Global Arts and Christian Witness

"Drawing on decades of rich field experience, focused research, and teaching, Global Arts and Christian Witness pulls together the treasures of Roberta King's life and work into one outstanding volume. While the book speaks powerfully to missionaries and artists of all kinds, I recommend it for mission pastors, students, and professors as well, as it offers a clear and compelling introduction to the importance of engaging global arts in ministry. Packed with stories on subjects ranging from Bono to the Senufo, this volume will motivate and inspire its readers to think in new ways about the value of global arts in the church. I especially appreciate her ten recommendations for needed shifts in our thinking. If these shifts could be implemented today, the use of arts in witness and worship worldwide would change dramatically for the better."

"It has been said that music is a universal language, but its meaning is not. Roberta King has given us an in-depth analysis adding to the ethnomusicological lexicon in great detail. In a world where everyone has some type of favorite music, King's astute inquiry gives us a better glimpse into the complexity of music from around the world. Very much worth the read!"

"This inspirational book provides art makers and art appreciators with multiple ideas on how to individually and collectively spread God's fame globally. King masterfully articulates, demonstrates, and illustrates how global creative arts lead beyond fictional faith to vibrant faith through witness and worship."

"What hath Christian witness to do with the arts? Well, virtually everything, according to Roberta King. The author's assertion is sorely needed and long overdue, particularly in a day when 70 percent of the world's people can't, don't, or won't read. King's lifelong ministry and academic engagement as an active 'musicianary' make her seasoned reflections here a must read!"

"The gospel message of Jesus Christ is life to all nations, bringing people to worship and to bear witness. With great care, King urges all believers to creatively employ, to their fullest extent, all music, storytelling, playback dramas, visual arts, and other artistic formats, in order to make Christ known. Globally contextualized, biblically grounded, and believer (and church) relevant, this book will convict the hearts of many missionaries, church music students, professional artists, and pastors."

"Roberta King brings us a very important reveal about why artistic specialists and expression stand central to effective gospel proclamation. Creative, with plenty of stories, culturally sensitive, and filled with insight and life, this book provides much help for how indigenous Christian community formation really happens. Artists, musicians, missionaries, worship leaders, and anyone else who is concerned about the church making sense in her context will find this book to be a must-have. King gives her life for these insights, and now we get her wisdom distilled in ways that will increase our ministry effectiveness. Along the way, too, she affirms all the artistic kingdom servants so often overlooked for the strategic role they play in God's kingdom purposes."

"Inviting the reader on a global spiritual and artistic safari, Roberta King has richly and skillfully advanced our understanding about the role, importance, and impact of the arts in its ability to incarnate the good news in cross-cultural contexts. Informed by twenty-two years of missionary ministry in East and West Africa and over two decades of academic leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary, King has adroitly crafted and curated a resource that provides a theological and missional framework for expressive cultural interaction through the arts that becomes a platform that leads to authentic spiritual dialogue and gospel witness."