Art Skillfully Integrated into the Church Service

This past Sunday, an awesome ministry came to our church to minister in song, testimony, and clay. The Potter's Field Ministries (www.pottersfield.org) led by Pastor Michael Rozell and his wife Pam, gave a wonderful example of how art can be woven into the fabric of a church service. Pastor Mike gave his testimony, followed by Pam who sang as created a pot at the wheel which illustrated the song, the Bible verses (Jeremiah 18:1-6) and the testimony. It was fascinating to see how Pastor Mike worked at creating the pot and how many different shapes and sizes it took. I could truly appreciate the amount of effort that he put into making it, since I have tried and failed at throwing pots on a wheel. It was evident that both he and she had an anointing over their lives, which came through brokenness and a willingness to be used by Him, in so many other ways besides just art. It was wonderful!!

These are pictures I took after the service:

In the center is the pot he created during the service. It took several different shapes before arriving at this one.

On the left: the WOW piece that he unveiled at the end of the service (he did not create that during the service). The painting in the background was also revealed near the end of the service.

The winds of change are a-blowin'

Watch for the June unveiling of the resigned www.ArtmanGreg.com, www.CreativeHelps.com, and the world premiere of my new loom knitting website!

A couple more church crafts...

I've been looking at the pictures stored on my phone and found a series of pics I took of different church crafts that I never posted. Rather than post all of them, I picked a couple:

This is a placemat that I took the time to cut slits in the red construction paper for every child who would make the craft. I thought it came out pretty good.

Eventually I may post a couple more, but not right now. I'm off for the summer in regards to making crafts for the Wednesday Night Children's Bible Study, so I haven't been making anything new.

What is it??!?!?

I was sitting in my chair knitting (as usual) and had pulled out a long strand of yarn in preparation for knitting. As the yarn fell onto the table, here's what I saw:

What does it look like to you? I see a face with large eyes and an ear...

Musing on Bach

Today as I drove home from the Saturday morning men's prayer group I attend, I was listening to Bach's cantata #23, Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn (You, truly God and Son of David), I was touched by the meaning of the first movement. It depicts the cries of the blind men along the roadside who got Jesus' attention and as a result were healed by Him of their blindness (Matthew 20:30-34). I was struck by how well the music painted the picture of the Saviour passing by and the cries of pity from the blind men. It made me think about the times in my life when I felt the deep need to cry out to Jesus for His total and complete healing. I had heard this cantata many times before, since it was one of my favorites, but this was one of those times that it became ministry instead of just music. I think it would be awesome to create a piece of art that continues to minister some aspect of God's character long after it was created, for those who choose to receive it that way. Not something "religious," but something that would really draw the viewer into a deeper understanding or connection with God.

More Church crafts!!

I'm almost done with this "semester" of crafts; can you tell I had a lot of fun doing them? Hope you enjoyed looking at them also:

Well with craft pebbles glued to it -

A lion with a curly mane -

Paper plate Tambourine filled with beans, side 1:

side 2:

A few more church craft project samples...

Scratchboard. The paper itself has all the colors on it, I didn't add them.


A dream mobile

God's Eye (front) this one was a little challenging to do because I had forgotten how to make them, and the directions were not immediately clear to me. I finally figured it out and it turned out great.

back:

Corn (using real popcorn kernels).