The Purpose By Design Art Worship Workshop JULY 2021-The Real "YOU"

                                                                                      The Purpose By Design Art Worship Workshop 2021


After last summer of a zoom retreat, we resumed the retreat in Tennessee, bringing 12 teenage girls from the ages of 13-18 years old to the retreat center for 4 days of workshops, fitness training, health and resilience training and rest. 

We try and create a safe space where the girls can be themselves and rest from the stresses that they have at home and at school but to also be inspired by the women who share their stories and lives with them.  Many have been forced to grow up too fast because of trauma in their environment. For eleven years, Purpose By Design is trying to inspire teenage girls to be everything they were designed to be.


This year the girls painted masks of themselves.  They are white masks that can be painted on using acrylic paints.  


Day 1—Paint the “You” that you want people to see on the outside of the mask


Day 2—On the inside of the mask, paint the inside “You” that only you and God sees, including the struggles, and fears you try not to let others see.


After they finished the inside of their masks, they wrote a description of the “You” that God sees, using a list of affirmations as a jumping off point.  Starting each sentence with “I am…”


 On the last day, we created an art gallery, where the girls spoke about their experience and their art.  We celebrated each of them and encouraged them after their presentations.  They all participated and had so much inspiration about themselves and what God had to say to them.                                                                                  


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Creative Prayer- Conversing with God using art

Image
 Why pray?  "First, God.  God is the subject of life.  God is foundational for living.  If we don't have a sense of the primacy of God, we will never get it right, get life right, get our lives right.  Not God at the margins; not God as an option; not God on the weekends.  God at center and circumference; God first and last. Having a conversation with God may be less about you and more about God.  Your focus may shift away from yourself and toward your creator.  If you have a friend who constantly asks you for things but never really wants to listen to you, how deep can your relationship go?  Sometimes we forget that God has a personality and a creative side to Him, and wants to engage us at a deeper level.  Let prayer be a time to savor.  Look forward to spending time with God, using art as a tool to slow down and be with God.  Allow this to be a time in which God speaks to you and you actively seek Him.  An audible voice may not come booming out of the clouds, but many thing
Read more

Session #4 of Creative Prayer..Praying with the Body and Making Crosses

Image
  These ideas are taken from the book,  Making Crosses—A creative Connection to God, by Ellen Morris Prewitt .   Active Prayer   —Praying with your body Praying With the Body-Bringing the Psalms to Life by Roy DeLeon   Roy is an Oblate of St. Benedict and a spiritual director.   He teaches classes in “Blessed Movements”, praying with body, heart and soul, and conducts workshops at monasteries and retreat centers.   He lives in Washington state.      Warm up Active prayer with the Psalms Opening Alleluia praise prayer to begin anything.   This is also a way to get Scripture out of our heads and into the air and into our bodies. When we begin, we are reminded why we are praying, our intention is union with God, wherever we are, it is Holy ground and we need to be attentive and watchful for the inner movement of the triune God with us. The prayers are written in sections, with a Lectio Divine format, a slow, contemplative praying of the Scriptures which enables the Bible, the Word of God,
Read more

Creative Prayer Workshop #3 Paint Your Heart Out! Painting your emotions

Image
  We had a wonderful workshop with Allison leading us in painting our emotions.  We started with putting a color on paper of what a description of anger, joy, peace and love would look like to each of us in color. The next paintings were guided layers of emotions, perhaps a lie we believed, and the truth that we know, all represented in colors and layers.  Some of the pictures from the evening are below.
Read more