Art Life Faith Podcast

Here is a brief report from our relief trip to Ishikawa Prefecture last weekend, responding to the needs from that enormous 7.6 magnitude earthquake that struck the region on January 1, 2024. My church, Grace City Church Tokyo, sent a youth team of 3 adults and 7 junior high, high school, and college students. ...

This episode, I want to share some stories from Christmas concerts in Fukushima. Yes, that Fukushima, the second-only-to-Chernobyl-nuclear-meltdown-disaster-of-epic-proportions Fukushima. We were invited to that area to give some Christmas concerts.

Many of you have been writing me about this earthquake that hit Japan just a couple of weeks ago on January 1st. What a way to begin the new year! As you know, it was a pretty big one. I was in Nagano, not far from the epicenter. The ground was jolting so hard that it was impossible to walk. ...

Welcome back to the Art, Life, Faith Podcast, and I’m your host Roger Lowther. This really has been fun for me, sharing conversations in the past two episodes recorded at the GCAMM Conference, the Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions, as it helps me remember what I learned and also the people I befriended there. In this third and last episode, let’s do this just one more time, and continue to travel from table to table during lunch time and see who else we can meet. ...

I’m excited to continue our discussion from the last episode, giving a little peek into some of the conversations and relationships that were happening at the GCAMM Conference this past September in Ft. Worth, Texas, the Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions. Let’s pick up where I left off last time and continue to mosey on through the cafeteria with mic in hand while everyone is eating their lunch and just see who else we can meet.

This episode, I am honored to introduce you to some of the people I met at the GCAMM Conference in Fort Worth, Texas, the Global Consultation on Arts and Music in Missions. It took place September 11-14, 2023 at Southwestern Baptist University.

This is our 50th podcast episode. Woo hoo! Happy birthday, Art Life Faith Podcast! I can't believe we've done this 50 times now. I'm so grateful for all of you who've come along with us on this journey and who've supported this podcast in so many ways, by continuing to listen, by giving it five-star ratings, and leaving your reviews. We've had 5,000 downloads so far since we first started three years ago in the height of the pandemic, and we continue to grow each and every episode. Thank you for spreading the word!

This is our 50th podcast episode. Woo hoo! Happy birthday, Art Life Faith Podcast! I can't believe we've done this 50 times now. I'm so grateful for all of you who've come along with us on this journey and who've supported this podcast in so many ways, by continuing to listen, by giving it five-star ratings, and leaving your reviews. We've had 5,000 downloads so far since we first started three years ago in the height of the pandemic, and we continue to grow each and every episode. Thank you for spreading the word!

"This is the place I go for church. And this is the place that I go to hang out with my friends. And this is the space that I might go for some artistic event or some cultural event. But I really believe that we're made to be holistic humans. We're wearing all these different hats, and we're going to all these different spaces. And at the same time, we're like, “Why can't it all be brought together? Why can't it all be holistic the way that it was made to be?” ...

“Kanpai!” We called in a loud voice together as we clinked our little ceramic cups. This was my very first experience of sake and I really didn't know what to make of it. ...

Nukadoko is a mixture of rice bran, salt, and water, where cucumbers, carrots, radishes, and other vegetables could be put in to make a specific kind of pickle called nukazuke. It has to be stirred daily to prevent the growth of mold and allow fermentation to continue to happen. And here is the interesting part. It has to be stirred by hand. The yeast in the fermentation comes solely through the hands of mom in the kitchen and can be passed down from generation to generation. ...

Deep in the shadows of the mountains and autumn leaves, red paper lantern faintly illuminated the entrance to a traditional Japanese restaurant. The roar of a river filled our ears as it plummeted down the cliff next to the road. The air was moist and cold, as was typical for that time of the year. ...

All 40 plastic gallon jugs were completely empty. I lifted each just to be sure. Sweat evaporated from my face so quickly that all I felt were deep layers of salt crusted on my skin. Hot wind blew in my face as if from a hairdryer. Knee-high bushes and cacti did little to provide shade. Abi and I were hiking across the Mojave Desert, a 37-mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail, famous for its high temperatures and lack of water. ...

Let me try to paint the picture for you. You're walking through a really busy shopping district. There's nothing Christian anywhere around. Then you suddenly come upon Mayu's pop-up shop in the middle of the most popular area of the busiest city on the planet. And there Mayu sat, in a display window, painting and talking with everyone who came by. ...

March 11, 2023 is the 12th anniversary of that devastating earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that struck the nation of Japan, and a day that changed everything for me. During that time, I saw firsthand the power of the arts to bring hope and encouragement during really dark times. The people I worked with in the relief movement had lost everything—family members, friends, homes, jobs, entire towns. And during that time, people responded to the arts in ways I never dreamed possible. We knew people really needed food, water, and supplies. But it turns out they really needed beauty as well. ...

Welcome to the Art Life Faith Podcast. This is the show where we talk about art, what it has to do with your life and what it has to do with the Christian faith. And I'm your host, Roger Lowther. Well, I got back late last night from a three-week trip to the US and I really pushed probably a little too hard, so I'm pretty tired, but glad to be back and looking forward to continuing the stories about how God is working here in Japan. I first made a trip to Boston where I gave an organ concert for a new organ installation. I met a lot of people during my time there, and also spoke at a college. Then I traveled to Memphis, where I spoke and played in a foreign missions conference and was interviewed by a radio station. I had the privilege of being one of the main speakers for the conference. The theme was arts, worship, and missions. For the Sunday morning service, I spoke about the role of worship in the call to missions. And in the evening service, I spoke about the role of the arts in the call to missions. In case you're interested, I've included links to both in the show notes for this episode on my YouTube channel. One of the fun elements of the conference was a collaborative art project. The idea was to be able to create something that we could bring back to Japan and use in the ministries here. There were three large banners where people could write prayers for the Japanese people on Japanese origami paper, tear them into small pieces, and paste them onto the banners. It was a tangible way to show prayers and encouragement from America for the people of Japan. The art project also had additional symbolism of brokenness. By tearing the paper, we were symbolically showing our own brokenness, and in the hands of the artist, this brokenness comes together to make a beautiful picture. In this case, it was a scenic picture of Mount Fuji with a rainbow behind it and Christ carrying the cross at the base of the mountain. And all this was designed by our intern, Mayuko. There was also a campaign to raise money for Community Arts Tokyo. This summer, we're going to have lots of events with interns and short-term missionaries who are planning to come to Japan. Japan has really been closed down lately. In America, COVID may seem like something that's in the past, but not so here. People are still pretty fearful. I live on the 22nd floor of an apartment building, which means I have to ride an elevator many times a day. And believe me, if I forget to put a mask on, there will be consequences. Others will furiously go for the buttons to get off at the next floor. We also still have large plastic dividers on tables at restaurants and still have to sanitize our hands going into many buildings along with temperature checks. Restrictions for worship services were just lifted in December, only two months ago, so people are still really fearful of getting together. We tried a few small events, but they really weren't well attended. But the idea is that by this summer, through the activities of Community Arts Tokyo, by renting spaces, providing food, and giving music and art events people would be willing to overcome their fears and gather together again and form community around beauty. And we pray that God is going to use these efforts for the sake of his glory in the building of his church. There are many interns and short-term trips coming this summer, not just with our team, but with all the other missionary teams as well because last year, the country was still pretty much locked down. And people have been waiting. Now they're ready and raring to go. And we sure can use their excitement and energy. So for this episode, I thought it'd be fun for a change to interview two interns who were here last month to give them an opportunity to share their perspective of their time in Japan. The first I'd like to introduce you to is Zoe Phillips. She's planning to graduate from university this May with a degree in composition and ...

I was saved in college in 2000 in the USA, where the pastor told me to ‘put off your old life of sin, everything Japanese, and put on the new life in Christ.’ I tried very hard to do that for 18 years in the States through marriage, childbirth, my husband's affair, separation, single mothering, running a social enterprise, and my art. And now I'm trying to find Christ in Japanese culture. ...

Everything we delight in now in the festival of Christmas is but a taste of that ultimate beauty and joy we find in the Great Festival of Heaven.

In a profound and mysterious way, God saved the world by coming into the world. He came as a little "thread" to 結ぶ (musubu), "to tie" onto our tangled and fraying lives and communities. Jesus was cut off on the cross that we might be tied to God. He became the isolated and broken strand so that we could be gathered into community with him. In a world quickly unraveling in sin, he binds us together with his love into a big and beautiful tapestry in the peace and harmony of the kingdom of God.

In my first month in Japan, I was helping to lead worship on a pipe organ, when an older missionary came up and started to berate me. “You can’t play that kind of music here. It’s completely against everything we’re trying to do for the Japanese church.” I was a bit shocked, but I could see his point. As Christians, we want to see the nations of the world worship God in their heart languages…their spoken language, but also their musical language and their cultural language. The music of Messiaen, Vierne, Widor, and all the other Western composers who’ve written for the organ are not part of their heart language…so, doesn’t that mean I shouldn’t play that music while church planting in Japan? I mean, what role do I have, someone trained in distinctly Western styles of music, in bringing the gospel to the people of Japan?