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A Quiet Catalyst in the Arts

A Quiet Catalyst in the Arts

A Quiet Catalyst in the Arts

Christ Community has always been intentional about its mission and discipleship. A few years ago we began to think about how to be a more intentional influence on the culture of our communities and the world. What would it look like if we didn’t just observe culture but participated in its cultivation? What if, rather than critiquing or vilifying it, we became active participants; in redeeming it and creating redemptive work that influenced it?

Part of this shift in our thinking led us to the arts. We began to imagine using our creativity and talents to positively impact the world. We wanted to create art that was beautiful, thought-provoking, and redemptive.

What would it look like if we didn’t just observe culture but participated in its cultivation?

The Power in Art

Arts have the power to transform individuals and communities, and we were brazen enough to believe that we could impact the artistic culture in our city and around the world. Art can help us see the world in new ways, to understand each other better, and to connect with our shared humanity. 

We began to imagine using our own creativity and talents to create art that was not only beautiful, but thought-provoking and redemptive, and encouraging one another to embrace works of art and the artists who create them. The arts could be a powerful tool to actively engage and  steward the gifts of our congregants to influence the world for the glory of God by supporting artists, performance organizations, scholarship programs, and missional partnerships.

Looking at how far we have come in the past few years, I am grateful to see the fruit of those conversations. 

Serving the Artistic Community

The Four Chapter Gallery is a prime example of how we are putting these conversations into action. Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, the gallery is a beautiful space in the Crossroads District that serves Kansas City’s thriving artistic community. With regular gallery hours and a rotating selection of art installations, it has become a beloved presence in the city, especially on First Fridays.

More than just a space to exhibit art, the Four Chapter Gallery is also a community hub where artists come together for encouragement, collaboration, and deep conversation. Under the leadership of curator Kelly Kruse, the gallery is helping to support a new generation of artists who are creatively renewing the world alongside God through the act of generative creation.

A Storytelling Mission

Inspired by a similar mission, two other Christ Community congregants set off on a venture to engage the arts by creating movies that make a difference. Stephen and Mary Pruitt, an economics professor, and an up-until-then stay-at-home mom, focused on crafting beautiful art through the visual storytelling medium of film. Despite having no prior filmmaking experience, the Pruitts set out to make movies that would shape imaginations and spark better conversations. Fifteen years later, their fifth full-length feature film, State of Grace, is making the rounds at film festivals around the country, including two highly acclaimed festivals in Los Angeles and New York City, along with a Kansas City premiere at the Glenwood Arts Theatre (coming October 13-15, 2023).

State of Grace is a timely and beautiful film about a young mother who loses control of her life and the custody of her one-year-old daughter, Grace, due to a growing addiction to fentanyl. Inspired by actual events, it is a deeply moving film about the power of community and the price of love. Another example of how Christ Community is quietly encouraging artists to create art that sparks meaningful conversations. 

Consider Engaging

Creativity is taking place all around us in closer proximity than you could imagine, and supporting the growing impact of Christ Community in the arts is as simple as taking the time to view exhibits and shows being presented. In a world filled with endless entertainment options, it is easy for artists to wonder if they are just adding to the noise. One of the best ways we can support the arts in our community is by taking the time to notice and appreciate this continued creation. Engaging locally, relationally, and intentionally moves this mission forward. And when we are relationally connected to the artists who created the work, we view and respond to it differently. 

In a world filled with endless entertainment options, it is easy for artists to wonder if they are just adding to the noise. One of the best ways we can support the arts in our community is by taking the time to notice and appreciate this continued creation.

Join Christ Community in our mission to engage in the arts and influence culture. Start by supporting the opportunities for engagement right around you. Two ideas for this month include visiting First Friday at the Four Chapter Gallery and seeing State of Grace at the Glenwood. Maybe next month attend an art festival in the community, find an artist whose work resonates with you, and start a conversation. 

 

Seeing the Word: An Introduction to Illumination

Seeing the Word: An Introduction to Illumination

THE ACCESSIBILITY OF GOD’S WORD

Have you ever stopped to think how incredible it is that we are able to have such immediate and unrestricted access to God’s Word? It was not always so in the history of the church, and still isn’t for some believers today. While Scripture is not always easy to understand, we can engage with it in a myriad of forms whenever and wherever we want. We can choose from multiple translations, read it on an app that will give us access to the original language, and listen to recordings at almost any speed we want.

It is a massive privilege to have so many ways to access Scripture, especially to accommodate unique learning styles. But such privilege can create indifference. If we aren’t careful, the living Word of God can become just another kind of media consumed in the same manner as other information.

 

THE WRITTEN WORD OF GOD AS A RARE WORK OF ART

As an undergraduate, I studied in Florence, Italy for a semester, devoting all of my learning energy to Renaissance Florence. I began to truly see the arts and sciences as deeply shaped by time and place, interconnected and influencing one another. I saw an illuminated manuscript for the first time in a side chapel of a cathedral in Florence. Illuminated manuscripts are a historic art form, and they comprised a range of texts from contracts and legal documents to poetry and Scripture. To be illuminated, a manuscript generally contains some kind of decoration in the form of ornate calligraphy or illustrations. Illumination has existed in various cultures from around the world. This particular volume was like a predecessor to a church hymnal, though it was at least five times the size of any hymnal I had ever seen. The letters were decorated with bright pigments and gilded with real gold. It was more beautiful than any other musical score I had ever laid eyes on. This manuscript was not made to be creased, marked and used, but venerated and treasured.

In the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, these manuscripts were handwritten by scribes, often on vellum made from animal skins. Even the most skilled scribes typically produced only a few pages per day. When editors found mistakes, they had to be painstakingly sanded off the page or creative notes had to be made in the margins to clarify or add missing words, because to start over meant discarding days’ worth of work. Entire workshops were devoted to the creation of a single manuscript, sometimes taking years to complete.

In the late Middle Ages, the largest library in western Europe included less than 2000 books. If a household owned even a single volume, they were considered very wealthy. You can probably imagine how rare it was to have a copy of the Bible in your household at this time in history. The Word of God was not nearly so accessible to them as it is to us.

The accessibility of knowledge in written form changed forever in 1450 with the invention of the Gutenberg press, and with movable type came the ability to mass produce books in the Western world. What had once been accomplished by human hands could now be done by machine at over a thousand times the speed. In fact, Gutenberg’s first project was to print a new edition of the Bible. But before movable type, copies of the Bible in a single volume were extremely rare. Instead, you’d find several books of the Bible grouped together, like the gospels or the psalms.

Because of their rarity, these manuscripts were precious, and so a lot of effort went into making them beautiful. These handwritten Bibles featured beautiful calligraphy–the words themselves were works of art. Detailed paintings, decorations, and symbolic imagery graced the pages alongside the words. Some volumes are so big that they take up to three librarians to lift. But not all of these books were created for ceremonial display; there were also devotional prayer books built around the passing hours of the day that were essentially pocket-sized and likely used in personal worship. Even these pocket volumes were lavishly decorated across the pages and margins.

Some of the images and symbols from these Bibles feel totally foreign to modern viewers, while others are awe-inspiring in their detail and beauty. The Bible stands as a living artifact, in many ways outside of time. Human beings continue to carry Scripture in their hearts and minds through time, which means that we wear a specific lens when we engage with it, and it takes effort to become aware of that. This is a beautiful reminder of the fact that God chose to partner with human beings in the ancient Near East who were bound to their particular time and place, too. They also wore a cultural lens, but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, God used people to create something that transcends time and continues to alter the course of the future.

 

“IMAGISTIC” THINKING AND SCRIPTURE

The vast majority of Bibles from the Middle Ages were illuminated, and that speaks volumes about the way Western Christians in that time period approached the text. It doesn’t just mean that they valued beauty as a part of their practice of worship, it also communicates that images were valuable to their process of understanding and meditating upon Scripture.

Imagistic thinking means that when we encounter an image, either in a painting or in the pages of Scripture, rather than only evaluating it analytically or materially, we are looking for the connections and meaning behind it. John Walton argues in his book The Lost World of Adam and Eve that ancient Near Easterners were imagistic thinkers, and were “more likely to think of the world in terms of symbols and to express their understanding by means of imagery.” By contrast, in our culture we are more analytical and scientific in our thinking, and are “primarily concerned with causation, composition, and systematization.”

A great example of imagistic thinking comes in Exodus 14, when God gives Moses the power to divide the sea and makes a way for the Israelites to pass through on dry ground.

The image here is of water being divided and dry ground emerging. The first time we see this image is during days two and three of creation, when God orders the chaotic waters and makes a way for human beings to survive on dry land. If modern readers analyze Exodus 14 and focus only on the material possibility of separating water in the particular manner described in this text or focus on the question of the historical accuracy or dating of such an event, they miss the rich meaning behind the image: God orders chaos and makes a way for salvation, no matter how dire the circumstances, and he has been doing so since the very beginning of creation. This doesn’t mean we disregard questions that are natural for us to ask, like, “Did this actually happen?” It means we don’t only ask those questions.

Art can sometimes remind us that there are invisible meanings and connections beyond what we can see and understand, and if we develop our capacities to engage meaningfully with art, it can assist us in the more difficult process of engaging with the complex images of Scripture. There’s always another layer of meaning we can discover beneath any given passage. Art also provides a material means for us to meditate upon an image without needing to hold it in our imagination. We live in an increasingly visual culture and younger generations are filled with more visual learners.

 

PROLONGING OUR ENCOUNTERS WITH GOD

It isn’t just recovering imagistic thinking that makes illumination valuable. Contemplating illuminations with the text slows us down, beckons us to stop and look, and through that act of intentional seeing, it enables us to notice things that we may not have otherwise. Sacred artists spend time soaking in Scripture and the presence of the Holy Spirit, and they return from that in-between place, offering us a glimpse of their experiences through their work.

When I consider the workshops of illuminators from the past, I imagine artists and thinkers who spent their days contemplating the text and in this in-between, meditative state, they created places for the readers of Scripture to prolong the moment of being in the presence of the Living God.

 

WHAT WAS LOST AND THEN FOUND: IMAGE WITH WORD

With the invention of the printing press, the practice of illumination rapidly declined. Books could be mass produced and so they became less precious. The materials used to produce books changed with technological advances. Yet, though it declined, illumination did not disappear entirely. There were some workshops that continued to produce illuminated manuscripts. It was after the end of the Renaissance that the practice of illumination faded into obscurity.

Fast forward nearly four hundred years to Collegeville, Minnesota, a small town northwest of the twin cities. British calligrapher Donald Jackson was visiting Saint John’s Abbey and University in 1995. Jackson had encountered an illuminated manuscript in a local museum as a child, and his dream of one day creating an illuminated Bible was born. While visiting Saint John’s, he sensed the high value they placed upon aesthetics and faith. He invited them to share in his vision of a modern illuminated Bible, and Saint John’s University made the huge commitment of time and resources to commission one of the first complete illuminated Bibles since the invention of the printing press.

 

THE SAINT JOHN’S BIBLE

This project was a collaborative effort of theologians, scribes, artists, and craftspeople from around the world. It was created in seven volumes, with over 1,100 pages that are two feet tall and three feet wide. Each page of calligraphy took 7-13 hours to complete and was written on calfskin vellum using turkey, goose, and swan quills. The team of scribes used natural handmade inks, hand-ground pigments, and gold and silver leaf gilding. There are over 160 illuminations that grace the pages.

The project took over eleven years and cost 8 million dollars, funded by approximately 1,500 donors.

Though the materials and processes used to create the Saint John’s Bible mirrored the ancient practices of Medieval Bibles, the symbolism, art, and imagery of these Bibles is firmly rooted in the twenty-first century, a reminder of our ongoing participation in carrying Scripture forward, bound as we are to our particular time and place.

One beautiful example of this is that all of the symbolic illuminations that feature plants and animals in the Saint John’s Bible are native species to either the woods surrounding Saint John’s University or Jackson’s scriptorium in Wales. One illumination is of a monarch butterfly in various stages of transformation. The monarch was an endangered species at the time the Bible was created, and one of the donors was heavily involved in conservation efforts to save monarchs. At the same time, the chrysalis and butterfly are powerful symbols of death and resurrection. This reveals the many layers of meaning and significance that can exist within an image, some of them tied to time and place, while others are timeless.

The Saint John’s Bible is a gift to modern Christians. It speaks to the power of beauty as we engage with the truth of God’s word. As a visual artist and an arts advocate, it also reminds me of the role the church can have in encouraging artists as a community. When the Holy Spirit spoke the dream of creating an illuminated Bible into Donald Jackson’s heart as a boy, I doubt Jackson understood how many people it would take to realize such a vision. God’s provision can be seen all over the pages of this magnificent Bible, and it will be a heritage of beauty and truth for generations to come.

 

RESOURCES FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION

View the Book of Kells online. This is a gospel book from c. 800, and it opens with ornate visuals that demonstrate the harmony of the gospels.

The Black Hours is a worship book containing the office of the hours that was created on vellum that was stained black. You can view the manuscript online.

The Ebbo Gospels can’t be viewed in its entirety online, but you can see the stunning and unique portraits of the gospel authors, which are in a style that is energetic and unusual for the time period.

The Saint John’s Bible has an amazing website that you can explore to learn more.

The Gospel According to Twenty One Pilots

The Gospel According to Twenty One Pilots

At the end of each concert, the two frontmen of the musical group Twenty One Pilots stand together on the stage, put their arms around each other, and smile at their fans as the cheers rise. Throughout the crowd, people lift signs with “Thank You” written on them. After a while the lead singer lifts the mic and gives them his parting words: “We’re Twenty One Pilots, and so are you.” As the duo walks off, the crowd continues shouting out their thanks for their music, performance, and, for many, their witness.

Yes, witness. Witness to what? What are the crowds gathering at these shows so grateful for

I believe the reason the fans of Twenty One Pilots are so profoundly impacted by their music is because through it, whether we realize it or not, we are getting a glimpse of, even becoming participants in, the good news of Jesus Christ. 

 

The Art of Our Everyday Work

I need only one song to show you an example of how this duo embeds the gospel into their artwork. They become a witness and a guide for us as we embed the gospel into our “artwork,” that is, the art of our everyday work.

“Trees” is the song Twenty One Pilots always performs to end their shows. Its basic flow traces the dialogue between God and a man who is hiding in the trees, silent and afraid in the face of his impending death. And yet God comes after him, initiating a conversation and showing his heart’s desire to be with him. 

Clearly, this recalls the aftermath of human rebellion against God in the Garden of Eden, giving voice to the interchange of Genesis 3:8-9. Adam and Eve stood naked and afraid, hiding from God amidst the trees, and yet he came after them. He called them out of hiding and invited them to be known, even in their sin. 

What the song does next is repeat this scenario by repeating the same set of three verses, but building to a much bigger finish. This gives the sense that the same dialogue between God and a man happens again, but with a different outcome. 

And indeed, this is what the good news proclaims! Jesus takes on our shame and faces his impending death, fearful and exposed before his Father as he sweats blood amidst the trees in the garden of Gethsemane, pleading for the cup of the cross to pass from him (Luke 22:42). But this man, the last Adam, remains obedient to the end (1 Corinthians 15:45, Philippians 2:8). He gives himself up to make our death his own, crying out while he stands nailed upright on one tree amidst others, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). This is echoed in the lyrics from “Trees”: “Why won’t you speak, where I happen to be?… Silent in the trees, standing cowardly.” 

 

God’s Heart Cry

Then, the climactic refrain at the end of the song invites a response: “I want to know you, I want to see, I want to say, Hello.” This is God’s heart cry. God came in the flesh to be with us, which is what he has been after since the beginning. He’s always initiating, starting a conversation with us. Not from afar, but here, where we are, in the midst of our sin and shame and death, even taking it all upon himself. Then he rose from the grave to new life and Mary saw him standing amidst the trees, mistaking him for the gardener, and he called out to her (John 20:15-16). The cross and the resurrection are God’s song of invitation to know a love stronger than death. 

So when a slight, dark-haired man stands in front of a stadium full of thousands at the end of a show, he sings out the refrain of that invitation: “Hello.” He repeats it throughout the song, bending over his microphone while his friend sits behind him hammering away at his drum set. Then the hellos stop, and after another chorus and some intervening “la la las,” the beat stops. A synth interlude rolls over the crowd. They’re anticipating. Waiting. They know what’s coming. As the two men make their way down from the stage, the security workers in the front lift two large tom drums on either side of the audience from the orchestra pit. A small platform comes next, one beside each of them. Then the spectators become participants. Drumsticks in hand, the two men climb onto the platforms, held up by the people who have spent the last 2 hours singing their guts out along with them. And then it comes.

Confetti drops like a snowstorm from the ceiling as the two men pound their drums in unison. In between beats (buh buh – pause – buda buh buh buh – pause) they point their sticks out to their “Skeleton Clique” (their fan club). And the clique responds, as if coming to life. The crowd shouts a resounding “Hey!” each time, responding to the invitation sung from the stage just moments before. When the music stops, the duo gets back on the stage and says goodbye.

An Invitation to Participate

This is how Twenty One Pilots ends their show, every time. If you’re curious, you can WATCH a recording. They have designed their music and performances with an invitation for fan participation. If my interpretation is right, they have written their music to be sung out so that the singers become participants in the gospel narrative hidden in its folds. This is what Twenty One Pilots has made with their artwork. They’ve not written “Christian music,” but music that nonetheless points to Christ in story-form. 

What about the artwork of our own lives? Have we received the message that we have to make “Christian art” or do “Christian work” to be impactful in God’s Kingdom? With the apostle Paul I say, “By no means!” (Romans 7:13). 

In your home or at work, with your spreadsheets, with your meetings, with your budgets, with your coworkers, with your friendships, with your relationships, with your sexuality, with your (dare I say it) politics, with your grief, with your depression, with your trauma, with every particularity that makes up your particular story…what would it look like to embed the gospel story into your own story? Every single facet of our story can become a witness and invitation for others to participate in God’s Story. 

But we have to know our story to do this. And the best way, indeed the only way to fully know ourselves is to know the God who knows us. We have to let God in, and respond to his invitation. We need to yell “Hey” when he sings “Hello.” The deep desire of his heart is for us to know him even as we have been fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12). 

 

Reflect on Your Own Story

So reflect on your own story. Write it, draw it, yell it, sing it, dance it, however the Spirit leads. Then invite others to listen to your story. Allow yourself to be known before God as two or three gather around to bear witness to the work of God in your life (Matthew 18:20). In doing so you offer up your story as a prayer, giving voice to the silent dialogues between your heart and God’s, thus training the ears of your heart to recognize your Shepherd’s voice (John 10:3).  

If you’re convinced, come with me and follow the path that Twenty One Pilots have laid, to imitate their artwork as they seem to be imitating Christ’s (1 Corinthians 11:1). Jesus himself told stories and lived a life that perplexed most, but for those who have ears to hear, he has spoken and lived the very words of life (Mark 4:9-13, Luke 8:8-10, John 6:60-69). Let’s participate in his life, and through our lives invite others to do the same. 

Why We Need the Visual Arts in Our Formation

Why We Need the Visual Arts in Our Formation

What can get 50 men and women from across the metro to come together midweek for three hours after working all day? Two words: Ecclesiastes and art. 

Let me explain. 

Ecclesiastes Came to Life

On Wednesday, August 11, some 50 people came together to explore the complex themes of the book of Ecclesiastes through the lens of the art exhibit, Geheimnis, created by our Four Chapter Gallery curator, Kelly Kruse. 

During the time together, we feasted on food and artwork. Kelly spent time teaching Ecclesiastes and sharing her creative process, and then we engaged with her work through small and large group discussions. 

Equipped with a journal, each person was invited to process the artwork through guided questions corresponding to the themes of Ecclesiastes and their visual representation in Kelly’s work. The questions invited us to contemplate our mortality, compare texts within Scripture, and share our experiences of her work. The whole night was a deeply personal experience with the biblical text and ideas of Ecclesiastes illuminated in vibrant color. 

Art as a Catalyst

While this isn’t the first time the arts have been a catalyst in my faith, it highlighted afresh three ways the visual arts can be a catalyst for spiritual formation within the church.  

  1. The visual arts invite stillness

We can listen to our podcasts twice as fast. Our highway speed limits are merely suggestions often ignored. New movies are available on-demand for at-home release. Everything is fast, immediate, and hurried. This may sound cliché, but this fact seems even more clear now: we’re addicted to hurrying. It’s astounding how even a global shutdown seems to have been more like a bump in the road rather than a change in pace. This state of affairs is worrisome because we cannot become like Jesus in a hurry. 

What is helpful about good art is that it invites stillness. Artwork invites you to stop in your tracks, stay awhile, and even stare. Everything slows down. Some studies show that engaging in particular kinds of art can even decrease stress and lower blood pressure. 

We need more spaces of stillness if the Spirit is to do the slow deep work of forming us into Christlikeness. The visual arts can help. 

  1. The visual arts demand contemplation.

So often our faith formation paradigms revolve around getting information merely to regurgitate it later. While that is helpful at certain stages of development (especially catechesis for children), it is not sufficient for spiritual maturity. Otherwise, when the questions change due to the changing pressure points of culture, we will find ourselves ill-equipped to converse thoughtfully with our neighbors.

In the stillness of engaging visual art, we are able to be present. We are able to pay attention to one thing instead of being distracted by a thousand things. We can even pay attention to what we’re paying attention to. We can do more than ask “what am I noticing?” We may even lean into asking “why?” This kind of critical thinking in contemplation is a skill in itself to help in our journey of growth.

The visual arts demand contemplation. You cannot merely memorize the answer. You must marinate in the images, the colors, the textures, and shapes. It can be frustrating in its own right when all you want is to “know what it means” so you can move on. But art doesn’t want you to move on. Art invites you to experience what it means so you can move in.

This practice shapes us into the kind of people who can also engage the Scriptures better. If we merely come to the text looking for a proof text (a quick answer to a big problem), we may misrepresent what God is saying in that particular text. Hurried minds often lead to mindless hurry. Instead, Scripture invites us to study and meditate allowing the Spirit of God to illuminate God’s timeless truth in our specific lives. God doesn’t want us to move on but to move in with Him over time. 

We need more spaces that demand we contemplate rather than just consume. The visual arts demand contemplation.

  1. The visual arts extend the joy of discovery

As we sit in stillness and contemplate the work before us, over time we are extended the joy of discovery. Like an archeologist carefully digging for weeks on end, when the discovery is revealed, the joy is that much sweeter. So too with the visual arts and our study of Scripture! 

On that August night, I watched as people shared their experience of the themes of Ecclesiastes through the artwork with tears in their eyes. I heard exclamations of wonder as people sat in one particular work until it came alive to their imaginations. As Christians of various vocations have engaged with this art show throughout the summer, I have heard story after story of truly fascinating experiences that will stick with me for a lifetime. The joy of discovery after the contemplation was palpable and personal.  

Still Growing

Now, I say all this as a pastor. I was taught to love the Word of God, to teach with clarity, to communicate for change in the listener. I still believe all that is true. Simultaneously I’m growing in my experiential understanding that the arts are crucial to our discipleship today. In a world that may distrust what’s true, be disgusted by the good, often there is still a hunger for the beautiful. 

Even when not explicitly religious in themes – the visual arts are a catalyst for the kinds of rhythms necessary for our growth in Christ. When the visual arts are married to biblical ideas or even explicit texts and given intentional structure for conversation, it is a dynamic experience that shapes while it informs. 

How You Can Engage

If you want to experience this in your formation, here are three ways to engage.

1) Engage the artwork around you. It’s honestly astounding how much artwork is in our city. As you happen upon a local artist’s work, stop and stay. If you have other items on your list to do, then set your alarm for five minutes. Sit in the stillness. Contemplate and see what you discover! 

2) Join us at the Four Chapter Gallery. We would love to have you join us on any of our First Fridays, or better yet, come for one of our open gallery hours throughout the month. We often seek to create space for stillness so that you can contemplate the work outside of the activity of First Friday. 

3) Gather with others who want to do the same. If you want to go even further, curator Kelly Kruse is gathering a group of artists to meet twice a month starting in September to explore themes of art and faith. You can join the mailing list as well as communicate your desire to join in at [email protected]

Our creative God is working. He’s working through His Word expressed and illuminated in the arts. Come and see for yourself.  

Engaging Lent Through Art

Engaging Lent Through Art

For centuries, the church has observed a season called Lent.

Lent is a period of reflection and imitation. It’s a season of spiritual preparation in which Jesus’ followers embrace intentional self-denial, just as Jesus embraced His cross.

This year, Christ Community is commemorating Lent in a variety of ways.

Our celebration of Lent began on Ash Wednesday, with services at both our Leawood and Brookside Campuses. And next Friday, March 29, we’re honored to be hosting The Gologotha Experience at our Brookside Campus.

We’ve also chosen to engage Lent through stunning visual art on display in our Four Chapter Gallery at the Downtown Campus. This March and April, Four Chapter Gallery is presenting Cross & Resurrection, a collection of artwork created by Christos Collective that focuses on Christ’s sacrifice for us.

As these pieces have hung in our space for the past few weeks, I’ve been struck by how many congregants have stopped at each piece, taking in their beauty and exploring what they communicate about Jesus’s death for the sin of the world.

But it’s not just our congregants who are finding themselves challenged and inspired by the work. I’ve likewise found myself particularly drawn to a pair of of paintings that hang behind our stage.

The first image in the pair presents the crowd’s derision of Christ as He made His way to Golgotha. Angry accusers hound Him, while others offer to speak on His behalf, leveraging His suffering for their own 15 minutes of fame. Some seem to ignore His suffering, focusing instead on lesser distractions, while others look on with mild pity. No one in the image seems to recognize the gravity of the work that is being accomplished in front of their eyes. They’re blind to the fact that they’re witnessing the Son of Man give His life to redeem the world He made.

 

The second image builds upon the message of the first. It depicts Christ resurrected. In this image, indifference towards Christ continues but takes a different form. The crowd remains distracted. Some are glued to their screens, while others continue to leverage Christ to build their own platforms. Those who derided Him at His death now deride one another. They’re caught in a cycle of scorn and condemnation. Yet again, those who have witnessed a remarkable miracle—Christ’s resurrection—seem oblivious to its implications.

 

Art is a visual language. And it speaks to the human soul in ways that words cannot.

This is what I love about art. This is why I’m so thankful that our church is committed to the arts.

Just as Lent invites us to embrace a particular, embodied spiritual discipline (i.e., fasting) so that we might learn more about what it means to follow Jesus in all of life, viewing art grants us the ability to slow down and engage the gospel story in an entirely unique way. Art speaks to us on a cognitive and emotional level. And it can cause us to understand our discipleship to Jesus more fully, when we take time to reflect on its message.

Seeing Jesus as He truly is is key for Christian discipleship. If we want to follow Jesus, we need a fully orbed portrait of who He was, and what He prioritized, and how we are to respond to Him.

While He walked among us, Jesus was perceived in many ways. The desperate saw Him as their only hope. The religious leaders saw Him as an intolerable threat. Peter saw Jesus as a political revolutionary—a militant leader, who would overthrow their oppressors and establish a Jewish kingdom. (This is why Peter wanted to sit at Jesus’ right hand, and why he drew his sword at Jesus’ arrest.)

Put more plainly: Peter thought Jesus would cross out the Roman Empire, not wind up on a Roman cross.

But Jesus’ death and resurrection changed all that. After Jesus rose and spent time with Peter, Peter saw more clearly what discipleship to Jesus required.

This Lenten season, we need our vision adjusted. We must see Jesus as the Son of Man sent to die. And the powerful collection of paintings in our Four Chapter Gallery helps us do just that.

If you haven’t seen this work yet, I invite you to join us at the Four Chapter Gallery for April’s First Friday. The Gallery will be open from 5:30-9:00pm on Friday, April 5. Come at any point during that period to engage this thoughtful collection. Allow the art to speak to you. And see if God might use these powerful images to give you greater insight into how you might follow Him in the various roles and responsibilities He’s prepared for you.

Repurposed

Whether it’s perusing Etsy, walking around the West Bottoms, or visiting a friend in their loft, more and more I find the beauty of the repurposed. An empty warehouse is repurposed to be an artsy restaurant. An empty opera house is repurposed to be a coffee shop. A window’s shutters are repurposed to be an ideal location to hold letters. A claw-foot tub is repurposed as a unique couch.

Creative minds not only see what a space, piece of furniture, or restaurant used to be, but also what it can become. One takes an item’s uniqueness and repurposes it for creative brilliance and functional effectiveness. One takes something that is broken, disregarded, and forgotten and adapts it for a different purpose in order to show its intrinsic value and usefulness. It has caused me on more than one occasion to stop and say, “I would have never thought to use this for that…and yet, that works better than I ever could have imagined.”

In those moments, I can’t help but see the gospel. There is a yearning deep within every human being that seeks repurpose and finds great joy when it takes place around us. God tells our current story—our place in history—as a people who are born purposed against Him, manipulating our created existence toward destructive ends. This, in part, is what Scripture means when it says we are a sinful people.

But humankind was not always like this. There was a time—the dawn of time—when God created humankind for the purpose of showing self-giving love to one another and all of creation as we honored God by wholly living into who He designed us to be. Rather than seeking isolation, we sought community. Rather than hurting each other out of our emptiness, we cared for each other out of our fullness. But soon after the dawn of creation, humankind made a cosmological shift. We disregarded God’s purposes back in that ancient garden.

The good news is that God is passionate about repurposing broken creation, and He’s really good at it. The difference, though, between God’s repurposing action and ours is that He longs for His creation to return to His intended or original purpose. He sees who we are and longs to recreate us, to convert us from a skewed existence.

But just like repurposing anything, there is a cost. Through Jesus Christ’s beautiful work on the cross, God paid the price. Jesus Christ took our place so we no longer had to be displaced, and we could be repurposed as a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come with its affirmation of value, usefulness, inclusion, and beauty all over and in it. It is this good news that has caused me on multiple times to pause and say, “I would have never thought to use this for that…and yet, He works better than I ever could have even imagined.”

Have you let God repurpose you? He sees something in you. Something you may not even see in yourself. Something that you may be trying to hide, discard, or ignore. He wants to make it beautiful, if you’ll let Him.

And the next time you’re browsing Etsy or walking through the West Bottoms, may you see the gospel. May you remember Jesus. May you see what God wants to do in you and for you.

 

Guitar image courtesy of Dishfunctional Designs Blog