Art as Worship

I attended a “Prophetic Art” seminar a few weeks ago. The hosting church is filled with paintings that draw attention to God. Each time I attend a service there, I notice different aspects of God and His Word in the paintings.

I must confess that “prophetic” anything makes me nervous. It seems to me that far too often labeling something “prophetic” is just another way of trying to add legitimacy to personal opinions. However, at least as used at this seminar, I was happy with the interpretation of this idea. The leader urged us to ask God what He wants to express through our art. She stressed that this type of art is not about the expertise of the artist, but is a form of worship and of showing what God is saying to the artist’s heart.

If you are interested in a more complete explanation of this type of Art as Worship, please read this blog post by a woman who paints prophetic art as part of the worship services at her church. You can find it HERE.

Here are some glimpses of what happened during this seminar:

We started with Music-as-Worship

We continued with an extended time for making art…

…in every sort of style…

…focused on the art, on the music playing and on what God was saying…

…with all ages included in the experience.

We finished with a time of sharing our art…

…sharing the stories behind the art…

…and sharing collaborative projects.

I was nervous ahead of time, but enjoyed the affirming, worship-full experience. I will certainly participate in similar seminars in the future!

(I used the time to paint the backgrounds for two collages I made as possible book illustrations. You can see photos of the process and the finished collages in last week’s post HERE.)