Art thing?

A lot of you have heard me talking or read my rambling about this Faith & Art idea. The store and teaching classes and whatever. It sounds great and I've been praying about it and I've come to the conclusion that God doesn't want me to start big. He wants me to just start where I am.

So here's the deal. Anyone who's interested in getting together and making a mess, talking, hanging out and figuring out how this works is more than welcome. Our basement is as good a place as any and if we move the couches and the foosball table and fold up the treadmill we can get a decent number of people down there. What would we do? Well, I have an idea that's come together over the last week of praying about this. It would kind of be a "class" I guess, but more open. I'll lead it but I don't want to teach - I want to bounce ideas off of you and get ideas back. I'm in it to learn just like everyone else.

The premise is this: Art is a form of worship. Whether you knit, paint, scrapbook, stamp, whatever. It's using your body and your abilities to glorify God. Some of us aren't comfortable putting ourselves out there in some ways but give us a blank page and we'll be busy for hours. But I know that scares some of you "non-artists." And that's the second part of this. Some who consider themselves "non-artistic" would be surprised to find out this isn't about technical ability. This is about seeing yourself and God and your relationship with Him in a way you wouldn't normall think about. The project I'd like to work on the for first try wouldn't necessarily be what some people would consider "art." But it's very visual and would give you something tangible to take home with you. And "icon", as Madeleine L'Engle might describe it. Something to trigger your brain into automatically remembering God's love for you.

So that's the deal. You wouldn't need a ton of supplies or have to spend much money for this (maybe $10 total, if that?) And I'm not sure I could pull it together before Christmas but if we can, then that's fabulous. Otherwise, I'm aiming for mid-January or later. Either leave me some comments or email me.