Wednesday, October 30 – The Power of Art

Praise him with tambourine and dance;
      praise him with strings and pipe!             –Psalm 150:4 (NRSV)

St. Luke’s, of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod, has stood in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago since 1900.

But in 2006, when Erik Christensen accepted his first call there, membership had shrunk to a dozen people.  It needed a way to become relevant in the community.  So the pastor and a collection of lay leaders eventually found a solution by embracing the power of art.  Thanks to a grant from the ELCA churchwide organization, the congregation and pastor were able to make this possible.

“Art is to the health of the community what preventive medicine is to the health of the body,” Erik says.

That’s a concept one can see in St. Luke’s ministries.  The church building is equipped with a studio that is used for Kindermusik, yoga classes, dance classes, and others.  It has space for rehearsals, prop construction and storage for its artist-in-residence.

For St. Luke’s, art means embracing the community.  Thanks to their new artistic focus, Sunday worship now welcomes 70 to 80 people and is knitting the community together.

The full story: www.LivingLutheran.com/art

Pray for St. Luke's and for Joyful Servant in the use of art to communicate the gospel.