David Miller spoke during the opening session of the Global Workplace Forum, and the fourth and final pillar was dramatically “unveiled” on stage during that evening. The four originals were then gathered in the atrium where the participants could interact closely with them.
All four sibling paintings met for the first time June 25, 2019 in Manila, Philippines during the unveiling of Pillar 4 at the Lausanne Movement’s “Global Workplace Forum”. There were SO many miraculous moments standing in front of the work… meeting sibling I had painted for years but had never met. It literally felt as though I had stepped INTO my paintings, meeting the people from all over the world that I had spiritually and artistically journeyed beside for the past four years. Equally amazing was the portal that these four paintings opened for those who saw them… an open heaven that allowed them to look through the surface details of what they individually are called to do in Kingdom service to see the grand metanarrative, the universal sweep of calling and scope of God empowering “the whole church to bring the whole gospel to the whole world”. We had many tearful and prayerful moments in front of the paintings, and I rarely made into into the main sessions on time or at all as I would be swept up in meeting my siblings from around the world.
Here I am with my artistic ministry partner and dear friend Melanie Spinks who shared the adventure of our travel to Manila via Tokyo, Japan. In addition to the four pillars paintings that were gathered for the first time during the conference, throughout the gathering, I was painting live on stage during portions of the sessions as a “visual scribe” where I was capturing the spirit and revelation of the plenary sessions in real time (the paintings displayed behind me in the above photo). These images were gifted to our host church in Manila.
One of my very favorite stories from the Global Workplace Forum was meeting Billy Coppedge, a missionary with his wonderful family to Uganda who had JUST finished his doctorate at St. Andrews in Scotland and was returning to Africa with his wife and five kids. Amidst our hour + conversation, I felt compelled to offer to paint a blessing over his ministry, and then realized he was living less than an hour from my uncle in GA whom I was planning to visit just weeks after returning from Manila. Two weeks later I was in Billy’s living room, meeting his family, and standing at the altar at the family camp where 20 years TO THE DAY he had surrendered his life fully to the Lord. I began a painting on that very pew, the same place he had proposed to his wife, the same place he had knelt in thanks when he received confirmation of his completed doctorate, to begin the painting.
The image is also based around the Nitrogen atom of Pillar 4 of the Lausanne series. With Christ at the center, Billy and Jo make up the inner ring of electrons and the five children make up the outer ring. With the “third culture” experience of their American / Scottish/ Ugandan children, I set up the central cross to be split between a favorite view of St. Andrews Scotland if the image is turned 90 degrees to the right and an image of the Ugandan landscape if turned 90 degrees to the left.
