Living Faith: Wesley Brainard
Brainard... the first time I heard that name I immediately thought about one of my favorite Christian heros, David Brainerd. It didn’t catch my attention that the names were spelled slightly different.
As it turns out, much to my delight, Wesley Brain Ard is related to David Brain Erd. Somebody along the way changed the spelling.
I was already wanting to do a story on Wesley, so it was just a bonus to find out he was actually related to David Brainerd too. Enough from me... meet Wesley Brainard.
Tell us a little bit about how you grew up… family life.
I grew up in Northeastern Ohio where my father was a pastor and my mother was a social worker. I have a sister who is three years older. We grew up in church almost literally. Church was our playground. I’m very grateful for my family. They continue to be a strong source of love and encouragement.
Since there were always gatherings of people, whether at the church or at the house, there was always an audience for me. I discovered very young that I loved to make people laugh, so I memorized Bill Cosby albums. Then, whenever I had an opportunity, I would become Bill Cosby and tell the stories. People loved it… my parents loved it… and it set the stage for what would become a love and passion for me.
Tell us about your family now.
I live in Tulsa, with my wife, Nancy, and our son David. David is two and is the joy of our lives. I could fill a book with all the things I’ve learned since David was born. It seems every time I turn around I’m saying something to David and just as I say it, I feel this whisper from heaven that seems to say, "Yes, that right. That’s what I’ve been trying to say to you for a long time." It’s amazing! Then, there’s the way my wife loves David. The love that Nancy has for David astonishes me. It is strong and deep and I’m sure I could preach a sermon from it.
Your spiritual background… At what point did your life take a spiritual turn?
My spiritual journey has twists and turns and surprises. As I mentioned, I grew up in a Christian family where I had plenty of opportunities to see faith lived out in front of me. When I was very young, my father led me in a sinner’s prayer. Even though I was probably 5 or 6 years old at the time, I remember it vividly and recount it as significant. I wanted very much to serve God and live a Christian life. But as I grew, I found it very difficult. Every summer I would go to camp. There, I would listen to great preaching and along with many of my friends, would cry and pray and commit to God and to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. That commitment proved harder to live out day to day than the euphoria that the camp altar call seemed to promise. Only weeks later, I would slip back into the same disimpassioned existence that characterized my struggle and I would feel like a failure.
As a senior in high school, I met up with a guy who was from my high school having graduated just two years previously. He was living out what was obvious to me as well as anyone who observed, a victorious Christian journey… in college of all places. He was praying for people, sharing his faith, engaging in meaningful God centered dialogue. I was more than intrigued. I was mystified. I had come to believe that it was impossible to really truly live out a victorious Christian life. Maybe after I grew up, graduated high school at least, maybe college too, then it would be easier. Anyway, it couldn’t possibly be any harder than it was in that moment. And since I went to church more than anyone else I knew, I’d probably be alright. Besides, my dad was the pastor, and that had to count for something.
But when I met Floyd, my excuses seemed to be blown out of the water. He was only two years older than I was. Christianity for Floyd was an exciting adventure and I caught the fever. I remember praying a prayer that was a bit different than the prayer I prayed with my dad when I was a child. I prayed, "Lord, I’m done living my own life. It’s time for you to live your life through me. I’ll sit in the passenger’s seat. You drive."
I remember some important changes at this point. Firstly, I noticed that my life was changing in significant ways. I was building new friendships, changing habits, and watching my life take on a new meaning and direction. These changes served as evidence for me that God was indeed working in my life and giving me confidence that I was one of His. I remember so many times wondering, "Am I really saved?" But now there was a confidence that shattered any remaining doubt. God was alive in me and His life was now giving me purpose and direction.
When I was in college, I had come to accept that God had "called" me. What did that mean? I thought it meant that I would be a pastor. One thing was certain, I would not be happy, could not be happy until I was serving the Lord with my whole life in full time vocational ministry.
Let me just take a moment to be clear about this. I believe that we are all called to full time Christianity. We are each to consider what we do vocationally to be a part of our assignment from God. This is in no sense any more or less important than any other assignment from God. I was simply sensing upon my heart a call to vocational ministry.
During this period of time, the worship minister at my church approached me about leading a dramatic element for the Easter cantata. Why not get some folks to act out the scenes that we are singing? We can put them together in a kind of musical pageant. I agreed and called a group of folks to come to rehearsal.
Something began to happen. I began to notice that the people who were gathered for this very focused purpose got along pretty well. They seemed to get fuel from the process and be energized from the goal of reaching people with this story. I too was experiencing a significant fulfillment in this endeavor. I was really hooked. I was bitten by a bug that was certainly from heaven. I had vision for living that gave me passion and excitement as well as consternation and confusion.
How was this going to work? If I was the pastor, there was no way that I was going to have time to devote myself to the kind of dramatic ministry that I had come to envision. It was about then that I attended a weekend event designed to help young people find their place in ministry. There I learned that there were choices for different courses of study for those desiring to enter vocational ministry. There were programs for Christian counseling, Christian education, Church Music and others, as well as the standard Pastoral ministry track. What? Really? You mean I don’t have to be a pastor to be in full time vocational ministry. This is huge! This means that I can serve the Lord outside of the box I had imagined. How exciting!
Let’s think about this… if people are now engaged in full time ministry within categories that didn’t really exist 50 years ago, is it possible that God could develop whole new avenues of ministry that haven’t been invented yet? This got me to thinking that perhaps the calling that God had on my life was yet to be developed. Perhaps God would use me in some way to develop it.
I visited your website. I understand that you are an accomplished mime artist… How did you get started in mime?
For most of my acting life, mime was what you did when the sets weren’t built yet and the props were not quite ready. You mimed the door until the door was there. But my senior year in college, I met up with a graduate of Marcel Marceau’s School of Mime who showed me that mime was indeed an exciting and captivating art form in it’s own right. He invited me to a workshop, and I went. I was smitten by the power that came from telling stories in this way. So I took my wife to Paris, France to attend Marceau’s school.
What was it like to study with Marcel Marceau?
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One of the greatest opportunities I’ve had in my life was to be part of Marceau’s company. At the conclusion of my study with Marceau, I was invited along with all my classmates to become part of his company and to play a role in a show called, Un Soir A L’eden (An Evening in Eden), directed by Marcel Marceau.
What kind of impact has living in France for three years had on you?
France left us changed in places that we would describe not just as "stretched and challenged," but rather "bruised" or even "injured with a need for continued healing." We left France with an eagerness to return home to the country we loved, but a realization that the world was much smaller than we had originally imagined and ironically much bigger than our American-centered perception would allow.
I’ve been back to France several times since I graduated: once with a team to do the Ragman, once for vacation with Nancy, once to do the Book of Luke in French, and most recently for Marceau’s funeral. I love the French and hope to return many more times.
I also saw when visiting your site that you do the Book of Luke… How does one "mime" the Book of Luke?
That’s a question I get asked a lot, and I’m glad you asked it because it gives me a chance to set the record straight. "Luke Comes to Life" is a dramatic presentation of the Book of Luke. It is not a mime. It is true that I am a mime artist and do mime shows, but "Luke Comes to Life" is not one of them. There are two other dramatic presentations of Scripture that I do: "Acts After the Passion" which, of course, is the Book of Acts, and "These Last Days" which is the Book of Hebrews. Each has mime technique in them, but unless you were looking for it, you might not even notice. In Luke, for example, during the crucifixion, all the narration drops out and the only words you hear me say are the words of the characters. The result, I think, is a poetically somber feeling. The combination of mime and drama is something that captivates me but it is a marriage that continues to challenge me artistically. Etienne Decroux (Marcel Marceau’s teacher) said that when one art becomes rich, another must become poor. And so, when combining drama and mime together, it doesn’t always work. It is a challenge to make sure that the combination results in something that harmonizes well.
You do Luke, Acts, Hebrews… what translation do you use and how do you memorize that much text?
I use the NIV translation simply because I needed a translation that seemed natural so that the story, not the language, would be in focus.
There is a craft to memorizing, but it is actually quite fun. I like to say that I get to do the fun things for God. I’m often called upon to teach a class in memorizing the Scriptures. I like to walk through the techniques I use with people along with a hands-on workshop so that the participants can get the hang of it. It’s actually much more than a process for memorizing. It is a dramatic and creative process. It is a spiritual process since our goal is to get the words to be written upon our hearts. And, it is a theological process as well since we must have some understanding of what we are memorizing if we are to have any hope of communicating the stories effectively.
Why Luke? Why not John or Matthew?
I didn’t really choose Luke. Luke chose me. I had seen Bruce Kuhn (a Broadway actor) do the book of Luke and I was fascinated by it. So I went home and started work on the Book of Acts. I didn’t want to do Luke because he had done Luke already and what was the sense in doing that? Then I got a call from a friend of mine who was a pastor in west Tulsa. He had often had me minister at his church through mime and wanted me to help celebrate Easter that year. I said sure and had an idea. How about if I do five minutes from the birth narrative from Luke, five minutes from the life and ministry of Jesus, five minutes from the passion, and then five minutes from the early part of Acts. This, I thought, would be a great Easter celebration and would serve to give me a running start into the book of Acts. But when I began working on it, it became 57 minutes long and I hadn’t even finished the parts I was doing from Luke. Then, I got a call from my friend, the pastor in west Tulsa. He said, "Wesley, do you think you could take the entire Easter service? We’ve been trying to arrange this Children’s choir thing and it’s just not working. Do you think you could take the whole service?"
I said, "Well, it’s really funny you should call. It’s actually a bit longer than I thought it would be. No problem." So, Luke was born. That was Easter 2000. Luke has undergone some interesting changes. It was once 1 hour and 45 minutes long. But my wife said, "Honey, it’s great! But… it’s too long." So we edited it to fit comfortably in a worship setting, and the most popular version is now 50 minutes long.
What do you hope your presentation of Luke to accomplish?
I think you’ve asked that question very carefully. The Gospel According to Luke is a Book of the Bible that doesn’t need me or my presentation of it to accomplish God’s purpose for it. But I do have some hopes for what the presentation will accomplish. "Luke Comes to Life" is designed to be an experience of worship. Of course, I hope people will enjoy it. I hope that people are at some level entertained. But more than that, I hope that God will speak to people in a meaningful and enduring way. If I could, I would greet everyone at the door as they were entering and remind them that they came to meet with God and to worship God and the fact that I am going to share in a dramatic way the Book of Luke should not change any of that. If I could, I would invite them to prepare their heart to watch as I prepare mine to deliver the story so that we both might be moved upon by God’s spirit. I suspect that God has something to say to each person who experiences "Luke Comes to Life." People often tell me that they saw something in the presentation that sort of "jumped out" at them. They may have read Luke before but somehow now, while watching, they receive new insight. To me, this is how the Holy Spirit works through a dramatic presentation. It gives me great joy to participate in what God does through the story Luke records. My prayer is that the story will continue to overtake people with God’s love, grace, and mercy in the same way it has for 2000 years.
What other projects are you working on?
I’ve just finished a short film that I did with a friend of mine, Austin Hines, from FutureLight Studios. It is an exploration into combining the poetry of lyric mime with artistry of modern film making. The result is hard to put in words but it is available for all to see and share. In fact, many of your readers may have seen or heard about it since there was a link to the video in the March edition of Serious Life Magazine. Thanks, Brent, for doing that. We’ve had more than 2000 people view the story of Hosea and many of them came to us through your mention. I’d really enjoy any feedback that those who watch would like to offer. My hope is that people catch a glimpse of a new twist on the story so that they are encouraged, like Hosea, to pick up the thing that burdens the heart of God in a quest to know God more intimately.
When someone finishes reading this article, what do you hope they’ll do?
I would love it if everyone who read this article would make a concerted effort to experience Luke or one of the other Scripture or theatrical presentations. For some, that means logging on to our web site and checking the schedule for a time when I will be in the area. For others, that means calling or emailing their pastor or minister of worship and sending them a link to our web site and a note to please consider hosting a presentation. But maybe there will be pastors and ministry leaders reading this article as well. For them, I would love it if they would contact me about coming to their church for a whole weekend of ministry including presentations and workshops.
The ministry that I direct is called CHARAKTER Ministry of the Arts. CHARAKTER is charged with the mission of inspiring worship in the hearts of God’s people through passionate expression; revealing the mysteries of Scripture through vivid imagery; and painting a clear picture of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is this mission that gives life to a ministry of mime, drama and teaching that takes me to places near and far. So my hope is that through this article people with whom this vision resonates will contact us so that we can partner together in ministry.
Though we try hard to think about the ways we can serve churches to accomplish the mission Jesus gave us to make disciples, there remains the likelihood that pastors and ministry leaders also have ideas about how we might plug in to their unique vision. I’d love to hear about it.
How does someone contact you?
My email address is: Wesley@charakter.org. Of course anyone can visit our website to learn more about us, and there are live email links that folks can use when they visit our site. It is: www.charakter.org. Our phone number is: 918.224.3161. Those are the best ways to reach us. I’m looking forward to connecting with your readers, Brent. Thanks so much for giving me an opportunity to share about our unique ministry. I hope that many of those who are creatively gifted and who read Serious Life will be encouraged to give their gift to God in meaningful ways. They will be blessed, and the Church will be blessed through them.
If you had all the people that God gifted creatively from churches all over the world, gathered in one stadium, what would you say to them?
I’d say we live in interesting times. There is a conflux of changes that affects not only culture and community, but impacts the church and its mission. Television, internet, social networking, an explosion of media and communication, all contribute to a unique opportunity to reach out with creative artistic ministry. We’ve got a great opportunity before us. Technology has brought powerful communicative tools to us that we could only dream of years ago. Recognizing their power is only the first step. Now we must do the work of diligence to harness the potential for the sake of His kingdom. We must encourage a new generation of young people searching for their place in God’s purposes to see the big picture and help them to see their place in that picture even when their place hasn’t been invented yet. We must, with God’s help, envision where God is leading and run with faith to get there so that we are ready to meet the challenges that the world will face.
My friend Byron Spradlin from "Artists in Christian Testimony" in Nashville, TN often says that creative believers are the church’s last hope to reach the culture in a relevant way. Though it is certainly true that we each play an important part in God’s plan regardless of our unique gifting, it is my desire to encourage pastors and ministry leaders to think creatively about the ways that they can empower those with creative gifts in their own fellowship.
Workshops and classes like "Louder Than Words" (a weekend program designed for creative believers) teach people to use their creativity to advance the kingdom. Drama and mime technique serve as a foundation to tell stories within the contexts familiar to a worship community. Preparing our craft and preparing ourselves to use our craft to serve is the first step in breathing new life into the telling of stories that unveil the beauty of God. ~
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By Brent Riggs
Brent Riggs is an author, mentor and Bible teacher. For Bible teaching and answers, visit his ministry website at www.seriousfaith.com
