Visual Arts
"When local arts call to people at a deep level, they see the relevance of God’s word to their spiritual hunger and are free to commit to Christ while remaining members of their culture."
"The word that gives life rightly lives in all parts of our lives as it is sung, danced, dramatized, drawn, and told in stories and poems, as well as being studied and read."
Article abstract:
Because languages and arts are means of communication, principles from the field of language development that communities apply to strengthen language vitality also strengthen the vitality of local artistic genres. Arts development expands a community’s existing uses of orality and arts to new topics and functions to better meet community goals together.
Status development activities increase the number of domains of use and the level of respect given local artistic genres. Corpus development activities describe genre forms and create new works in them. Acquisition development activities add to the number of people who perform or experience new works, and increase people’s interest in them.
When communities work together to meet their Kingdom goals, arts development activities add to the number of people who encounter God’s word in life-transforming ways. [more...]
"Good News" is an evangelistic Bible teaching audio-visual. It presents a quick Bible overview from Creation to Christ's resurrection in 20 pictures, with a further 20 pictures of basic teaching on the Christian Life.
The "Look, Listen and Live" series of 8 audio-visuals gives studies of Old Testament characters, the life of Jesus, and the young Church. There are 24 pictures in each book.
"The Living Christ" series of Bible pictures illustrates the Life of Christ, from Creation to His second coming. [more...]
Choosing to illustrate interesting events in the text may help build audience interest in the story of Scripture, and this interest may be more foundational to audiences’ relationship with God than knowledge of details about what objects and places looked like.
Illustrations often serve motivational functions for readers, especially reluctant readers, increasing their enjoyment of a text and the amount of time they give it. Various audiences require different kinds of Scripture visuals to care about the message and understand it well. Just as translators need to carefully check the words of Scripture, it is important that they also check Scripture illustrations with members of the intended audience, and if needed, change their choices based on this interview feedback. This paper encourages translation teams to check visual elements of Scripture with members of the intended audience, and helps prepare consultants to check illustrations based on local visual vocabulary, grammar and rhetoric.
This is an edited version of a paper presented at the Bible Translation Conference in October 2015, Dallas, Texas. [more...]
"Not everybody can wait! Written translation often takes years. What if we could have Bible stories in video form in weeks? What if you had a tool to engage people in the Bible translation process while broadening access to the Scriptures?
"A new media strategy, introduced in a cluster project in Papua New Guinea with initial success, provides hands-on involvement engaging learners cognitively, emotionally, and physically, and generating ownership of the final product. The process, which involves recording Bible stories, can be used at any stage of a translation project. Digital images help convey the story culturally, historically, and geographically leading to learner-driven dialogue. The discussion among the national team can reveal implicit information and key terms, and can facilitate the effectiveness of explicit information. Scripts recorded in the vernacular, along with music and a choice of images for each story, are easily assembled into video. The video-stories can be shared in a number of formats, including cell phones."
This paper was presented at the Bible Translation Conference 2011. [more...]
Originally designed for use in Africa, this storying scarf is now used around the world in ministry to oral learners.
Included with the scarf is a Story Guide with scripture references that accompany each of the 42 stories on the cloth.
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The most popular global reading format is comics. In almost every area of the world, sequential art is an effective inroad into Scripture engagement and bridge to Scripture explanation and reading. Super Bible.TV hosts the most complete graphic adaptation of the Bible ever done in numerous languages. With over 2,000 pages and 10,000 panels this graphic translation of Scripture covers all 66 books of the Bible and is a key Scripture bridge for Bible-less peoples, non-believers and the functionally illiterate.
The decline in Bible reading among millennials and teens has been documented by a recent Barna Report funded by the American Bible Society, demonstrating that 32% of Millennials never read the Bible but the percentage is even more drastic among teens at 48%. Meanwhile, in the greater public sphere comics readership has grown 42% the last five years. The Comic Bible Society sees the continuing growth in comics readership but the plummeting Bible engagement as a dynamic intersection to enter with Holy Writ.
In this article, Comic Bible Society President Art Ayris shares the top ten Scripture engagement keys his non-profit organization uses to engage various languages in Scripture: cultural acceptance, reader engagement, efficiency of format, educational, literacy, effectiveness, evangelism, transcultural, social media and Scripture engagement. [more...]
Brian Schrag’s Creating Local Arts Together manual has both a stirring and exhilarating effect as the reader envisions the possibility of a community’s arts used for the purposes of God’s kingdom and, at the same time, is thorough and informative with respect to the research process involved in getting to know the arts and worldview of a community.
The manual contains seven sections which correspond to the seven steps of Creating Local Arts Together. They are:
- Meet a community and its arts
- Specify kingdom goals
- Select effects, content, genre, and events
- Analyze an event containing the chosen genre
- Spark creativity
- Improve new works
- Integrate and celebrate for continuity
Gunnhild Bremer has written a review of the book (downloadable below) which includes reasons why it is useful for Scripture Engagement practitioners. [more...]
A set of 105 pictures designed to accompany the Firm Foundations chronological Bible teaching study.
Available in colour, black and white, laminated, and on CD.
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"We often see the 'greatest message' presented in the 'poorest way'. This project is all about seeking to present the Bible in the best possible way for children."
Over 100 beautifully illustrated Bible picture sets, available in PowerPoint format to download. Designed for use when telling Bible stories, especially in children's ministry. [more...]
Created by Bible illustrator Graham Kennedy of Foundation Matters, these new Bible pictures have been chosen to illustrate and complement the stories that are included in Ethnos360's Firm Foundations Bible study curriculum.
The 209 illustrations cover Bible stories from the Creation in Genesis through the Acts of the Apostles. [more...]