Podcast Episodes

Dan ABH 0:00
Hey, Lisa. This Wise-Hearted Ones series is awesome. It's very packed, though.

Lisa Smith 0:05
If only there were a study guide or something to go along with it.

Dan ABH 0:09
Have we created one yet?

Lisa Smith 0:10
We have actually created one, Dan. We just created a study guide with lots of great questions, some word study and a teeny bit of commentary. So you can go deeper on your own or with a group of friends.

Dan ABH 0:23
So head over to www.soulmakers.org/bemakedo

Lisa Smith 0:27
And download your free Wise-Hearted Ones study guide.

Lisa Smith 0:42
Hello, welcome to Be.Make.Do. a soul|makers podcast where we explore what it takes to live out your call in the arts with spiritual wholeness and creative freedom. I'm your host, Lisa Smith here with my producer Dan ABH.

Dan ABH 0:56
Hello everyone.

Lisa Smith 0:57
And it is our passion to encourage you to become who you were created to be, make what you were created to make, and do what you were created to do. And today, we have reached the final episode of our series on the Wise-Hearted Ones in Exodus, and I'm so sad. Are you sad, Dan?

Dan ABH 1:17
Well, I was gonna say I'm more excited.

Lisa Smith 1:20
I could just keep talking about it forever. Okay, so what's what's like a highlight from the season for you?

Dan ABH 1:27
Oh, wow. I think a big highlight for me was being able to interact and talk to some of our listeners, all over the world. Which was really cool. That's always a dream when you produce a podcast, you know, but then when you really get to do it, and feedback has been excellent. And so being on the producer end of the show, I get all the compliments. So I really enjoyed that was a big highlight. Yeah. And I'm usually kind of shy, a little bit about that when somebody compliments how good something that we worked on. But I was very excited. I loved our guests.

Lisa Smith 2:08
Yeah, I was gonna say we've had some really wonderful conversations.

Dan ABH 2:13
Powerhouses. Yeah, we had Jennifer Allen craft, and Deborah Sokolove and Elise Edwards.

Lisa Smith 2:20
And then we had Stephen Roach from the Makers and Mystics podcast.

Dan ABH 2:24
And Marlita Hill, you finally got to speak to Marlita. It was great. It was awesome. Yeah, this has been a great season.

Lisa Smith 2:33
What's what's so fun in connecting with people is seeing how many people really are working as artists in this wise-hearted way. And to be able to affirm that and to be able to give some tools to help people to live out their calling in that way. It's just so so rewarding. That's why we do what we do. Yes, it is. So it's been great.

Lisa Smith 2:53
So okay, what's coming up next, we are getting ready to close off this season. Oh, right. Also, if you haven't yet, be sure to visit www.soulmakers.org and download our free study guide. Maybe grab some friends, go back to some old episodes and use those questions and exercises as a guide to go further in all of this. And we're also hoping to add the transcripts from the shows from all of our episodes onto our website soon. So keep checking in. But be sure to go to soulmakers.org and download that free study guide.

Lisa Smith 3:29
What have we got coming up next after we're finished with this series? What's happening next?

Dan ABH 3:33
Yeah, so we're going to be sharing some unaired interviews, we're going to be re-looking at some stuff from Season 1. We're going to be doing a special episode and creating our new trailer for our upcoming season.

Lisa Smith 3:50
Yes, very excited to start getting into that. And we will tell you more about that soon- just a little teaser.

Lisa Smith 3:57
But for now, we are going to finish out this season of the Wise-Hearted Ones. And really this last episode is my hope and prayer for you. Because as I say in the episode, I believe that God is raising up artists, creatives and makers as wise-hearted ones for a similar task to the one in Exodus: to make His presence visible in a thousand particular ways. In Bezalel and Oholiab, we have the prototype of artists ordained to serve, not as missionaries or pastors or anything else, but as artists, as wise-hearted ones. Let's get started.

Dan ABH 4:41
Let's do it.

Lisa Smith 4:51
We like to say that all people are creative. But technically speaking, that's not really true. I mean, of force, everyone is creative to some degree. But statistically speaking, it's actually only a very small percentage of the population that is really creative, like artistically, innovatively inclined. Saying everyone is creative is like saying everyone can do math. It's true, up to a certain point. But there's no denying that some people are more inclined and gifted towards being astronauts and physicists and not everyone is willing to take on the level of discipline and study required to hone that raw talent and develop the skills to be really good at it.

Lisa Smith 5:41
What's essential for the average person like balancing a checkbook, multiplication tables, etc., that's only the beginning for a virologist. And the same is true of creativity and art. There is something unique and special about this gift, which carries with it not status and honor, but responsibility, the responsibility to make. Just like those who study and serve in the maths and sciences, artists and makers have an essential role to play in our societies.

Lisa Smith 6:17
What if that calling goes beyond mere self expression? To what artists and scholar Deborah Haines calls "the realm of prophetic criticism and visionary imagination". What if we, like Walter Brueggemann, saw artistic work as a ministry of imagination? Why does it seem scary to consider the mythical and prophetic power of artistic capacity? In spite of caution from religious critics against the slippery slope into idol making, the Bible encourages a vision for artists as tabernacle makers: artists who create in concert with God to make the holy visible in our daily lives through beauty and wonder.

Lisa Smith 7:04
I believe that the arts are a language given to us as a gift, a way to connect and communicate beyond where logical thought and words can travel. God's creation of the natural world, and even of the order of love is His constant communication to us. And Jesus' invitation is to develop the eyes to see so that we may take notice of God's Kingdom in our midst.

Lisa Smith 7:34
Conversely, we are given creative capacity to express the deepest parts of our hearts and just speak about the things which defy logic; to ask the questions we have only groans and no words for. The arts are the means by which we explore the deep existential questions of what it means to be human. Why am I here? What does it mean to love another person? How do I exist in pain and suffering? And the arts are also the way we express our deepest fears and our greatest joys, the things that move before and beyond logical language, that have the capacity to reach out and touch and connect with the lives of others.

Lisa Smith 8:21
A biblical model of prophetic artistry imagines a humble capacity to hold up an image of the world as it is, while calling forth visions for the world as God intends it to be. An artist committed to working in this way, maintains the ability to hold incongruity, discord and juxtaposition lightly in their being, and the capacity to make and create artifacts which draw our attention to something higher, or at the very least something beyond ourselves. They help us turn and tune our innermost desires and longings toward their ultimate goal: wholeness in God, our Creator and Sustainer.

Lisa Smith 9:07
This is no ordinary gift. Such an artist sees their calling, not as a means of building themselves up, of making a name for themselves or even making their mark. But rather sees their gift as just that-- a gift given for service to the people of God for the glorification of God. The trouble is, when we say things like this in Christian circles, we can often hear it too simplistically. Thinking that what's meant is to create art only for use in church or creating "churchy art" or art that is only devotional or apologetic or evangelistic. But those are neither the limits of what glorifies God, nor are they always even the best examples of art that glorifies God. The scope has to be widened considerably to include every part of life, including and especially the public square, if it's going to have any effect on the larger culture we are called to create and live in.

Lisa Smith 10:15
I'd love to see Christians employing these artistic languages, less as tools for didactic evangelism or teaching and more in their natural mode, as signposts and evidence of God's Kingdom alive and at work all around us. As an artist of faith, I have struggled my whole life to justify and integrate these two pieces of myself, not realizing that they were already woven together by design. My artistic gifts-- and more than that, my artistic sensibilities are intricately tied with a knowledge or a sense of God, of who God is and how He operates. It is through my creative lens, my imaginative lens, my sensing lens that I've gotten something of who God is; something that doesn't quite come across in sermons or books, or even in the daily life of the church. But I do find it mirrored back to me in the fictional writings of CS Lewis, and in paintings and music, not usually the stuff of formal theology or doctrine. I also see it in the contemplative tradition of the ancient desert fathers and mothers; in the visions of Teresa of Avila, in the mystic sensibility of Ignatius of Loyola. Even in Mother Teresa, whose actions were driven more by a mystical sense of the reality of Christ, in every person she saw in front of her more than any ethical conviction to help. She reenacted Christ's salvific work every day, calling it forth into being in a tangible way. This is the crux, the making the intangible tangible, the invisible, visible.

Lisa Smith 12:11
Today, I believe that God is raising up artists, creatives and makers as wise-hearted ones, for a similar task to the one in Exodus; to make his presence visible in a thousand particular ways, filling them with His Spirit, gifting them and calling them to discipleship and commitment to serve in the same way. In Bezalel and Oholiab we have the prototype of artists ordained to serve; not as missionaries or pastors, but as artists. If the Israelites desperately needed to be shaped by the tangible presence of God in their daily lives, why should we think that we're any different now? And if God felt it necessary to ordain artists for the purpose of making himself visible to the, wouldn't it make sense that God never stopped?

Lisa Smith 13:07
And wouldn't it make sense that now in the 21st century, when more than ever we are cocooned by images and media, that God would raise up an army of creatives, fill them with His Spirit and make Himself known in ways that sermons and church services just don't even have the opportunity to anymore? I'm imagining that many of you who are artists and makers hearing this are having trouble even wrapping your heads around it. It sounds too grand, too self-aggrandizing to consider being "called" by God. Because we have forgotten the artists call.

Lisa Smith 13:47
We've forgotten what they were ordained to do. We've forgotten that they're not here at the end of the chain of command to be bridled into manipulating people to think or do something. We've forgotten that God speaks directly to them as well. We forget that God has called them to the ministry of imagination, helping us to learn to see with the eyes of our hearts, with the mind of Christ.

Lisa Smith 14:15
I believe the church in the West today, and the West in general, is suffering, at least in part, because we have forgotten the call of the artist to work in the world as culture makers and shapers. And it would be wise for us as the church to look around and identify the ceiling artists and designers, makers, game designers, filmmakers, musicians, illustrators, authors, poets, dancers, visual, performing, digital and community based artists of all kinds that God has planted - many times outside the institutional church - and is even now raising up and beginning to harvest so that we may prepare them for the work to which they were called. These artists are coming to fruit-bearing season. Will they be ready for the task?

Lisa Smith 15:12
For you who are called, for you who were planted by God, often in inhospitable soil, I want to affirm your call. I want you to hear the story of Bezalel and Oholiab and see a way forward: a way of faithfulness, humility, clarity and extreme freedom and fulfillment. One that is deeply rooted in disciplined practice and accountable community.

Lisa Smith 15:39
The point is, to be really good as an artist, as God intended, you must apply the wisdom of the heart; that is proper attuning and attention of your life and will to God's will, in service to that which you were called to be about. So this is being who you were created to be: a child of God. And making what you were created to make, in this case, your art in service to God, for whatever purposes God puts in front of you to do.

Lisa Smith 16:15
The way to wholeness as an artist, and as a person of faith, is to recognize that these two pieces of yourself are already integrated... by God's design. One makes the other possible and the fullness of your call comes to fruition only through living a deeply devoted, wise-hearted way of life. "By wisdom a house is built and through understanding it is established; through knowledge it's rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures" (Proverbs 24:3-4).

Lisa Smith 17:12
I hope you've enjoyed the Wise-Hearted Ones. If you started listening somewhere in the middle of the season, I invite you to go back and listen to earlier episodes. And don't forget to download the free study guide. Thank you for listening, emailing, reaching out and most of all, thank you for creating.

Dan ABH 17:32
Thanks for listening to Be.Make.Do. a soul|makers podcast. If you want to go deeper, be sure to visit soulmakers.org and download our free Wise-Hearted Ones study guide with questions for personal reflection or discussion with a group, plus word studies, and more.