Art and Worship at a Local University

What happens when you take:

4 VineArts artists,

3 Envision artists, and

3 Fresco Arts Academy high school artists

…all of whom have faith in Christ, discipline in visual art, and a heart to serve others…

And you set them loose on a college worship event?

(see the video here)

(p.s.- you’ll see in the beginning of the video that I’m writing scripture backwards and forwards; kind of a circular and infinite quality.)

Two days ago, the ten of us were privileged to lead a time of visual worship for 60 pre-college students at Northwestern Nazarene University.

Most of the 60 students had never painted before. Our team of artists set up three pre-drawn canvases and art supplies, and invited the students to add their voice to the canvases over the course of almost three hours.

We had pre-mixed some transparent Graham acrylics thinned with gloss medium, and we poured 3 small puddles of random colors onto each wax-coated paper plate. The effect of  rich transparent colors on the white canvases broken into small sections looked like stained glass windows.

We encouraged the NNU students: “There are no mistakes. Don’t try to be too representational or realistic with this. Just commune with The Lord and turn your conversations with Him into color and texture. Give your fear and timidity over to God, and ask what He has for you in return.”

The theme of NNU’s gathering this year was the Apostles Creed.

You can watch a short video of our painting event, above… I love the student testimony at the mic in the end.

I think they made some terrific paintings!

Thank you, Dean Estes, for spearheading this monumental event.

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