Broken Artists, Inspiring Worship

By Eileen Gathman

One thing that will never cease to amaze me is how awesome it is to truly worship our holy God as a congregation on Sunday mornings. Just this past Sunday, "Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above" and "Indescribable" were sung to help gather people into worship and I was overcome with God's greatness in a new and somewhat breathtaking way. I remember the impact the video shown at this year's Good Friday experience had on my ability to recognize the weight of sin that sent Jesus to the cross. And, how watching a painting come to life during last year's Lenten season deepened my faith in goodness coming at the end of long, hard journeys. And, hearing the stories on Sunday mornings of once hard and bitter hearts, softened and embraced by the love of Jesus. These will never get old for me!

This past June, I led a team of eight arts leaders and pastors to Willow Creek Community Church for the 2006 Worship Arts Conference. In addition to receiving much training and learning fresh approaches to worship, we spent time focusing on restoring our own hearts-as artists and leaders-to the God who inspires us to create. Our team shared stories of thanksgiving for the opportunity to remember why we do this; stories of understanding forgiveness in a new way; stories of hope for us to lead as broken people; and, stories of healing years of embitteredness toward God and others. And, we are your arts leaders and pastors!

The truth is that we are broken people trying to give thanks to God for drawing us close to His side and leading others creatively in a way that they can experience His grace too. While our main goal is to meet regularly to design, produce, implement, and evaluate Sunday services, we also pray for and inspire one another to keep going in the faith. We represent the areas of music, drama, sound, video, media software, preaching, and hosting so that the congregation can be led in inspiring worship of our great God. And, we'd love to have you come and join our teams.

Does this excite you? If you have a passion for engaging the Christian faith in artistic ways at either the Traditional or Mosaic services, please connect with me via email at eileen@centralpc.org. God desires and deserves that we give Him our very best, especially in the areas in which He's created us to be passionate.