Criss cross applesauce!
This morning 156 kids created art inside and outside the VineArts Studio as part of Vacation Bible School.
We invited the kids to listen for God’s leading, and then we invited God to show each of us an image to draw and paint with wax resist and watercolor.
You might have noticed by now that I’ve been rather sporadic in posting stuff about art ministry. The long periods of silence are not due to having nothing to think or talk about… “Meh…” but because I’m so caught up in the stuff as it naturally unfolds. And there is quite a lot unfolding.
This afternoon after VBS I spent 90 minutes mourning with an art friend who is suffering through a difficult loss. An hour later I was celebrating an answered prayer with a different artist regarding an art journey far away.
Then I mourned with yet another art friend over a recent family tragedy.
I find myself always caught in the moment and easily chomping at the bit for whatever lies ahead. It seldom occurs to me to pause for a minute so I can spare a reflective look at the day behind me.
But I want and need to reflect.
For instance, I need to tell you that ministering to those sweet VBS kids today was overwhelmingly beautiful. Especially when the kindergarteners spontaneously repeated my art prayer out loud, their eyes still scrunched closed:
“Dear God, you made me, and you care about me and the things I make. Please put in my mind whatever you want to show me.”
My heart melted.
I ended my day hanging out with some of the VineArts leaders as we prepared large canvases to paint during worship.
We made a hundred tiny sketchbooks to give away at the national Vineyard conference next week. We worked hard and had a blast together.
So yeah, I need to blog more often.
Familiar advice. Two days ago I encouraged a writer friend not to hold back in sharing the new things God is showing him. What God shows him tends to seem obvious mere seconds after the new epiphany. Does that happen to you, too?
I think it’s because sometimes, true epiphanies settle so quickly and deeply, it seems it’s been part of us all along, this daily bread we just consumed; and to put such a thing into writing seems almost self-evident as to be almost embarrassingly obvious.
But as I told my friend, the new epiphany is not obvious to others.
It’s simply clicked into place so strongly that it’s become part of who we are.
Some of it’s just an old-fashioned attack from the enemy who wants us to think our ideas are stupid, with nothing unique or enlightening about what we’ve learned from God in the past 24 hours. I’m still learning to recognize and respond to the brilliance of the stuff God gives to me.
I must share these thoughts with others. With you.
Five of us on the VineArts team will be driving to the Anaheim Vineyard CA next week to teach an art ministry workshop, create on stage during worship, and pray for individuals while creating prophetic art at the National Vineyard Conference.
I am so excited about what God is going to do among His people through the arts!
Please say a prayer for our art team while we’re out in California July 13-20. And don’t forget to share what God is doing in your own journey of art + faith. Thanks!
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