Featured Ethnodoxologist: Elsen Portugal

Name: Elsen Portugal Organizations/Affiliations: GEN Board member; Wycliffe Global Alliance; Gospel Light Baptist Church, Hot Springs, AR; SIL Brazil; Junta de Missões Nacionais (Brazilian National Mission Board) – JMN; Horizontes Latin America; Ph.D. Candidate at B. H. Carroll Theological Institute. How did you get started in ethnodoxology?  I had been involved in missions and in music in sort…

Featured Ethnodoxologist: Jill Ford

Name: Jill Ford Organizations/Affiliations: All Nations Christian College Arts Release previously known as Resonance Arts/WEC: www.facebook.com/loveartsrelease World Evangelical Alliance Mission Commission Arts Plus Europe Christian Artists Seminar How did you get started in ethnodoxology? My journey in ethnodoxology began through my working partnership with Ian Collinge (of Arts Release), who introduced me to the concept…

Oral Arts Festival

In India, Jireh Ministries hosted an Oral Arts Festival. Drums, songs, dances, dramas, poetry, clothing, jewelry, and other local art forms brought the stories of Scripture alive for both audience and performers. “The cultures they love, in which they have grown up, have become splendid vehicles to communicate the Scriptures that they also love.” (adapted…

Art by Safina

In Australia, Safina (Fergie) Stewart’s paintings are “infused with biblical meanings and a sense of joyful hopefulness…. She makes her living as an artist from the sale of her original works and reproductions both online and at a local Indigenous art market where she is able to informally share the meanings behind her artwork. Her Indigenous…

Touching the heart of the Russian people

In Russia, a Bosch painting of Christ strongly impacted Konstantin Zhigulin. This painting spoke directly to Zhigulin’s heart, while translated church songs seemed unattractive to him because they were “not at all related to anything in Russian culture” (Handbook p 339). Today, Zhigulin composes worshipful songs that “[touch] the heart and soul of the Russian…

Canela Hymn “Let Us Intercede”

In Brazil, Tom used the musical analysis of Canela traditional songs to compose and then introduce a few Scripture songs back into a Canela village. An observer said “It was like pouring gasoline on a fire!” Within a few nights hundreds of Canelas crowded around, listening to, learning, and improving the new songs. With tears…

Emberá children’s worship

In Panama, an elderly Emberá believer sang song after song for the six young people sitting in front of her. Suddenly, they erupted with applause, “That’s the song!” The traditional Emberá tune became the basis for a new children’s worship song crafted with similar melody and brand-new Emberá lyrics. The next day, as the village…

Trauma Healing

Lament traditions are common in African cultures. Harriet Hill, director of the American Bible Society’s Trauma Healing Institute, found that when African Christians understood the structure of lament Psalms in the Bible, they eagerly embraced the use of their own lament traditions to express their pain to God. When words alone did not suffice, the believers…

Mwani worship

Wendy Atkins, who works with Africa Inland Mission, led a songwriting workshop with believers from four people groups in Mozambique. One of those, the largely unreached Mwani, previously had no Christian songs in their language.To create new songs, the workshop participants first spent their mornings in worship and Bible study. In the afternoons, they composed.…