Creation Station
In our Narthex (the room just outside the Sanctuary) we have a “Creation Station”, a table where young and old alike are invited to sit and create together. It started in Advent 2016, when together we colored five large Advent posters created by Illustrated Children’s Ministries. We had so much fun doing that together that, come Epiphany 2017, we put out blank note cards, kept the crayons and markers, and invited people to create around the scripture verse, “Let your light shine!” (Matthew 5:16), which was also the theme of our stewardship campaign. In Lent, we followed a devotional of scripture and images to meditate on and color. We painted silk banners in worship, and then shredded them and each took a piece home, to remind us of the way God re-creates and draws us out of our own tombs. We also folded origami-like butterflies, which members of the Worship Committee then strung together and hung in a large mobile over the Communion Table for Easter (196 butterflies to be exact!). Eastertide has brought Alleluia Butterflies to wave and color, and other pages for creative inspiration.
But it isn’t just coloring we’re after; it's also a deeper understanding of God, of what it means to be created in God's image, and what it means to be Church.
The very first story in the Bible is about our incredibly creative God. Looking at the formlessness and chaos, the empty canvas, God said, ‘I think I’ll make something out of this.’ Throughout scripture God makes and remakes, altering when things need to be modified (Noah's Flood, the Tower of Babel, for starters), and raises up from what everyone else would say is utter devastation (lots of examples, but Jesus is maybe the best one!). What can our own creative expression teach us about God? About one another? About our community?
This summer (2017) we are working on more posters from Illustated Children's Ministries, focused on Compassion, and what that looks like for God and for us. We hope to hang the completed posters in the fall by our Sunday School rooms. But mostly we hope that around the table at Creation Station and in other places too, that, made in the image of our Creator, we will draw out what is inventive and expressive and maybe even a little daring in each of us. And that doing so will draw us closer to the One who created us. And that around the table we will know one another differently, and better. And that all of that together will help us build up the Beloved Community.
But it isn’t just coloring we’re after; it's also a deeper understanding of God, of what it means to be created in God's image, and what it means to be Church.
The very first story in the Bible is about our incredibly creative God. Looking at the formlessness and chaos, the empty canvas, God said, ‘I think I’ll make something out of this.’ Throughout scripture God makes and remakes, altering when things need to be modified (Noah's Flood, the Tower of Babel, for starters), and raises up from what everyone else would say is utter devastation (lots of examples, but Jesus is maybe the best one!). What can our own creative expression teach us about God? About one another? About our community?
This summer (2017) we are working on more posters from Illustated Children's Ministries, focused on Compassion, and what that looks like for God and for us. We hope to hang the completed posters in the fall by our Sunday School rooms. But mostly we hope that around the table at Creation Station and in other places too, that, made in the image of our Creator, we will draw out what is inventive and expressive and maybe even a little daring in each of us. And that doing so will draw us closer to the One who created us. And that around the table we will know one another differently, and better. And that all of that together will help us build up the Beloved Community.
