Reclaiming the Arts for Christ

Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett

Guest: Noah Stratton

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 3/6/26. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, hello and welcome to the program. This is Pastor Isaac Crockett, and on this Friday edition of our Stand in the Gap today, I have a special friend who, it’s his first time on our program to be interviewed, and he is the president of the Academy of Arts Ministries, Pastor Noah Stratton. He has a heart for the church, a heart for the next generation, a heart for the gospel, and working in arts and media and different things like that with the Academy of Arts Ministries, making the Bible come alive in minds and hearts through the power of storytelling. And so I think you’re going to want to hear these stories. Noah, thank you so much for taking time out of a really, really intense schedule right now. We’re going to hear a little bit more about that, but thank you for making time to be on our program with us today.

Noah Stratton:

Well, thank you so very much. It’s a real pleasure to be on, and I appreciate the opportunity to share a little bit more about the amazing things that God is doing.

Isaac Crockett:

Noah is actually in the middle of a time doing what we’re going to talk about, acting and drama, and making the Bible come to life on the stage at the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. They’re all over in different places. So that’s something he’s been doing. And I’ve been privileged to see him just a few weeks ago there at the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. And so between that and his pastoral duties and then his duties as a husband and a father and all these other things that fall under the Academy of Arts where he’s the president, just an incredible schedule, but incredible opportunities that are going on. So Noah, why don’t you, now that you’re here with us, could you maybe just tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and how God led you to this ministry that you’re now the president of at the Academy of Arts Ministries?

Noah Stratton:

Yes, yes, yes. So it really is wonderful to see how God works. And I think what they say is hindsight is 2020. And for sure, I now have a little bit of opportunity to look back on how God has led to this point. And it really is miraculous. It’s very, very special. I’m very, very thankful. So I went to Bob Jones University, was getting my degree there, and I was there from 03 to 07. And I didn’t really know what God wanted me to do. My parents had given me wonderful teaching and training, and I had been involved in a lot of different things, but just didn’t have that burning desire to go do fill in the blank.

And so I was actually, my dad had been in church ministry, had also been in leadership in school, working with a Christian school, and worked in education. So I was actually getting my degree in education. I enjoyed sports, so I thought, well, I could go to a Christian school, maybe help out a Christian school, teach, and maybe be a coach. But it wasn’t really a burning desire, I guess you would say. It was just, I’m not sure what God has for me, so I’m trying to kind of move forward. And I love how God directs our steps, even when we don’t fully know. And so I was there at Bob Jones. I was able to meet Natalie Chavers. She’s the Dr. Chavers who started the ministry of the Academy of Arts in 1971.

She was there at the time at college, getting her master’s degree. And I was able to meet her through a small production that we were both involved in. She started telling me about the Academy of Arts. And I said, “Wow, this sounds very interesting.” I had always enjoyed doing … My dad had my older brothers and I do a lot of public speaking and speeches and some things on the stage. And so I had enjoyed that, but I had never really seen how was that actually used for the Lord. I had seen a lot of plays and productions and films, but I had seen, in many ways, I felt like they were empty. There wasn’t really … How is that moving forward the gospel? How was that discipling, making disciples of all nations? And so a lot of it felt empty and I was not really involved in it.

But then I found out about the Academy of Arts through Natalie, the youngest daughter of Dr. Chavers. And I went over and was able to visit the Academy of Arts headquarters and tour and look at everything. It’s just so amazing to see how God led in that. And it really just lit my fire, I guess you could say right away, of seeing now how using stage productions, film and media, music, and using that to preach. Dr. Chavers was an amazing, amazing man. He was a pastor for 15 years. He was an evangelist. He started evangelism at 16 years old. He wrote over 200 individual pieces of music. He acted, he directed, he kind of did everything. And he always viewed that everything has the ability to preach, to proclaim truth, and that you don’t have to be standing behind a pulpit with a Bible, and that’s the only time you’re preaching.

Preaching is proclaiming truth, and that can happen almost anywhere at any time. And so that kind of lit my fire for the Academy of Arts. Here’s a ministry that’s using the arts and media to proclaim truth, to evangelize, to disciple. So I got involved then. It was about 2006, got involved in their summer ministries that they have where they travel to churches and do one night biblical productions for churches and got involved in that. And then in 2000, I think it was 2008, came on more full-time. I actually got married to Nicole Chavers, the third daughter of Dr. Chavers. So I married into it, which was great. And I think I believe I’d still be there anyway, whether I was married to the founder’s daughter or not, but God has great ways of making those connections. And so now I’ve been privileged to serve there since 2008.

Isaac Crockett:

That is so exciting. And it’s been such a neat ministry over the years and now your family, your son, your wife, even your parents are involved, your mother-in-law, your father-in-law has gone home to be with the Lord. We just have a couple minutes left before our first break, but what does a day look like? You’re president of so many different moving parts, so many different pieces. And you’re in DC. There’s places, things going on at the Answers in Genesis and down in Greenville and all over the place, and you have people out on the road. What does it look like, maybe a typical day of ministry for you? And maybe what’s something surprising that you do that people might be interested in?

Noah Stratton:

I think the surprising thing is that most people are surprised to hear that I also serve in pastoral ministry with how much I do with the Academy of Arts. And it’s a special blessing to be able to do that and still serve in our church back at the home base in Taylor, South Carolina. But that’s a surprise for a lot of people with what I’m doing with the Academy of Arts as well. And it is very unique. I’m not the quote unquote normal pastor who is stationary the vast majority of the time in one location. We have a great team and I think that’s how you’re able to move forward is you try to build a good team. That’s how we’re able to be doing things here at Museum of the Bible in DC, doing things like you said at Answers in Genesis, the arc and counter.

We have something that we’ll be doing in Branson coming up in the summer and things at our home base and there in Taylor, South Carolina. And I think it’s just trying to build a good team is very, very important. And I think about that for pastors, any pastors that might be listening, how important it is, as you all know, to be able to build a good team of people that you trust, that love the Lord, that have this … You find that same mission, that same purpose together, and then you start developing those friendships and those other leadership qualities and other people, and you let them take those next steps of leadership. That’s kind of scary to do when you let someone else start taking some leadership in areas, but that’s how we grow. That’s how we develop. That’s how we disciple, is letting some people try to give them training and understanding, and then let them take those next steps, I think is very, very powerful.

And any success we’ve had is because of our team, not because of me as an individual, but because the Lord’s blessed us with the great team of servant-minded people that are on fire for the Bible to come alive through the power of storytelling. I

Isaac Crockett:

Love that, Noah. And this whole team approach from pastoring the church to training young people to do this, to go out to churches and help churches and pastors, to being on stage productions, behind the scenes and on stage. So, so many things going on. I love talking about this. We’re going to take a quick break and come back. We want to talk a lot more. We want to talk about the history of how it got started, what’s going on today, answer some questions. I think this will be very encouraging and insightful to everybody who’s listening. We’ll be right back. Well, welcome back to our program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and I’m talking with Noah Stratton. He’s also a pastor, but he’s also passionate about getting the word of God out and different means, whether it’s through a video and cinema, whether it’s through stage productions, whether it’s through training, homeschool groups and Christian school groups or churches.

There’s just all sorts of different opportunities at the Academy of Arts Ministries. And through that ministry, that parent ministry, there’s many other ministries underneath it and Noah’s the president of it. And I’ve been privileged to know many people, Noah, that have worked in that group there, as well as the founder, Dr. Chavers, Nikki Chavers and his family. And so if you could maybe tell us a little bit about how things got started back in 1971 and really kind of take us to the beginning of what inspired this very unusual maybe ministry. It’s the exciting ministry. I want to talk more about how this can inspire all of us to take what we do, what our experiences are, what our passions are about, and use it for the Lord, use it for the church, use it for discipling others. And I think the story of what Dr. Nikki Chavers did is really an object lesson of that.

So Noah, could you just kind of give us that history of what happened that got the Academy of Arts started?

Noah Stratton:

Yes. And I could take the rest of the hour talking about this one, but I’d encourage the listeners, if you’d like to know, please go to the academyofarts.org and you can get … Actually, Dr. Chavers wrote a book about the beginnings of the ministry called God’s Hand on a Boy. And then there’s a second one now, God’s Hand on a Marriage that kind of takes him through how he went from a boy all the way up to college and meeting his future wife. And then the next book is how he got married and how he started the ministry. And then there’s a third book coming out a little while later. It’s being worked on right now, God’s hand on a ministry. So I guess to nutshell this as much as possible, Dr. Chambers had been in evangelism. He had been working in ministry. He saw a very specific need.

He had giftings and callings in drama and in those things, but as he would travel around and do evangelism meetings, what he saw many times was young people disconnected and detached and sitting there with arms folded and hat pulled down over their eyes, not really listening. Sometimes he would see great movement of the Lord and response, but it always troubled him. And he believed in that old youth worker adage, “If you don’t use me, you lose me. ” And so he was, how do we get these young people involved where they’re not just sitting and listening, but they can actually get up and do something along with us. And it led him with some other things, led him to start the Academy of Arts Ministry, to be something where young people would not just sit there and listen to preaching or teaching. They would come up, they would get preaching and teaching, but then they would come up and they would be the ones proclaiming the truth, preaching it out to the audience.

And so we saw, he just saw amazing opportunities there and it was tough. I mean, you think back to the ’70s, the landscape of the ’70s and the influence there and a lot of … Dr. Chambers actually had mentors that were saying, “I don’t know if the church is ready for this. ” Bringing drama into the church, I don’t know about that. It was very unusual, especially at that time period. And for some reasons, very understandably so, because there was a lot of worldliness connected to stage and film and media. And so he was … But he saw that, no, God is the creator. This isn’t Satan. This isn’t Satan’s realm. This is God’s realm. He’s the creator. He’s beautiful. He is amazing in how he works in our lives. And so we need to be using these tools to also evangelize and teach and inspire and give young people a passion and a purpose.

That’s one of the number one things young people are looking for is a purpose. Why do they exist? What’s the purpose of their lives? And this was so instrumental in giving that to them as the ministry began there in the ’70s. So it began small ministry, just going out to churches in the summer for one night meetings, doing biblical productions. And we still do that to this day. So any churches listening, please go to the academyofarts.org. We’d love to connect with you about how maybe we could bring a team to your church to hopefully be a blessing there for your church. But yeah, that’s been beautiful to see how it grew from working with churches. Then it grew to working with schools and homeschool groups. So then we would go to schools or homeschool groups for a week meeting, send scripts ahead. The young people are supposed to learn their lines, and our team would come in and in one week, preach in chapel, teach individual smaller groups with giving discipleship opportunities, and then teaching them how to do the play.

And the young people would be involved in all aspects of the production, and then at the end of the week, the young people would do the production for their church, their school, their homeschool group. And we’ve had just unbelievable results from that because again, the young people are not just sitting and listening. They are getting up. They are learning. They have to think like the characters, portray what the characters are feeling, react how the characters would react. And now the Bible’s not just coming alive on the stage for people watching, it’s coming alive in the hearts of those people that are delivering it because now I’m not just reading about King Saul or David or Paul or Ruth or Esther. I’m having to think like them, react like them, talk like them. Oh, these were real people who had real problems. They really had to trust God.

And when young people have to live that out, that helps them in their personal lives say, “I’ve had to live that out in a small, controlled way on the stage.” Oh, okay. This is how I do this in my real life as well. This is how I control those wrong emotions. This is how I look to the Holy Spirit to guide me. This is how I look and don’t listen to those wrong friends. And it’s just amazing to see the impact that it’s had in young people through the years.

Isaac Crockett:

It’s been a huge impact. And I know that Dr. Chavers invested in a young man who had just gotten saved through a radio ministry actually and was very, very rough around the edges. And that was my father. He got saved out of a pretty rough background, you could say, and Dr. Chavers helped round him out and teach him not just drama, but the Christian life and disciple him in preaching and teaching and the pastoral side of things that led my dad eventually into evangelism and then 30 years of being a pastor before the Lord called him home. So many neat things going on right now, so much happening. Again, the website is theacademyofarts.org, no spaces there. Noah, as you look back over what’s happened, there’s been a lot of changes in the last 55 years that you guys have been around, a lot of changes in culture, technology, churches have changed, what they allow to come in and things.

How has all of that happened and still stayed true to the roots that Dr. Chavers started this for?

Noah Stratton:

Yeah, that’s a great question. I think for us, thankfully, he was so good at expressing the reasons why. And I would encourage any pastor, anybody that’s listening, please, please, please try as much as possible to give the reasons why. Of course, we have to walk by faith. Hebrews 11, without faith, it’s impossible to please him. Of course, there are moments in life where we don’t fully understand. We don’t know all the reasons why, but as much as we can, teach the next generation the why of what you are doing, because that is where you inspire desire and change in young people because that grabs them and that helps them understand the whys. If we are just doing … We’re just going to church because we’re supposed to go to church. We’re just going to the Christian school or homeschool group because that’s what we’re supposed to do.

That’s where we lose a lot of young people. And media is one of the main factors that is pulling our young people away from that because the culture that’s technology has changed so much. It’s so invasive now. The average person is spending eight to 12 hours a day on media, listening to music, watching TV, streaming, YouTube, all these things. And they’re getting their brains filled with a wrong worldview most of the time through those things because the church has not always leaned into that. They’ve said, “No, let’s just keep everybody in church. Let’s make sure they’re getting a good education. Let’s talk about the family.” But if we’re not talking about media, your young people, your older people, pastors are getting discipled by the world on an average of 56 hours a week and you’re getting three or four hours with them at church, right?

If you look at an average week. So if we’re not speaking into this, the devil is having an absolute heyday and this is why 70% of the Christian young people are walking away from the faith. I believe because of this area, film, media, stage and music, I believe that’s where it is. And so that’s why the Academy of Arts exists to fight that battle right on the front lines of where the devil is sabotaging churches, Christian schools and homeschool groups and good families that are trying to get good teaching in those three areas, but they’re saying, “Oh, it’s just entertainment. It doesn’t really matter. You can listen to what you want, watch what you want in your personal time.” And those young people and older people are getting a very wrong worldview. And that technology has advanced so quickly and overwhelmed a lot of people that we’re not speaking into that part of it.

And so that’s why the Academy of Arts exists because we see how so important it is to speak directly into that and use that film, stage, media, these different aspects to proclaim truth. A film, if it’s done well and you promote it, it can go out to millions and millions of people. Whereas if I get up and preach on Sunday, that’s going to go out to maybe a couple hundred people. Maybe somebody has a bigger church outreach, maybe a couple thousand people online. But the video has such a power and the stage has such a power through storytelling, through visual, audible storytelling to really grab people. And I can speak more about that maybe in the next session. Don’t want to overstep the time here, but just so excited for what God is doing in the ministry. And the milestones have been so beautiful through the years of how God’s led and grown the ministry to now be able to be in Washington DC, performing at Museum of the Bible, performing now at the Arc Encounter with the Answers in Genesis ministry.

And that’s exciting because now they get to get young people and say, “You now have places to go use these giftings to evangelize, to disciple others around you. ” And that’s been a special blessing to see how God has worked in the ministry.

Isaac Crockett:

Really, I mean, seriously, praise the Lord for what is happening at the Academy of Arts. I love seeing it. We were at their 55th anniversary a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I, and just to see the families involved, generational. Your family is an example of that, Noah and others getting involved. It’s not just the story that’s being told on the stage that’s so effective, but also all the work going behind it, all the training, all the community, all the fellowship, just some wonderful things going on. I hope you’re listening. I hope that this is exciting. You’ll pray for them, but that you’ll look at opportunities that you can take. We’re going to take a quick break and come back and talk more about what we can do to counter the culture of this world. Welcome back to the program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett.

If you’re just tuning in, the first half of the program we’ve been introducing Pastor Noah Stratton is not only a pastor, but he is a disciple maker using arts, visual arts, media, acting, video, all sorts of things. He’s the president of the Academy of Arts Ministries. And under that is the Logos Theater where they have life-sized puppets. I’ll let him talk more about that. And they reenact things, things from the Bible, things from like C.S. Lewis and different ones. And they do training, they do venture films where they make Christian films. They go in and they train churches and homeschool groups and Christian school groups in the ways of acting and media and they do productions with them. They are on stage right now. Actually, Noah is acting today even at the Museum of the Bible on their big theater stage there. They do this also at Answers in Genesis at the arc encounter and in other places, as well as in their own logos theater in Greenville, South Carolina and just a lot of fascinating things.

But I love what Noah was talking about. It all came back down to biblical worldview, which we talk about on every program, this biblical worldview. And as he talked about even Dr. Nikki Chavers, who is the founder of this ministry and has since gone home to be with the Lord, but his desire to do things well, but to do things for God and to get others involved. So it’s not just the story that’s told on the stage, although that is huge and that will impact every generation. Every culture, every age, every group loves to hear a story, but then it’s the people who are doing the telling of the story, whether it’s productions and the behind the scenes or actors on stage or whatever part of it, all of that is helping. Our verse of the week that we’re studying is Psalm one, one through three that we’ll meditate on the word of God and it’ll grow in us like a tree planted by a rivers of water.

And that meditating on the word of God through these things is just so powerful. If you’re listening today and you’re interested in these things, you really ought to check out the academyofarts.org. You can find out more about it, but whatever it is that you are doing, whatever you’re good at, as Noah said, media is all around us. It’s affecting all of us that we would inundate ourselves with good media, music and videos and films and all those sort of things that we would take in what is good and walk us turned of light and not the darkness that is around us. I do just want to mention some of our resources here at the American Pastors Network and Stand in the Gap Media. Of course, we have our Stand in the Gap app. If you’re not using our app, it’s a great way, no matter where you are at, you can listen to it.

You can listen live at 12:05 every day. You can get all of our archives, you can get transcripts of our archives. If you’re listening today and you just tuned in, you want to hear the first part, or if you like this so much and you want to send it maybe to a friend or a nephew or a neighbor, you can do all of that through our app is probably the easiest way, as well as we’re on other podcast platforms. So if you normally listen to the radio, but you’d want to listen to this again, you can get us on podcast through our app or through our website. But Noah, let’s go back to the Academy of Arts. Could you explain to us, so the Academy of Arts is the overall ministry, but then you have multiple ministries underneath of that, different branches from that. Can you maybe give us an overview?

You’ve spoken some about it, but kind of an overview of the different branches of the Academy of Arts.

Noah Stratton:

Yes. So we’re very grateful for the opportunities God’s given us. And it’s kind of just organically grown through the years. I was saying on the previous episode, it started out just going to churches for one night meetings, kind of like a summer missions trip, if you will. Then that grew to traveling during the school year for week long evangelistic seminars, drama seminars to schools and homeschool groups. So we still have both of those of teams that we recruit and travel to churches in the summer for one night meetings. Then smaller teams that will go and work with schools and homeschool groups throughout the entire school year, doing week long productions with them. Then that grew to started kind of a college on wheels, almost like an internship program where college age young people were traveling with us, we’re getting training, we’re getting hands-on opportunities there.

So there’s a training level there for college age young people that we still continue today. Then that grew to getting the home base there in Taylor, South Carolina rights out of Greenville. So then we were able to start doing more full scale productions on the stage. So that’s where our logos theater came from. And then that Logos Theater has started touring recently to where we’re able to take the large scale productions to Museum of the Bible, to the Arc Encounter with the Answers in Genesis Ministry, to Branson, Missouri. We’ve been down to Pensacola, Florida. So that’s been beautiful to see how the Lord’s grown that as well. And then we also have a film company, Venture Films. We’ve done a number of short films and we’re actually in the middle of our first feature film, Brothers Twice, a true story of two brothers, Sammy and Bruce Fry and how God worked in their lives miraculously.

I’m just always amazed that our world is constantly trying to come up with some cool new idea for the stage or for a film or for music. Just go read history, just go hear God’s stories. We like as much as possible just to tell the stories that God has already told, because you don’t have to make up a cool storyline. You just tell his stories. And so we’re doing that with venture films through our film company. And then we also have a small publications company, Nikki Chavers Publications, where we’re doing scripts, we’re putting out some books, we’re putting out things to help and give instruction to churches, to schools, to homeschool groups. Hey, how do we do this ourselves? How do we stop doing just Disney Junior for all of our stage productions because we don’t know what else to do. Please come to our website, the Academyofarts.org and there’s a number of resources there for you to do biblical scripts, historical scripts, wonderful things there that are available for everyone to get involved in.

Isaac Crockett:

I love talking with you because so many times right now in this day and age, there’s a lot of, “Oh, this is bad or this is bad.” A lot of bad news. “Oh, we need to stay away from this. The world is really infiltrating here or the world is trying to catch us off guard over here. “What you’re talking about is filling these voids with what is good and what is the stuff we should be focused on and thinking on with walking as children of light in these areas. I love how you’re pouring the scriptures back into this and how you’re pouring your life into discipling these young people that are making other disciples. And again, just 55 years of this ministry and it’s touched my own family and seeing the generations of people affected by this is incredible. We’ll never know until we get to heaven, really all the different effects.

But a couple of questions, I don’t know if I can fit all of them in before our next break or not, but you are also doing a podcast. Your podcast is called The Audacity to Define. Could you maybe talk a little bit about that and how that fits in with this broader mission going on with the Academy of Arts Ministries?

Noah Stratton:

Yes. It was kind of a natural outpouring of … Going back to Genesis, God starts out defining things, right? He sees everything that is made and it’s good. He makes man and woman very good and then he puts a tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If we will note, please note, it does not say the knowledge of the tree of good and evil and neutral. It just says good and evil. So we like to debate all these big gray areas in our life that the Bible has nothing to say about it. Well, if we get to know the Lord and understand his principles, of course, his commands, but also his principles, we can see everything has a good or evil category that it needs to go into. And so from the beginning, God defined good and evil and Satan came, tempted Adam and Eve, and they said,” No, we’re going to define what’s good and evil.

“And so that’s where this has come from, especially in the arts, but we’re seeing this everywhere, aren’t we? People can’t even define what a woman is anymore. They can’t define when does life begin, or they won’t define it. It’s actually people won’t define it. It’s not that they can’t. And so we’re seeing this chaos in our culture because we’re refusing to define. So what I love to talk about is the beauty and the blessings of God’s binding definitions on our lives and how beautiful and what a blessing that is. When we submit to God’s definitions, how beautiful that that is. And especially in the arts, it is follow your heart, right? Do what you feel, do whatever you want. And that’s gone into every sphere of life, but especially in the arts, it really is that, right? No rule is the Burger King Christianity, no rules just right.

We follow whatever we want and we’ve seen that’s chaos, right? Go back to the flood, go back to the days of the judges. Every man does that, which is right in his own eyes. And we see the chaos and violence and destruction that comes from that. So my heartbeat for the podcast is to just bring those things back to the forefront of our minds. And I’ve been able to have a number of wonderful guests already come on the show. The podcast had Ken Ham from Ancest and Genesis come on. Willie Parton from the Wilds came on. I’ve had other guests that have come on. It’s been exciting to have them and I hope to have a lot more guests on. I speak some, but then I bring a lot of guests onto that. So I see that fitting just … I see that being a huge battleground today.

We’re the Academy of Arts. We’re trying to fight for the biblical truth because we see the arts, as I mentioned in the last segment, undermining the church, undermining the Christian school or homeschool group, undermining the family unit. And we can have all these programs and all these books and all these things about how we make our church stronger. How do we make sure we’re getting a biblical worldview in education? How do we make sure our family is stable? Well, are we ignoring the arts? 56 hours a week that are being pumped into our brains, our young people’s brains of saying, “No, that’s nice. Yeah, go to church. Make yourself feel better. Yeah, go to your Christian school homeschool group. No problem. Yeah, make sure you, as a family, you spend time together and you do your things together, but keep pumping in your wrong information and your wrong biblical worldview through the just entertainment” that doesn’t really matter.

And that’s where we see, I see it as one of the most prominent battlegrounds of our day is to fight for truth, to define the truth that God has put in place already and to have that audacity to define that there’s the positive aspect of audacity, that you have boldness to say what you should say. And then there’s the negative that we normally get back at the audacity. How dare you, right? That you would dare to say those things. Well, we need to have that audacity to define things as God would define them and to stand for truth. Like you said, not curse the darkness, but light a light because it’s desperately needed today.

Isaac Crockett:

That is so good, Noah. Thank you for that. We’re going to take a quick break and come back to wrap things up talking about this, how we as everyday believers can use the stories in our lives, the narratives of what God has done, our testimony and what God is doing in our lives to brighten the path, show forth the light of Jesus Christ and all that we do. We’ll be right back to wrap up after this. Well, welcome back to the program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett. I’ve been talking with Pastor Noah Stratton about the Academy of Arts Ministries, everything from the Lagos Theater that they have in the Taylors Greenville, South Carolina area, to their traveling theater that’s at the Museum of the Bible right now. And it goes to Arc Encounter and other places to their camps and their school ministries and their church ministries and just so many different things, their adventure films, publications, just all sorts of things over the last 55 years at the Academy of Arts Ministries.

And Noah is the president there. Noah, for somebody who’s listening right now, and maybe they or somebody in their family has kind of untapped talents that they’re good at some of these arts and things, but maybe it’s not being used for others. Maybe it’s music or drama, film, whatever art. What encouragement would you have for them to take that joy that they have in that art and use it for God’s glory?

Noah Stratton:

Yes. It’s a hugely important need in our world today because overall I would see the world kind of dominating that space in the arts overall. And so it’s so important for Christians to step into that realm and to be creating things for film, for stage, for media, for painting, drawing, all the different aspects of arts that they would step in and get involved. And I would encourage parents or mentors or please encourage people to step into that realm. But we do have to step into it carefully because there is so much error and sadly aren’t a lot of Christian places teaching this, how to develop and use these things for the Lord. And in any realm, in business, in politics, in going into the medicine world, we always have to keep God center. And so it’s the same thing with the arts, that God has to stay at the center.

I see this in the arts world of this idea that I can kind of do whatever I want on a film set or on a stage or on painting or drawing or whatever else, because it’s just art. And I’ve heard a lot of Christians say this, that the subject matter doesn’t really matter that much because I’m just being creative and that’s what God did is make me a creative person. We know we’re going to give account of ourselves to God, and nowhere in the Bible does it say you’ll give account of yourself to God, except at the time when you’re standing on the stage or you’re behind, you’re looking at a film, you have a camera pointed at you, or you have a pen or a paintbrush in your hand. We always will give an account to God. And so everything that we do must be with the Lord at the center to honor and glorify him.

And I would encourage people, please don’t back away from those gifts and callings that God has placed in your heart or the abilities that you have. If you don’t have a good place to go, and it’s hard sometimes, where do I go for schooling or for teaching or for training in this? Please reach out to us, reach out to places like this ministry with the … I know there’s so many resources they have available here with Stand in the Gap radio program. Please reach out and ask. There are places to be able to go get a biblical worldview in these areas. Please don’t shy away from those things or try to shut those things down. We need people shining lights in these areas.

Isaac Crockett:

And knowing again, people can go to theacademyofarts.org, the academyofarts.org, or just Google the Academy of Arts, and you can find out more about the training opportunities that there are through them. Just this idea of telling our stories, our narratives. You are literally a professional storyteller, and you’re also a pastor. And I love how those things combine, because when I’m preaching, I like to tell the narratives of the Bible and connect it with my life story. But what could you say to encourage folks listening to use storytelling, to use creative, artistic gifts at home, at church and their community to spread the truth of the gospel?

Noah Stratton:

Yeah. I think it’s vitally important, right? It’s so important what you’re saying. Jesus did this constantly, right? He was telling stories through parables. If you look at the times that he’s standing at a temple or synagogue and you look at the times that he’s out teaching/preaching, many times he’s not in a church situation, a temple synagogue situation. He is telling stories. He’s using visual illustrations constantly. And that is so, so powerful because storytelling has a way of going around the defenses of people and engaging their imagination. And all of a sudden, instead of come to you and say, “You’re wrong, do something different,” or, “You’re right, good job.” If I tell a story, people start listening, they want to know how it’s going to end. We have built into us that desire and joy to love storytelling. We’re literally living a story right now. It’s called his story.

It’s called history, right? It’s in us. We are a part of a story right now. So when we tell stories, I encourage pastors, and so great to hear Isaac you’re doing that, I’m sure many other pastors are, please tell stories. Long before there were sermons, there was storytelling, right? Long before these stories were going on. Why? Because it is going around the defenses of people. It’s igniting imagination. People many times make decision off of them a desire and an imagination, even before they make an academic decision. How many of us know that it’s right to go to church? But then how many people don’t go to church because they don’t feel like going. Their desire overcomes the academic understanding. Storytelling speaks to that desire that is in each one of us, and it engages that to be able to share truth and not in a way that sometimes punches you in the face, but in a way that leads you to through beautiful storytelling and development of characters, and it leads you to that in a wonderful way, to the truth.

So yeah, the call is the solution is not fear. It’s for us to be able to teach media discernment, engage those stories, critically support faithful artists that are involved in these things, and so we can keep creating the compelling and beautiful alternatives to the world that is pumping this into our existence constantly.

Isaac Crockett:

And Noah, you’re a father and you work with families and people’s children all the time. For somebody listening whether it’s a young person thing of this for themselves or somebody that you have a child in mind, maybe in your family that this would be good for. What is the importance of investing and training our kids in the fine arts? Things like music and painting and acting and the fine arts, investing in that, but from a biblical perspective, what is the value in that?

Noah Stratton:

I see it as … I think so many people view it as an extra thing. We have to go to school, we have to go to church and learn the … And these are kind of non-negotiables and we have to go to church. That’s a non-negotiable for Christian family. But then the arts are kind of this extracurricular and we set it kind of a little off to the side. And if we can get some time for it, great, but if we don’t get to it, well, as long as we’re getting the basics of church and academics in school, then we’re going to be okay. I submit this is absolutely foundational of training our kids in a variety of the arts. It is the way you communicate, getting really practical. Employers, the number one thing they’re looking for to hire someone is not their specific skillset, it is their ability to look someone in the eye and communicate well with them.

And yet a lot of parents or schools or churches, we’re not investing into that. We’re not teaching people how to process their thoughts and communicate clearly, to get up in front of people and have to overcome that fear of speaking in front of people. This is biblical. What’s our calling to make disciples? How do you make disciples if you’re terrified to talk to someone? If you’re terrified to understand your thoughts from the Bible and display and give them to people around you, we’re going to have a hard time even fulfilling the great commission. If we’re ignoring this as parents with our young people of not allowing them to have places to explore and develop with a biblical worldview, how do I understand my thoughts and deliver them on stage in front of a camera? How do I process my thoughts and put them on a canvas for painting, for drawing, for whatever else?

These are vitally important things that allow us to understand our creator better, understand the Lord better, love the Lord better so that we can then live that out in our lives. So please, parents, please, please invest that in your young people.

Isaac Crockett:

What a powerful statement. They’re a powerful opportunity. Noah Stratton from Academy of Arts Ministries. Thank you so much for what you are doing. Thank you for taking time to be on our program. Thank you for listening today. If you enjoyed this program, listen to it again, share it with a friend, and until next time, stand in the gap for truth wherever you are today.