Piloting Faith: When the art class goes entirely off the rails...

A Word for the Day...

Last week I was in San Diego working with the leaders of a fantastic church as they planned out their 2019 strategic priorities. That evening I sat in the restaurant of the hotel grabbing dinner before I went back to my room. I soon realized I was in for a treat! In the middle of the restaurant, there were dozens of easels and canvases with people sitting patiently in front of them. I was suddenly in the middle of a "Sip and Paint Class."

The woman leading the session started by showing everyone the final picture that they would be creating together. She held up a canvas with a beautiful sunset set between two mountainous hillsides. The colors were bold and blended perfectly so that you felt you were capturing those final glorious moments before the sun slipped below the horizon. Everyone looked at the finished work with a sense of awe and a twinge of excitement.

The instructor picked up a new blank white canvas and began to apply the first layers of color to show the class how to begin. Everyone in the class picked up their brushes to follow her lead.

And that is where it all went off the rails.

As I looked at the paintings that these people were creating, I wondered if we had seen the same final painting shown to us only minutes before. One guy started painting his sunset green. Another woman was so horrifically bad at blending that it looked like an off-color rainbow had thrown up all over her canvas. Nothing about it represented a sunset. Another guy kept blending his colors down the canvas so that the entire thing became brown. What a disaster!

I watched as the instructor made her rounds, giving tips to those painting the canvases that were slightly salvageable. She offered generous words of encouragement to the ones that were hopeless - "Your doing a great job of moving the brush across the canvas," she would say.

In watching this scene in front of me, I was reminded that grace comes in marvelous moments when we try new things and are patient with one another as we learn. That night I was reminded that perfection isn't the goal. Just picking up the brush and moving it across the canvas is enough.

- Rev. Cameron Trimble, author of Piloting Church: Helping Your Congregation Take Flight

Prayer for the Week

God is always giving birth
and getting born somewhere,
in human skin and breath,
in hands outstretched,
in hearts broke open,
in endings, and in new beginnings.
God has promised to be our midwife,
our companion on the journey as we carve our humble path,
as we find our way towards love that is honest and just,
as we seek forgiveness and restoration,
as we experience the loneliness of being the only one in our particular skin,
as we find our way into community that will share our pain
and celebrate every
body in our midst,
as we gather our courage for the journey ahead.

An Advent Blessing from Rev. Shawna Bowman