Taking It to the Streets: Using the Arts to Transform Your Community

A quiet yet powerful revolution is going on. All over this country and across the world creativity-in the form of visual arts, music, dance, drama, and technology-is providing an emotionally expressive vehicle for communicating truth, developing character, and crossing cultural boundaries to build the kingdom of God.
J. Nathan Corbitt and Vivian Nix-Early visited numerous artists, faith communities, and arts organizations to discover and document how the arts are being used to transform people and communities, especially in urban settings. The result is this extensive handbook that combines real-life stories with tested methodologies to create a new paradigm for the role of the arts in Christian ministry and mission.
Taking It to the Streets provides church and mission leaders, youth ministers, and students with a historical perspective and theology for understanding the transforming power of the arts, a vocabulary for discussing them outside the sanctuary, and creative methods for bringing faith to action in the streets of society.

J. Nathan Corbitt (D.M.A., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) is professor of cross-cultural studies at Eastern University and cofounder of Buildabridge International, a nonprofit arts education organization serving the poor around the world. He is the author of The Sound of the Harvest: Music's Mission in Church and Culture, The Global Awareness Profile, and numerous articles on music, the arts, and cross-cultural issues.

Vivian Nix-Early is dean of the Campolo School for Social Change, Eastern University, and is cofounder and chief operations officer for BuildaBridge International. A clinical psychologist and published author, she is director of youth activities and the church school superintendent for Star of Hope Baptist Church, Philadelphia.