The Maker's Space

In his article "How do we discourage art in the church?", Phillip Ryken, president of Wheaton College, creates an interesting conversation to consider how our own churches are encouraging or discouraging artists and their God given talents.  Read his arguments and quotes and let us know what You think by posting any comments.  Let's get the discussion started.    http://thegospelcoalition.org/ blogs/tgc/2013/05/28/how-to- discourage-artists-in-the- church/

In his book "Pure Pleasure, Why do Christians feel So Bad About Feeling Good?", Gary Thomas discusses how we derive enjoyment from what we do.  He writes," Perhaps it should not surprise us that many believers find pleasure in making things; after all, we're made in the image of the creator God.  The wild variety of creative arts reflects the enormous diversity of God's people.  Our mass-production culture assaults this pleasure.  To embrace creative pleasures, we must overcome the crass "legitimization of commerce."  Some painters refuse to see themselves as true painters unless they can sell their paintings.  Others think they're not really photographers unless they market their services or prints.  The beauty of being make in the image of the creator God is that we can freely celebrate creating for creating's sake.  If you enjoy it, it can even become a form of worship. So go ahead, make something just because you like to make it-even if yo...

Our next community art group meeting of The Maker's Space is Tuesday, November 19th.  Eleanor Manning will be showing us her favorite subject, portraiture.  Don't be scared off, with a few simple proportions, anyone can start to draw portraits.  We meet at 6:30pm at the Glen Ellyn Evangelical Covenant Church.  Check out our website at GECovenant.org

Vicky Martin writes: This was an awesome word for all of you creative people. I am reading a book called "Born to Create" by Theresa Dedmon  from Bethel Church in Redding, CA. This was a quote from the book... "There is a release of the sword of the Spirit, which is for our offense, not for defense. The Lord is looking for a people who are raised up in warfare with the sword of the Spirit, which are the keys of the kingdom, and will begin to invade where the enemy has come in. The sword is going to take back the crafts, the gifts, and music. As we begin to take back what we gave away, we will begin to hear new music that will bring forth faith, crafts that will reveal Christ, and inspired pictures that will literally be prophecies a hundred years from now - these pictures will carry a prophesy as long as they survive.. These inspired pictures will speak the same languge all over the world, for the picture itself will speak the  language of Christ....

Art For God's Sake The following is an excerpt from President Philip Ryken's book,  Art for God's Sake . Art For God's Sake Venues Conservatory Theater Academics Exhibits Musical Performances Community School of the Arts  "Art has tremendous power to shape culture and touch the human heart. Its artifacts embody the ideas and desires of the coming generation. This means that what is happening in the arts today is prophetic of what will happen in our culture tomorrow.  It also means that when Christians abandon the artistic community, we lose a significant opportunity to communicate Christ to our culture. Furthermore, when we settle for trivial expressions of the truth in worship and art, we ourselves are diminished, as we suffer a loss of transcendence. "What we need to recover (or possibly discover for the first time) is a full biblical understanding of the arts- not for art's sake, but for God's sake. Then we will be able to prod...

CREATIVITY TAKES COURAGE- HENRI MATISSE I loved this quote that I found posted in the Wheaton College paper.  It made me think of taking that first step into the the unknown of something that has never been done before.  When you think about any of our efforts to do anything whether it be a painting, cooking, a presentation for work, or any project, we do not know the exact outcome.  In the creative process, whether we know it or not, we join the Creator of the Universe, not knowing what will happen, but something happens as our mind evolves into ideas of what to do next.  This "joining" is a mystery, so much so, that the world ignores it and gives all of the credit to the human.  The courage that is needed is to just "start" and let the Master Creator take it from there.  How many times are we discouraged to not even take that first step?  What do you think?