Scripture Engagement

So, I was just chatting with an arts specialist I know, and we were discussing how the arts help with Scripture engagement (SE). I told him that the arts help fly truth under the radar. He went a step further, saying, "Local arts speak directly into people's hearts." Now, that got me thinking. How often do we, in the Bible translation and SE world, talk about how hard it is to get the truth into people's hearts? There are all kinds of barriers: The message might not be contextualised enough, so it doesn't seem relevant or interesting They might not know enough background of the Bible to understand the message It might be in the wrong language (they might not know the prestige language very well) If it's in print, they might not be very literate Even if it's taught, it might not be taught in the right way -  orally , using oral-preference learner techniques of communication i.e. stories, memorisation, show me then let me do it myself (with input), then let ...

It's true - Arts flies the good news under people's radar screen. It's a great way of reaching people's hearts. There are lots of stories that corroborate this. In Asia there was one group that had one hundred hymns translated into their language, but the church was dwindling and few sung the hymns with enthusiasm. Some well-meaning mission workers had had these hymns translated some decades earlier, but the tunes were Western. In came some ethnomusicologists / ethnodoxologists and helped the local people work out which instruments could be used in a worship context, and then helped them write songs which used their own style of music. These songs were so popular that the church moved out of the building and into the village, and many many others started joining in with the worship times! Eventually there were a group of musicians writing songs and leading worship in their community, and the church continued to grow. This is just one of many stories I could share....