Find yourself, imaginatively, in an art gallery in China...   Applause echoes as the artist welcomes everyone to his show, "The Woman At The Well." People walk through the gallery viewing images of ordinary women visiting their local watering hole…snapshots of gossip, grief, boredom, family problems, abusive relationship, laughter, or sorrow. As they pass, Christians are praying for them, interacting with them, and sharing the love of Jesus with them.   The artist is the brother of Joe Steinke, who came to Germany from Madison, Wisconsin to share with us at the ILG. Joe serves as the Pastor of Discipleship and Outreach at Mad City Church. He is also Director of Mad City Training Community, a three-year training course focusing on discipleship, bible training, prayer and ministry.   Joe brought to us a wealth of insight about friendship, community, living in God’s value system, and about the power of our imaginations in Christ. As he shared with us Saturday morning, he gave us an overview of what his community in Madison is like and then highlighted his community’s journey into the sanctified imagination.
Joe sharing with the crew...	Friendship and Community The Mad City Training Community operates under the principles of discipleship, equipping and releasing people to take the love of Jesus to the world.   “We are God’s value carriers, and we seek to live and steward those values in the context of community,” Joe said. “Community lives together, loves together, learns together, and goes together.”   In hearing Joe’s testimony, we learned how his parents had given their lives to Jesus around the age of 30, and about the radical change that their decision brought in their family.
About 385 people lived in with the Steinkes during Joe’s childhood, staying for as long as six years in friendship and Christian fellowship. In his life-long journey of Christian community, Joe maintains that the heart of community is sharing everything in Christ: “Living in community means having an open-armed posture towards the world - your friends and the needy,” he said.   In order to maintain and grow relationships in the context of Christian mission, Joe challenged 24-7 to create an environment that both releases people to try new and crazy things while allowing maximum room for failure.
If everyone has permission to fail, then everyone feels permission to try new things.

 

“I never want to promote an atmosphere of drivenness,” Joe said. “Getting everyone all rallied up for something in the future is dangerous because we can miss each other in the process.”

An atmosphere of learning and creativity bears much fruit in the Madison community. The group consistently uses several art forms as outreach in Madison and across the globe.   The "Woman at the Well" art show mentioned above for instance, thematic of the John 4 story in which a woman meets Jesus at her local watering hole, is a typical example of how the Mad City guys take Jesus into the community via art.   “Everything starts with the cosmic nature, the awesome character of Christ,” Joe said, pointing out that the first chapter of John, Ephesians, Colossians, and Hebrews are completely centered on the awesome character and nature of Jesus. “Jesus has inseparably bonded Himself to us to restore our dignity, and by doing so we can take part in that cosmic wonder of His nature as well.”
"Everything starts with the cosmic nature, the awesome character of Christ..."	Bringing Jesus into the realm of art is brilliant because an art gallery, a theater, and an opera house all have this in common: people come for the very reason of, and with the expectation of, experiencing something beautiful outside of themselves. What better a place for someone to ‘accidentally’ gaze upon the beauty of God!
The community has also performed several musicals throughout the world, bringing the testimony of Jesus to the stage.   “We have learned the value of seeing the studio as a sanctuary,” Joe said. “The glory of God seen through artistic expression in the studio or prayer room brings expressions of the gospel that can be shared throughout the world. We want to put the glory of God on display for people around us."

 

To reach people with the love of Jesus through the arts remains a high aspiration of the Boiler Room communities that 24-7 is planting around the world. Getting a glimpse of how Joe’s community creatively shares the love of Jesus was deeply moving for the 24-7 community. We were reminded of how big God is, and how able He is to speak to us and through us in every facet of society…especially through our sanctified imaginations. As Joe shared with us, we were also deeply challenged to increase the quality of love that we have for one another. Friendship and biblical community have always been a key value of 24-7, and Joe spurred us on in those values in a convicting way.

 

 

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