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(updated January
2005)
Founder/Facilitator: Ethnic Worship & Arts Focus
Founder/Facilitator: Great Commission Worship & Arts Center
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* Grace has been a musician since she was a young
girl (keyboards her focus but also singing/some song-writing,
etc.)
* Grace first got involved in missions (Global Outreach Mission)
for a year in 1980 while she was part of a Christian contemporary
band (BondServant) which she was with for 5 years. All of their
music was written and arranged by the band (other than a few exceptions).
While with Global Outreach, they spent time touring in England,
throughout North America, and in India. They helped with some
church planting situations, did evangelistic crusades, encouraged
the Body, did door-to-door evangelism & street meetings, and mobilized
students & others regarding missions.
During her time with BondServant, the band also had the exciting
opportunity of recording several albums (one of which was also
sold internationally) and were also given the chance to do the
music in a radio commerical.
* During their short term (1 year) missions trip, Grace sensed
God strongly calling her to a life of missions. At that time she
felt that He was calling her to India – however she has not yet
been back there. As He trained and equipped her for long-term
missions, He had Grace working amongst local Sikhs (as a part
of a church planting situation) as the assistant to a wonderful,
godly pastor from India.
*
During and since her time in India, she had been praying about
ways in which she could see music and missions 'married' in her
life direction, because while in India, as part of the music/drama
team, she realized that she was becoming increasingly frustrated
with constantly moving from place to place after doing evangelistic
crusades or just a concert. She began to realize that she is more
gifted as a discpler than an evangelist, and enjoys being part
of the longer-term involvements in the lives of those that she
is involved with - being involved in the cultivation process and
then walking alongside new believers as they grow into becoming
total-life, whole-hearted disciples of Jesus Christ the Lord.
Because of this growing frustration, she also began to pray earnestly
for ways that musicians could use their gifts in not only short-term
evangelism but on long-term discipleship and helping to develop
foundations in the spiritual cultivation process before people
would become believers.
The initial answer to this prayer began shortly after she returned
to Canada while working with the Indo-Canadian pastor and Sikhs
in her home-town. In addition to spending a lot of time visiting
in the homes of her Sikh friends, one of her responsibilities
during this time was to write out the music script for the Punjabi-style
Christian songs that this small believing fellowship sang (most
of which were written by the Indo-Canadian pastor she was working
with, who is a very gifted Indian singer/musician/song-writer),
in order that they would be able to continue to pass these songs
on to other believers in the coming years. Little did she know,
at that time, which direction God would be leading her in the
years to come!
Her work among Sikhs took place in her home-town for about 6 years,
during which time God redirected her to focusing on Muslims. This
direction resulted in her joining an international, interdenominational
mission focused on planting indigenous churches in the Muslim
world.
*
Grace has since been with this mission since Dec/89 and was in
the role of Personnel Director for the first 7 years, approximately
(as well as Acting Director for the Canadian headquarters for
nearly 2 of those years while their Director was recovering from
a serious injury).
Over
the years Grace continued to be involved in a number of local
praise and worship bands and several church planting situations
(all of which increasingly led her into moving into the direction
of involvement in what God is developing in the area of house
churches in Canada).
Discipleship/mentoring
is also something that has increasingly been on her heart and
a part of her lifestyle, especially in the area of mentoring musicians
and artists that have a heart to see God's purposes in and through
artists and the arts taking place locally and internationally
in the marketplace especially.
Another involvement of hers is the gathering of missions
resources and making them available to the Body to help the
Body partner together in what God is doing. Partnership of ministries
and missions is a strong value.
One
of the avenues through which she does this is through the Lower
Mainland Ethnic Ministries Network (LMEMN)
e-newsletter.
Along with this is her
heart to reach out and to encourage others in the Body to WORK
TOGETHER in the unity of His Spirit in order to see God's Kingdom
purposes being established in and through His people as they reach
out into their comununities / into the marketplace. Her desire
is to see the Lower
Mainland Network of Christians in Business launched in late
summer or fall of 2005, Lord willing, and before that, in the
summer of 2005, to launch the proposed Gateway
Restoration Network.
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Grace
has played various styles of music - her favourite styles, though,
have been international / ethnic styles. She has been a keyboardist
since she was very young but also came to love singing in the
past 25 years or so. She greatly enjoy various rhythms and besides
playing keyboards, also enjoys playing tambourine and other small
percussive instruments as opportunities arise.
Because
she’s had Rheumatoid Arthritis for over 30 years, and although
the medications have drastically affected her singing and the
deformities her playing technique and abilities, she still enjoys
playing piano ,as able, even though many of her technical abilities
have been severely hampered. She’s very grateful to the Lord that
she can still play, because for several years she was unable to
do so, for the most part, as music went through a 7-year 'death'
in her life both physically and also because of what God was doing
in her life (ie. a corn of wheat must fall into the ground and
die before it can bear much fruit...)
In the past 7 years or so she has written about 40 songs, as well,
and hopes to continue to do so.
*
Grace has also been doing more writing
over the years, and has recently begun to develop a new art form
(for her) in making plasticene figurines (EthniClay).
She has also been further enjoying developing another love of
hers - photography.
* Back to her involvements in missions and church planting - as
mentioned earlier, because she is a discipler at heart, she had
thought for many years that there must be ways that Great Commission-minded
musicians could be utilized more effectively in long-term missions,
but had rarely heard of such opportunities during her first years
in missions. Most of what she was aware of were short-term music/drama
teams such as she had been on.
As a result, in the early 90’s, this prompted her to begin her
own private research on the kinds of things God was doing in indigenous
church planting situations, especially among Muslims, where the
gifts of musicians/worship leaders were being utilized.
* In 1983 the President of a Bible College she was attending mentioned
to her the aspect of using ethnomusicology in missions, and said
that he felt that was the direction she should go. Grace had never
heard about 'ethnomusicology' until that point - and really didn't
give it much thought until she began to work with Sikhs. When
the President talked to her about this, although she was fascinated
by what she heard, she was not ready for this suggestion (because
it seemed it would require a lot of additional schooling, which
she didn't feel she was to take) and put it on her mental back-burners.
However, some years later it began to grow in her and became not
only a desire, but seemed to be the beginning of a shifting direction
in her life in some major ways.
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*
She began to see in Scripture how deeply God desires that ALL
nations and ethnic groups worship Him with all their heart, soul,
mind and strength, and increasingly saw how God is calling us
to be disciples which allow Him to live out His life and love
through us, and our worship of Him, in EVERY ASPECT OF OUR LIVES.
She believes that this can be greatly encouraged (in the area
of music and the arts) through encouraging the new believers to
worship God with their own redeemed cultural artistic expressions
which are being renewed as God brings them closer to Himself.
Especially
as the world is increasingly influenced by music, the arts and
the media, she believes it is imperative - in every people group
- that out of a deepening lifestyle of worship and growing intimacy
with God, His musicians and artists move into His calling for
them in the arts in His big picture for the nations as we seek
His heart, His timing, His methods, etc.
Grace also began to see how God is an incredible Artist (in fact
it is the first description we have of Him in Genesis!) and how
He uses His art to make Himself known to the extent that 'man
is without excuse' (Romans 1)!
She also began to see that many (most?) Christian musicians and
artists did/do not understand the biblical foundations of music
and the arts in Scripture - ie. the role of music and the arts
in the Bible, and the role of God's musicians and artists in the
Bible, etc.), and did not understand how vital their role is in
the Great Commission.
* Grace has since felt led to develop the Ethnic
Worship & Arts Focus (around 1995?) and since then the
Great Commission
Worship & Arts Center (since around 1997), based in the
Vancouver region of BC, Canada.
Grace
has been focusing her main attentions, since then, on encouraging
Christian musicians & artists, and especially Great Commission-minded
musicians and artists, in Canada and around the world, to become
total-life, whole-hearted worshippers of Jesus Christ, and to
become the musicians and artists that God is calling them to be
in Him in this crucial time in history, which includes considering
ways in which He may desire to use us/them to become a vital part
of the Great Commission, and more specifically a vital part of
church planting teams among unreached peoples, wherever they may
be located...locally or overseas.
* Her role in this aspect of missions has increasingly been one
which involves:
presenting to God's people the awareness of what God is doing
and raising up in this area; consultation, networking, research
and developing resources; coordinating related events; vision
casting & implementation; internships; partnership development;
mobilizing prayer, finances and missions-minded musicians and
artists; helping to facilitate training of missions-minded musicians
& artists; matching resources and people to specific needs &
opportunities locally and internationally; resourcing churches,
missions, ministries, missionaries, Christian
music/missions educators re the above, etc. in order to see indigenous
peoples becoming total-life, whole-hearted worshippers of Jesus
Christ, glorifying Him throughout the earth!
Grace believes that we as we utilize these gifts and reclaim musicians
and artists, and music and the arts for the sake of the Kingdom
and whole-hearted worship of God, that we will begin to see God
using this as a catalyst to see people movements coming to Christ
and see God use these gifts to help DISCIPLE THE NATIONS, which
is our calling. It is His desire to be worshipped among all peoples
because HE IS WORTHY OF OUR WHOLEHEARTED WORSHIP!
Grace believes that we as missions-minded musicians & artists
are very privileged to have opportunities such as this in such
an exciting time in history!
May all nations come to worship Jesus!
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