acting work on the side from time to time).

My husband and I joined CRM in 1997, as missionaries, so we raise support from individuals and a couple of churches. CRM is a great organization and the people who serve with CRM are helping all kinds of people live lives focused on what God has called them to be and do, so they practice what they preach in being my cheerleader as an artist who wants to advance the Kingdom in unconventional ways. (my purpose statement is also blogged! http://kimberlycreasman.blogspot.com).
Perhaps you could use some of the questions there on that site to think through your life and crystalize with the Lord what he's calling you to do that is uniquely YOU. I'd really love it if you posted it as comments there - so that others will be encouraged by another artist finding her way!

Hard to know how many of our supporters would give to us if we were both doing ARTS ministry. Hmmm. My husband works in developing pastors and missionaries - to help them be all they can be as God made them. Sometimes I wonder whether people support us because of his more 'acceptable' ministry, and I get to ride on his shirt-tails. Oh wouldn't HE be surprised if it turned out that many give 'cause of their heart's desire to see arts used more in ministry to Jesus!! Maybe it's good that we'll never know! Never-the-less, God has been very good to us in giving us generous faithful supporters, and we have
never had to resort to used tea bags or living on the streets! Hardly. It is an exciting life of faith to see the $ come when it's needed.

But aren't we ALL walking by faith when it comes to finances and work? From what I remember of what you've told me about yourself, you've been living a life of faith in regards to His provision without being a missionary!

I'm now in discussions with a Theological School here in Singapore that wants to start a new Creative Arts Ministry program, starting this fall with a year certificate program with hopes to grow it eventually to a full degree. The students come from mostly surrounding Asian countries, so it's exciting to think that all this time in Asia, and learning Chinese, and being exposed to and exploring some more Asian styles of theatre will "pay off" in being able to have a broader influence than the small circles here that I've been able to touch....YET, even with this, I've had to write them and say, "we need to talk $" before I work too much more on helping think through what the arts curriculum should include and integrating arts into the
biblical and spiritual life courses in the program.

There are some other drama ministry people you can check out through the CITA website. One group has been around the longest is Artists in Christian Testimony (byron spradlin). And Julisa Rowe. Google them. CITA is full of members who are on a similar journey as yourself!

Also, I saw that Lin Sexton (from Modesto First Baptist and long time CITA member) has a regular article on the worshipleader.com website. I'm also looking into what kind of courses Fuller offers - They have a grad program for Christian Artists. Don't know much about it, but we're going to be in USA for a year in 2007, and I may need more structured academic input if I'm going to be working for this theological school. I'm sure they'd prefer I had more than a BA behind my name. At this point, God only knows.

We'll be in Fullerton and Yorba Linda with our parents off and on this summer. Here's a few possible dates for you and I to get together the first week. Let me know if there's a chance to meet up with YLFC drama folks too! I'd love it. I hear you're having the grand opening of the new church soon - largest facility or seating capacity in OC? I was on the construction site last year - it was pretty impressive - awe inspiring. I also hear that it's getting used for some wonderful events besides worship that are sharing the good news of Jesus to your neighbors. Hope to see you this summer.

The Need of More Mentors for Artists

In my "non-programmatic style of mentoring"
here are some comments I gave in a recent interview for createlevoyage.com

I think the networking of spiritual mentors for artists in Singaore has already started at a very grassroots level. Dawn's idea of LightUp! (networking artist mentors) was good but was not a felt need among those potential mentors. It seems to me that many potential mentors have never had the opportunity to be mentored - or coached - so they don't see how valuable a gift
this is to the younger generation. Most people, almost all people, feel like they're still trying to figure it out, and don't feel like they've got much to offer. But simply knowing how to ask good questions and help people discover answers on their own is a powerful influence on lasting life change and growth. In the past 2 years I've been concentrating a lot on learning about coaching and mentoring with the CRM model, Bobby Clinton and others.

Last year I participated in a Pastor's Mentoring Network (Focused Leaders) that my husband Jim does with pastors and C leaders in the marketplace. I'm hoping that I'll soon get a chance to adapt these wonderful life on life tools for right brained artists like myself and be able to share it with our community. Praying about that. In any case, whether it's through CRM Singapore, or other avenues, I sense that some of these older artists will get a chance to be mentored in the near future, so that they can get passionate about being an understanding and wise coach to the next generation of leaders.

Delicious Library

Delicious Library Wowie kazowie! For an "input" person like me, this fun US $40 program for cataloging your personal library using Amazon.com is GREAT. Works much like iphoto, which i love...Thanks Dawn for turning me on to this resource! It adds SPICE TO LIFE!

I had a good laugh today

Marty & Doc? Come on!

Brokeback to the Future Watch it now on StupidVideos!

NARNIA Cast Party

7 on the 5 star lounge
Originally uploaded by K!Mberly.

More cast party pictures./

With only 1/2 the cast in town, we'll just have to have Cast party part II when the dvd comes out...