Dancing with God at Saint Andrews Lutheran

MAHTOMEDI, MINNESOTA, USA. Nearly forty youth gathered in the sports center at St. Andrews Lutheran Church to bring their prayers, both image and word, to the World Canvas Project. After a time for reflection the canvas was filled with their art and prayers. We then gatherd around the canvas for a community prayer for all those who had painted on the canvas and those yet to come. Their energy and enthusiasm were expressed with passionate color and form as they shared their faith through the gift of creativity. – Saint Andrews Lutheran Church

An evening at Edina Community Lutheran Church

EDINA, MINNESOTA, USA. We have a lot to learn from our youth in how they engage with their creativity in a bold and fearless way. After the Bonfire service the congregation broke into four groups to explore with their heads, hearts and hands including on the World Canvas Project. They gathered around the table to share in community prayer expressed in both Word and image. It was a contemplative evening of prayer, creativity and community.

“Bonfire is a service designed around the ancient Christian ordo – with a twist. We gather around Jesus’ table, as Christians have done for centuries. But, in a pattern being renewed in Scandinavia and Austria, we spend time in the midst of this worship with various responses: prayer, singing, journaling, creating art, doing justice. The Word becomes flesh IN us as we respond “Here I AM.”

– Edina Community Lutheran Church

Prayers and reflections from Iraq

MY REFLECTIONS FROM IRAQ by Capt. Shannon Brusseau, US Army

MOSUL, IRAQ. After over six years in the Army and two deployments, I have learned a great deal about myself and my faith. Growing up in a loving and faith oriented home always allowed me a venue and support network to nurture my beliefs. Even in college, when I struggled to find a church family that would give me the support network that I needed while away from home, I was still able to maintain my faith and beliefs. Being in the military is one of the biggest, and fastest, culture shocks a person can experience. Although a seemingly conservative organization, the Army presents you with a diverse work environment that you will not likely experience elsewhere; we are the “melting pot” concept attributed to the US. We have people from all races, religions, and backgrounds.

I can proudly say that my two deployments helped me grow in my faith in a manner that I never could have anticipated when I decided to join active duty. During my first deployment, my faith and church group allowed me to not only worship with other believers while I was deployed but gave me a support structure and helped me to build relationships with my Soldiers and my peer Officers. This was critical to my ability to do my job as I deployed immediately following my graduation from the Officer Basic Course and met my unit in country. The unit already had procedures in place and everyone had their friends and routines. Having a church family while deployed helped me integrate and made me feel closer to my family back in the US.

During my second deployment, I actively sought a church family as I knew the importance it would have to my life and my ability to make it through the deployment with a positive attitude. I was very blessed to join a church group that had a very diverse makeup: Soldiers, Officers and civilians from various units as well as brothers and sisters from our base’s Ugandan security team. The most amazing part of the experience was knowing that no matter what rank, religious background, country or ethnicity we were, we all prayed for the same things: health, patience, love, guidance, healing.

I had the privilege to spend my Easter at an emotional service at Saint Elijah’s monastery. What an amazing feeling to be standing where one of God’s chosen once walked and preached. My chaplain, Captain Hodge, spoke one Sunday of the history of Mosul, Iraq and how we were serving in God’s country. How amazing! We served our country where Jonah and Elijah once served our Lord! I also had the privilege to work with the Provincial Reconstruction Team that worked with local Iraqi women who were trying to start businesses, build parks and improve the overall quality of living in their towns. If this in itself was not inspiring enough, these women told us stories of their faith and, some of them, their conversion to Christianity. They spoke of the trials they endured and the persecution that they willing endured for their faith. How blessed we are to live in a country where we do not have to be afraid to believe in our God!

This World Canvas Project was a great blessing and I am grateful that my Uncle Chuck saw fit to include me in it. Although the logistics did not work out, it even inspired one of the local Iraqi Generals, General Mohammad, who desired to be a part of the project but was unable to due to his travel obligations in the region. The message that we all wanted to convey is this: without the love, support and prayers of those back home we would not be able to serve our countries as we do; the emotional, physical and psychological strains would be unbearable. So, for that reason (and a lack of access to paint), we wrote our unspoken prayers and requests on the prayer canvas hoping that those back home would finish our prayers for us; for it is only with your support and prayers back home that we can serve as we do.

Much love! God bless!

Prayers from Iraq

MOSUL, IRAQ. A second World Canvas has returned from Iraq where prayers and petitions for support, family, health, patience, love and healing were shared. Both Iraqi, American and those serving in the region shared together their thoughts and prayers.

Painting as prayer

OLATHE, KANSAS, USA Christ the Servant Church added their prayers to the World Canvas Project in an evening of worship and fellowship. Following Pastor Lee's sermon and reflections on prayers, the congregation gathered around the table for community prayer that was expressed in both word and image. – Christ the Servant Church

Communal Prayer

A NIGHT WITH THE WORLD CANVAS
by Lee Jost, Pastor Christ the Servant Church

Olathe, Kansas, USA. Last Sunday night was a memory for a lifetime. Seriously. Christ the Servant gathered for our evening worship service, guests began to arrive; the school was set up wonderfully. As guests came in they were greeted, and then they walked down the hall to the auditorium. The hall was lined with poster-sized pictures of recent Christ the Servant events. Upon entering our worship center one could not help but expect something different. There was a 20’ canvas on the platform. There were small paint containers and brushes. The night was focusing on prayer, and after our worship and a message about prayer, we all were invited by Chuck Hoffman to partake in the World Canvas.

The World Canvas is a prayer. People of various communities have written prayers on the canvas and then added a layer of paint over the written prayer to create a tapestry of color and meaning. Each prayer is contained on a three inch square. Each square is the same size, representing God’s receiving all prayer equally. Each prayer is covered with different colors and designs, representing human uniqueness. People watched, wrote, painted and prayed as a community. Our prayers were joined spiritually and physically with communities of people we will never meet yet are united with in Christ. In our own way Christ the Servant was a diverse group that night. We were people from different denominations, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, and Covenant. We were a group of diverse heritage, diverse age, and diverse theology. Yet together we created something beautiful as we prayed together. It was an amazing exercise in praying with each other and those who are hundreds and thousands of miles away.

You will want to visit our photo gallery and see some of the pictures from the night. Soon, we will also have a video too. We want to extend our thanks to Chuck and Peg, who gave us an opportunity to do something unique Sunday. Something I will never forget.

Luther Seminary: Story Magazine

WORLD CANVAS PROJECT

by Marc Hequet, Correspondent.

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA, USA. A creation of Charles Hoffman, a Master of Arts junior and Luther's first yearlong artist-in-residence, World Canvas is open-ended. It will travel. It will grow. Any church or other group can start its own canvas. Students, staff, faculty and visitors launched World Canvas Nov. 17 at Luther, penciling prayers in 4-inch squares, then painting over them. The prayers and paint are permanently embedded together. This first canvas, 50 feet by 4 feet, may someday be a banner. Or it could be stitched to other such canvases or cut apart to hang as a mobile. In any case, the hidden prayers will remain, says Hoffman. "I don't know what else is here," he adds, "but I'm lifted up." The prayers, says Mary Steeber, coordinator of volunteer programs, are "private with the creator" yet "visually shared by community." Hoffman will gather prayers far and wide, including prayers from other faiths. "Each person is part of God's creation and is equal to one another in the same space but different in the world next to each other. All have an equal voice in raising up as individual and unique creations and yet together in community. The canvas symbolizes this," says Hoffman. Everyone who sees the canvas, notes Steeber, will be "held in the essence of the divine through the prayers of the people." All this gets us thinking about the nature of prayer itself. "It would be nice if those prayers could also be visible in public," muses Rod Maeker, director of cross-cultural education. His prayer: "Food for all." Hiding prayer, however, is fine with Shannyn Magee, a Master of Divinity senior. Covering her prayer is "like taking off our burdens and painting them over," she says. "Letting it go to someone else." Jen Kuntz, '09, has the same idea. "Would I ever find my square if it was hanging somewhere?" says Kuntz. "I thought about that. Well, it doesn't really matter. All of this is going to God." The Rev. James Lobdell, pastor at Holy Trinity Evangelical Lutheran in Inglewood, Calif., led chapel worship Nov. 17 and penciled a prayer for his congregation's sick. "God," says Pastor Lobdell, "can read through paint." A group of those at Luther Seminary interested in the arts, including Archivist Paul Daniels, developed the idea of an artist-in-residence. Hoffman's World Canvas is an extraordinary start: It can go anywhere. Participating—from thinking the prayer and writing it down, to painting strokes of color over it—takes just a few seconds. Yet how are we to pray? These prayers are private—but praying them is public. Meanwhile, "we do not know how to pray as we ought," says Paul in Romans 8, "but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words." Sarah Henrich, professor of New Testament, points to Exodus and God's apparent love of visual arts in construction of the tabernacle. Art mediates, says Henrich. The people feared this God of the fire on the mountain—but the tabernacle shows a God "visibly present among them, and they are able to trust God in a whole new way."

World Canvas, then, bespeaks "the presence of God among us," says Henrich, "even in our prayers and the choice of colors that we use." Some remember the Western Wall, the remains of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Visitors write prayers on slips of paper to tuck between stones. Indeed, travel to the Holy Land may be on the schedule for World Canvas Project for visits to churches, mosques and synagogues. Pray without ceasing, Paul urges in 1 Thessalonians. World Canvas does. Wherever it is lifted up—so are we all.

Worship at United Theological Seminary

NEW BRIGHTON, MINNESOTA, USA. The World Canvas was part of the worship service at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. From the Litany: We come with prayers both spoken and unspoken, trusting in your promise to hear us. With strokes of paint and the swirl of brushes, we offer our thanks, petitions, praise and confession. Guide our hands and search our hearts. We offer our prayers to you, O God. – UTS, Bigelow Chapel

Images © Genesis+Art Studio

Prayers for Global Missions

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA, USA. The World Canvas Project was part of the Global Missions Institute gathering at Luther Seminary. Students from around the world, faculty and friends of the seminary gathered in community and to hear a presentation from Dr. Guillermo Hansen. – Luther Seminary

Images © Genesis+Art Studio

Painting as Prayer

WHY SHOULD WE PRAY WITH WORD AND PAINT? by Chuck Hoffman

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, USA. Prayer brings us into conversation with our creator. Whether we express prayers with word or color it brings us into relationship. A relationship that God desires. The prayers that reside in our hearts and minds may seek hope for peace, healing or a sense of care and connection with one another and loved by the body of Christ. The prayers on the World Canvas Project are collectively lifted up in our hearts and on the canvas. Together we create something beautiful with color, shape and form that is at the same time both individual and communal creativity working together. All have an equal voice in raising up prayers to our creator. Creativity is a gift from God and creating gifts back to God. Wherever prayer is lifted up–so are we as well.

O Lord our God,
In the quiet
contemplation of our hearts
through pencil, brush and color,
you accept equally the prayers of
our sisters and brothers
in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Europe and the Americas.

We are all one in prayer.
So may we, as one,
rightly carry out our commission
to witness and to love
in our community
and throughout the world.
Accept our prayers and art
graciously, as an act of love for you.
+ Amen

Prayers to end poverty in Minnesota by 2020

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA, USA. Luther Seminary hosted the state wide assembly for Minnesota Without Poverty. The World Canvas Project was part of the event and was offered for the collective prayers of those who gathered to end poverty in Minnesota by the year 2020. A Minnesota Without Poverty has a vision where all Minnesotans thrive. – A Minnesota Without Poverty

Images © Genesis+Art Studio

Lifting of prayers for creation

THE WORLD CANVAS PROJECT BEGINS AT LUTHER SEMINARY.

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA, USA. The World Canvas Project is a prayer canvas where prayers are first penciled onto the canvas then painted into the canvas. With its beginning at Luther Seminary, the canvas has been part of community at the Minnesota Without Poverty gathering, Global Missions Institute, United Theological Seminary and the Summer Institute in Spirituality & Art. A second canvas is currently in Iraq. – Luther Seminary

Images © Holm Photo