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Did you know that trees are hard to capture through art? Genesis 1:1 encourages local Christian artist and shares the gospel @ the Crossroads First Friday art event in Kansas City. 😀🎨
Preaching the gospel at recent plein air event is a defining moment for followers of Genesis 1:1. Bill is refocusing his personal efforts to go with and take Genesis 1:1 to the next level.
Show Notes
Otterness Missions
To learn more about Otterness Missions and about upcoming events go to
https://otternessmissions.org/
Genesis 1:1 Fine Arts
www.genesis1-1art.org.
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Nathan Sack 00:00
Hello welcome to another Faith Horizons Kingdom brief. These are short podcasts between 5 and 10 minutes. The purpose of a kingdom brief is to share highlights from ongoing Kingdom activities and announce events in Kansas City. Here are a few of the highlights from this episode. Did you know that trees are hard to capture through art? Genesis 1:1 encourages local artists and shares the gospel at the Crossroads First Friday art event in Kansas City. Preaching the gospel at a recent plein air event is a defining moment for followers of Genesis 1:1. And lastly, Bill is refocusing his personal efforts to go with and take Genesis 1:1 to the next level. Here’s my conversation with Bill Otterness.
Bill Otterness 00:56
Pretty much, it has been a lot of art, one interesting thing that had occurred during that plein air event, you know, because everyone’s outside, viewing the landscape. And at the end of that last day for Art Flood KC, there was a discussion that occurred with a couple of the artists. They decided that trees are very hard to capture, whether with a pencil or the paint, and I’m just listening to this discussion. And you know, it’s like, yeah, it makes sense, you know, because you got a lot of different shades of green and all this different movement going on in a tree itself with branches and things. So they’re just had this long discussion about this. And they decided to do a 40-day tree challenge. It was actually this guy, Joseph. You know, Joseph and his wife, Emily. So Joseph was we should do a 40-day tree challenge and start it on the day of Pentecost. And so Julia put it together and launched it from the website and send out a bunch of emails. So it’s full, strong. It’s going really well. There’s a gentleman from Tasmania who jumped on board. And he’s a day ahead. So he’s, he started the day before, because they’re one day ahead, their Pentecost started a day before ours. Another thing that we’ve been engaged with is First Fridays, down on the Crossroads District.
Nathan Sack 02:22
Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of stuff on Facebook. You guys are posting about that.
Bill Otterness 02:25
Yeah, well-
Nathan Sack 02:27
It looks really cool.
Bill Otterness 02:28
It is. And we’re picking up our pace with that, you know, we’ve been going down there for a couple years now. Every First Friday, there’s a friend of ours who was a curator at the Four Chapter Gallery. And that’s a Christian gallery. She does a phenomenal job, the pastor. It’s associated with a church, Christ Community Church downtown campus. And Gabe is a phenomenal pastor. And he’s got a heart for the art. And so he created this gallery years ago. And so that’s kind of our meeting point. So we’ve been going down there every first Friday. And this year, we like really intentionally have been inviting people to come down there with us so that we could engage in the art community, kind of like in a prayer, walk fashion. And then we always know an artist down there somewhere. So we can meet up at Four Chapter, walk around the Crossroads District, find that artists that’s down there in one of the galleries, pray with them, and then kind of make our way back. So that’s the routine going, you don’t have to be an artist that come down and join us for this.
Nathan Sack 03:28
It happens every first Friday.
Bill Otterness 03:30
Yeah, every first Friday, we meet up at six, we usually get back by nine. And that’s at the Four Chapter Gallery, which is also a part of Christ Community Church downtown. So that’s a new ongoing thing. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that before here. The First Friday’s event.
Nathan Sack 03:46
So you guys do a First Fridays, you get together from six to nine, and you have a prayer walk and just get to know artists.
Bill Otterness 03:53
And since we’re intentional about getting that out there. Well, we’ve been able to get prophetic art teams that come down there too.
Nathan Sack 04:00
Yeah. Cool. Same one that was at the plein air event?
Bill Otterness 04:04
Couple, actually. Now that they know we’re there they like, hey, let’s we might start this up again. Yeah, we’ve got kids down there. We get to take children. It’s a crazy scene. Surprisingly, the kids do very well. So far.
Nathan Sack 04:20
You said during Art Flood KC, you got the opportunity to preach the gospel. And that is that is really, you know, put out the banner, for lack of a better word that you know, you’re a Christian, we are Christians, we are advancing the gospel. And that’s what we do. And so that’s in your words. You said it’s helping bring the Christians to you, but it’s also helping people who are like, oh, I thought you were just you know, writing underneath this Genesis 1:1 because it was something cool to do and made sense. But anyway, can you speak a little bit about that? People are coming and some people are just like-
Bill Otterness 04:55
Yeah, so I’m pretty sure that you know, a lot of people in the art community, especially in the plein art community probably had an idea that, you know, these folks are Christian. But as you know, I mean, unfortunately, there’s a lot of people that are deemed to be in some religious aspect, whether it’s Christianity or Muslim, but they’re not really full hearted, faithful in it, you know. And, you know, we got the Genesis 1:1 thing and so at that Art Flood KC event at the last day, during the presentation time for the award, I was able to share with them my testimony and share with them the gospel of Jesus and who Genesis 1:1 is and what we’re about. And so it was out, you know, that was the public, that was probably the first very public statement for Genesis 1:1 that this is who we are, and this is what we want to share with you is what we do. And so that opened up the gate for a lot of Christians to come and say, this is great. We love this, like Christian artists that we didn’t know were Christian. You know, same thing. I thought, man, that guy might be Christian, you know, he’s full on he’s evangelistic too this guy Donovan. So we enjoyed, you know, reforming those relationships. But then at the same time, Julia received an email from a person who says, you know, I noticed you guys are into this Bible thing, and you really take it seriously, so take me off your email list. Like, okay. So, but one out of the large number of people that have come forward in support of what we’re doing, though, that that’s been that’s been a lot of fun. So it makes me think that well, I know for sure that one thing that’s going to happen with me personally, is I’m going to put a lot more of my time into Genesis 1:1. For not just that reason, but I mean, that’s obviously very significant. But, you know, the Lord has spoke to our leadership about creating Genesis 1:1 as a DBA, for the L3 International Organization. And so to honor that, I really need to kind of retool, if you will. How I’m doing things, who I’m meeting with and what are the outcomes for those meetings or those events, you know, and kind of make them more focused on Genesis 1:1 Fine Art.
Nathan Sack 07:16
Yeah, so you’re gonna, you’re still carrying the evangelistic sword, but at the same time, you’re like, it needs to be married to what we’re doing over here, in order for that those two things to be congruent to come together.
Bill Otterness 07:29
Especially in fine art. So there’s gonna be a lot of prayer, like, how does that really, really work? You know, we’ve done a couple of things. But I feel like there’s something bigger, you know, something more prominent that can occur in the fine art community. And so unless I take my time and prayer and devote to that, I’m not going to be able to really see what that is, I might just get bits and pieces of it. And I make a couple of things happen. You know, it’s like, you know, growing a business, really, I mean, you got to put a lot in there. You got to have a focus on there. I mean, possibly could change the mission statement. You know, it’s, I kind of feel like I’m being retooled.
Nathan Sack 08:10
You said that. Yeah. I mean, Lord, you’re reconditioning me. Interesting, I had another conversation on this podcast about remodeling businesses. And in often times, we go through these seasons of remodeling and so you know, you’re in this retooling remodeling season of your life. Lord’s like, hey, alright, we’re gonna we’re gonna clean out all this room over here. We’re gonna clean out this room over here, and we’re gonna like reposition this time, because you only have so much time for only this.
Bill Otterness 08:42
Yeah and that’s, I think that’s a big part of it, too, is the time. It disappears so fast and being able to honor that time well.
Nathan Sack 08:49
Hey, everybody, thanks for listening to another Faith Horizons podcast. Can you please help get the word out by rating the podcast in iTunes and sharing with those you know so that others can find and discover what God is doing in Kansas City.
