Advent is a time of preparation, beginning with the Sunday nearest November 30. On the four Sundays of Advent, the church both looks forward to celebrating the birth of Christ and prepares for the return of Christ. The liturgical color is purple or dark blue.
Christmas is the festival of the birth of Christ, the incarnation. The twelve days of Christmas begin on Christmas Eve and end on the celebration of the Epiphany (January 6). The liturgical colors are white and gold.
When considering the visual arts theme of this issue, I contacted Carl Daw—hymn writer, executive director of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, and a good friend—to seek recommendations for hymn texts that deal with the creative process. He responded with several helpful suggestions. Each of the four songs presented here is a fresh offering by living authors and composers. They bring both prayer and praise to God. The first two acknowledge God as the great Creator; the second two speak of the various artists in our midst.
This service was developed for All Saints’ Day (November 1) or the Sunday evening closest to it. Through the use of majestic music sung by congregation and choir, responsive readings based on Scripture passages and themes, and meditations on martyrs and saints who spread Christianity throughout the centuries, All Saints’ Day can be celebrated in a fresh, festive way.
If the truth be known, Pastor Tim had majored in art as a college sophomore. He’d dropped it after a spring break mission trip to Honduras, enthused instead by the idea of preaching the gospel because, for the first time in his life, he’d seen real need. Art, he’d come to think, was at best a leisure-time activity—like sports, something people with money and time could indulge in. He was pretty sure it didn’t have a place on the front lines of the Kingdom.
Brian just called with his text and theme for this Sunday’s LOFT. Matt. 6:33—“First Things First.”
The purpose of liturgical art is to point beyond itself, to deepen one’s understanding and worship of God. A congregation might commission a work of art
Once a year, each academic department at Westmont College is invited to host a chapel for the majors and minors in their department. Here in the art department, we’ve used this opportunity to present our “artistic testimonies,” to discuss what might constitute Christian art, and to use works of art from the past as foci for devotional exercises. This year, we’ve decided to ask students to read one of Jesus’ parables of the kingdom, the parable of the talents from Matthew 25.
William Dyrness (see p. 8) commends this new book as “the best practical guide I know” to encouraging the artists in our congregations, also helping some to discover gifts they did not know they had. The mission of this publisher from England is “to spread in every place the aroma that comes from knowing Christ” (2 Cor. 2:14).
