Gardening Vision Launches 2011

Horizon Gate's annual planning retreat asked "What has God called us to be?" Much time was given for soul searching, prayer, discussion and remembering. We finally came back to this primordial great commission from God: "Be fruitful and multiply."

This is a matter of planting, watering, cultivating and harvesting. We want always to be living with the perspective of all these types of work, always engaged in a primary project of one, or more of these focus areas.

Consider these examples of fruitfulness and multiplication in ourselves and our service to others:

Plant: In Ourselves - Daily acknowledge and thank God that we have been planted and are growing.

To Others - Produce, exhibit and market films and art which carry God's truth like seed searching for good soil in peoples hearts.

Water: In Ourselves - Maintain a daily devotional routine. Intentionally seek out inspiration from others' artistic expressions, i.e: worship services, plays, concerts, retreats, exhibits, films.

To Others - Offer inspirational enrichment through our expressions of life principles by means of our writing, products and events, i.e.: Say Let There Be, Artingle shop, blogs: artingle.blogspot.com, horizongate.blogspot.com, healthinthejungle.blogspot.com.

Cultivate: In Ourselves - Receive regular input from artistic, theological, scholarly, social and entrepreneurial sources, i.e: exhibits, plays, film festivals, concerts, books, seminars, seminary courses.

To Others - Offer informal and/or formal mentoring to younger artists, offer training events in the arts and business of the arts (see the article "Artists Support Group Coming Soon").

Harvest: In Ourselves - Achieve goals of accomplishment which produce greater glory to God, i.e: publish book, poetry and artwork; have exhibition of a body of work in art and films; write a script which is produced by another production company.
To Others - See someone respond to our art, films and seminars by choosing to follow Christ and/or become more vital in their walk with God.

2009 Starts with Clarifying Goals

We began the new year by taking a long, prayerful look at our world and the part we play in it. Knowing that God's desire is that we each grow into our full potential as co-creators with God, we listed our dreams for that potential. Then we prioritized our aspirations in terms of time and progressing capabilities.

The process confirmed, clarified and added detail to the vision which we have carried for years: to create multi-media works of art which show God's reality and to exhibit them in ways which facilitate drawing closer to God.

This year we are sifting through our collection of screenplays to choose two short art films for production by December. Slowly we build a series of art films which we hope to display in a gallery, besides distributing on DVD and on the Web.

Other goals include growing in our Internet marketing skills, building a “fan base” for our films, and new ways of building assets which will supplement the donations of our supporters. The training we receive in our private businesses is pushing us ahead in these areas.

We also reaffirmed our vision to develop and contribute to a community of artists and arts supporters who share similar visions. This would include generating resources and support for the artists and mentoring younger ones.