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Interview – Mark Taylor

Mark Taylor is one of the co-founders of the fantastic website Inspiks.com.  The website is made up of a group of christian digital artists dedicated to using their talents to bring praise to God and inspire others. Their mission  is to reach as many people as possible with the Word of God, namely, The Gospel.

How did you become a Christian and what impact has God had on your life?
I started going to church at an early age. Attending Church regularly is part of the culture of living in Jamaica. Sundays were peaceful, 99% of businesses were closed, the roads were empty, it was a day of rest and worship. Although I knew God was real and felt the pull of the Holy Spirit on my heart during my junior school years, I never gave my heart to the Lord, I was afraid of missing out and losing friends, I basically wanted to follow the crowd and do my own thing.

I attended a summer crusade when I was 16 and listened to a sermon entitled, “Heart of Stone”. The message of the sermon reiterated the fact that, if we keep quenching the call of the Holy Spirit on our lives, soon our hearts will become hardened against God and we will have a heart of stone. I knew that was what I was doing and I imagined my heart turning into a stone, hardened towards God, that concerned me a lot. When the alter call was given, I did not go up to surrender my life, but that night I went home and thought about it more and I knelt down on my knees and asked God to come into my heart. The next day, I went back to the final night of the crusade, I could not wait for the pastor to finish preaching. I can’t tell you what he preached about that night, but as soon as he was finished, I went up to give a public confession of what had taken place in my heart.

You told me that Art, God and Design are your passion, how did this come about?
God has blessed me with a great gift, I have no doubt about that. I have been drawing since I knew how to hold a pencil. When I was about 6 years old I drew a space scenery on my summer vacation and I brought it to school to show my friends and none of them believed that I drew it freehand. My friends thought I had traced it, that concerned me a bit, because I was not getting the feedback I thought I would get. Incidents like that would happen, time and time again, but I soon learned to embrace it as a compliment. My love for art grew after high school, when I left Jamaica to pursue a new life in the US. I was introduced to Graphic Design by my twin brother Michael. Michael encouraged me to learn Graphic Design, so I learned everything I could from him and picked up other tricks along the way by doing projects for my church. I later attended The Arts Institute of Fort Lauderdale. The ability to interpret scripture with art is done with great passion, because I know that the ideas are given by God and it is a great way for me to spread the message of the Gospel.

How important do you think Graphic/Web Design should be to the church?
I think Graphics and Web design is playing a more integral part in the ministering of the gospel today. Churches are realizing the importance of Church marketing and branding and translating that to the web. The web can be looked at now as a tool, rather than just a showcase of the churches ministries. I love what some churches did in Mexico after the outbreak of the swine flu, churches were podcasting services to the sick and shut-ins and services did not miss a beat. Many churches are now sharing their ministry on twitter and other social net work services. If we take a look at the ministry of Jesus we see that he always meet people were they were, whether it be the woman at the well or the blind man by the wayside. The church must endeavor to meet people where they are hanging out and in today’s society, the web is one of those places.

How do you think Christians can use the internet to spread the gospel?
I think there are various ways that Christians can use the Internet to spread the Gospel. I think there are some great examples out there right now, for example blogging, the use of Twitter and Flickr, It is just a matter of being lead by the spirit, finding your passion and a target audience. Christians have the greatest target audience,..the world! With the ease of setting up a blog, many christians now have the opportunity to tell their story and thoughts on the web. Micro blogging can be very useful too, even if it is just sharing a scripture verse a day, which can be very powerful and can reach a large audience. I have used Flickr to spread the gospel by placing a scripture verse beneath my graphics or photos and I am always surprised at how many people write and thank me for doing that. The great thing about all the social network tools that are available is that, they are all free and we can reach people so easily, by just a click of the mouse.

What do you want people to know about your website inspiks.com
Inspiks is a great example of how the web can be used to spread the gospel. The idea for inspiks started out by my brother Michael, who started to send emails to his friends with images combined with scripture verses. His friends liked them so much that they were asking for more. In 1998 he had the idea of placing the archive of images on a website and that is how the ministry was born. Our first image gallery had images created by Michael, Christopher my younger brother and I. The images were hosted on a free server. We later started to create wallpapers, because beautiful christian wallpapers were so hard to find. The ministry then spread into supplying e-cards and now we have a blogging element to the site where we share insights into biblical truths and various design news. The main focus of the website is to bring people into the saving knowledge of Christ and to engage with the Christian community through art.

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