It dovetails nicely with the idea of Bible translation. Translating the Bible into peoples' mother tongues is based on some simple concepts. First, that the multitude of languages and cultures is a gift from God. These are to be celebrated and enjoyed rather than squashed, forbidden or marginalized. Second, it's a basic fact that people are able to understand the deepest levels of communication in their heart language or mother tongue.
Well, what we seek to do in Central Africa builds on those two basic concepts, but with the artistic twist. First, that culture and art forms are a gift from God. They are to be celebrated and enjoyed. Second, that people are going to express their deepest thoughts best through their own familiar art forms. In short, our goal is to spark the creation of new worship expressions using the artistic styles that they are most familiar with. So ideally, as scripture is translated into a language, we might come alongside and encourage musicians, dancers, actors, whomever, to use their traditional arts to express the contents of scripture as well as express their worship to God.
The first link below is to a short video that SIL, an affiliate of Wycliffe, has put out explaining some of the work that we will do.
Arts Consultant Video
And this link is to a great story that explains what the results can be when the arts are used to enhance Bible translation.
Canela Music
In fact, there is a great book out there filled with this and other short vignettes from around the world called All the World Is Singing. We highly recommend it. It is available from the author and other places, including Amazon - although last time I tried to get it from Amazon it was backordered.
Thanks for reading. Make sure to leave us any questions you might have in a comment, or e-mail us - clgassler@gmail.com
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