Musical missionary from Alabama cuts album in Singapore

Whether he’s at home or overseas, for Alabama missionary Art Turner, ministry always comes with a soundtrack.
   
Turner, a longtime worker for the International Mission Board (IMB), recently cut his first album at the keyboard — a project that is an eloquent musical journal of the spiritual journey he’s taken across several continents. 
   
“Even though I have moved around, the piano is where I’ve always been,” Turner said. 
   
Piano was a constant thread through the course of his diverse spiritual and literal travels — from Germany to Alabama, Texas and North Carolina, then Cyprus, Russia, India and now Singapore.
   
And though frequent moves to new missions fields have caused him, his wife, Teresa, and two sons to pare down their belongings to a minimum, his keyboard always made the cut, Turner said.
   
“I was fortunate to get to take a keyboard with me to Singapore,” he said, adding that his role as pianist for the International Baptist Church there provides a contrast to his “real” job as regional research coordinator for the IMB.
   
The Turners, who were commissioned to the field by First Baptist Church, Montgomery, have performed research work in South Asia for just over five years, first in India before moving to Singapore in 2004. There they track people groups in the region and define strategies to reach them, he said. 
   
It’s a job that’s needed in the area. Even though Singapore has a fairly high percentage of Christians, the surrounding nations are overwhelmingly Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu.
   
And it is a job it’s not surprising Turner would take on considering his background. Turner earned a political science degree from Jacksonville State University  — with a minor in music — and his doctorate in political science from the University of Alabama. 
   
In between his stints at those schools, he worked as a research associate in the office of institutional research at the University of Texas at Arlington. Later, in Alabama, he directed the Alabama Kids Count project, researching the status and living conditions of children and families in the state and organizing reports based on his findings. 
   
After that, he became research director for Voices for Alabama’s Children, a statewide child advocacy group. “In Alabama, we felt we were doing the right activities, but we felt we wanted to go somewhere where we would not only be making a real impact but also an eternal impact,” he said.
  
Turner and his family found that place overseas — with research and music abilities working in tandem. 
   
“Art’s music has always been a gift of God and has remained a constant in our lives through all the different places, countries and cultures where we have lived,” Teresa Turner said. “In our 25 years of marriage, we have lived in 15 different places from as short a time as six weeks to as long as four years. His music has helped us find our place in our different church homes through the years.”
   
Piano accompaniment was a part-time moneymaker for him in college, where he and Teresa took piano lessons from the same teacher and later met and married.
   
But Art Turner said he hadn’t thought of turning his music into a CD until much later when those near to him began expressing how his music enhanced their worship and prayer times.
   
He said at that point he turned toward concentrating his musical efforts on “Art Effects,” a CD of solo piano pieces crafted to draw Christians into personal reflection and worship. On his Web site, he wrote that his prayer is for “Art Effects” to affect listeners in a positive way and help them “find a deeper intimacy with God.” 
   
He said his and his family’s goal is simply to bring people closer to the Lord, both through his research and his music. “I didn’t specifically start the project intending for it to be such a cohesive Christian album, but that is what inevitably happened,” he said. “I hope the music will be an inspirational part of worship for others as it has for me.”
   
For more information, visit www.artspianomusic.com.