What is a "Forerunner"?

Welcome to the only blog I know of that is dedicated to proclaiming the development of the artist as a proclaimer of what Jesus is about to do on the earth in general and specifically with the Church and His people, Israel. Wow, that's a mouthful! I have been an artist for most of my life (I just turned 49) and have been doing "forerunner art" for about 2 years. I have been a follower of Christ for 14 years and a full time missionary for 8 years.
I'll try to make this as simple as possible without using a lot of "Christianese":
A forerunner, according to my little Oxford dictionary, is "a person or thing which comes before and influences something or some one else". A forerunner sets the pace, the standard, the message. They announce and proclaim. A forerunner will stick his neck out to get the vision or message heard. In the Bible there were several forerunners. The one I am going to focus on now is a guy they called John the Baptist. His forerunner message was specifically given to the Jews right before Jesus started doing His ministry. He had a tough message that a lot of people didn't really care for. It was pretty simple and direct. Basically it said: Something wonderful is about to happen! Get your lives and hearts ready because God is coming to make things right again between you and Him! John was right on the money, because that is exactly what Jesus did. So here I am using that word "forerunner" to desribe who I am as an artist. Pretty presumptuos, huh? In reality, I can't make that claim. A forerunner is only varified through their actions- and you don't know if I have any actions to back anything up with yet! It does make an interesting title for a blog, though. I will be starting a website very soon that will have many examples of my work and probably work from other artists who have that forerunner mantle on them. 18 months ago you could have Googled "art in worship" or "worship art" and got very few hits. Now there are hundreds. It seems God is stirring something in the hearts of artists who follow Jesus. It is time to start explaining things that I believe you will begin to see and hear much more of in the very near future.
I know this might raise more questions than answers. Good.
In the next few posts, I will attempt to describe the lifestyle of a follower of Jesus who is a forerunner artist. As this blog develops, I plan on writing about what it means to be an "intercessory missionary", and how missions and the prayer movement that is circling the globe will involve the traditional visual arts. Talk with you soon!