by Gary Long

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I used to think art belonged to other people—the kind with paint on their jeans and guitars leaning against the pew.

I was more of a bulletin-margin guy—arrows, boxes, and the occasional star next to something I didn’t want to forget. I love trying to play the banjo, though well-placed stickers on my banjo case are my real talent on that instrument.

Then there’s my friend, Tommy.

I’ve known him for years, back when we were both younger—and ministry still felt like something you could “figure out.” Life didn’t go easy on him. A hard divorce. A long road back. Somewhere along the way, he picked up a doctorate in religious art and—looking back now—you can see the trail markers all along his story. He could write, he was funny, and he could act well—and he even used to be in a Christian singing group that recorded an album. It was on vinyl, so you can now carbon-date him yourself. These days, in his church, you don’t just sit and listen. You create. While he preaches, people paint, write, and draw.

Tommy once told me, “People can pay attention to complexity when their hands are busy making something.”

Turns out, he was right.

A few years ago, I had a dream about my grandfather and my dad. They’ve both been gone a long time, but their voices still echo in my faith, my work, and the way I try to move through the world. In the dream, I was riding between them on the bench seat of my grandpa’s old, blue truck. They were talking, and I couldn’t quite make out the words—just the warmth of it, the belonging. Like listening to a heartbeat through someone’s chest. I woke up with the strange, quiet certainty that God was telling me, “They’re okay. All the way okay.”

I shared that story online back when social media was still more neighborly than noisy. Tommy asked if he could use it in a sermon. I said yes.

A few weeks later, he texted me a picture of a painting one of the teenagers in his church had made during worship. There I was on canvas—sitting between my dad and my grandpa in that blue truck. Except I had deep brown skin and a glorious afro. My grandfather wore his cap high, just like he always did. My dad leaned in with bright, kind eyes.

If you know me, you’re probably smiling right now. I’m about as vanilla as they come.

But that painting taught me something I’ve never forgotten: art is personal and universal at the same time. That fifteen-year-old girl in St. Louis didn’t paint my photograph. She painted my story. And somehow, in doing that, she told a piece of her own.

That’s why Art for the Not Yet matters to me.

This isn’t about being artistic. It’s about giving shape to the things we carry: the people we miss, the neighbors we pray for, the church we hope we’re becoming, the world we believe God hasn’t finished with yet.

At BGAV’s 2026 Annual Meeting, I’m dreaming of walls and screens and spaces filled with your “not yet.” Paintings. Poems. Songs. Photos. A mix tape of spoken word. Songs that are sung in worship. Lines scribbled in faith by people who didn’t think they were artists until they picked something up and tried.

So consider this a personal invitation from me to you.

If you’ve ever loved someone who hasn’t come home.

If you’ve ever believed for someone who couldn’t believe for themselves.

If you’ve ever looked at your church, your town, or your own life and thought, God’s not done here yet—

Then you already have something to make.

Pick up the pencil. Press record. Shape the thing.

I can’t wait to see your “not yet” join mine.

Learn more about Art for the Not Yet.

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Gary Long is BGAV’s chief marketing officer.

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