After the thrilling rush of Holy Week, Eastertide, Ascension, and Pentecost, the church settles into the long, slow season marked by the ordinal numbers.

The first Sunday after Pentecost, the twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost. 

We call it ordinary time. 

And after dwelling well and dwelling long on the mighty works of God in Christ Jesus—from his Advent and birth through his Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and sending of the Spirit—we're sent to simmer in the ordinary realities of the workaday life. 

The usual. The typical. The routine. 

Is God still mightily present? Is God still at work? Even in this ordinary day? This humdrum season of daily labors?

Yes and amen. 

We're invited to remember for a whole lengthy season that God is entirely present down in the details of our lives. Even and especially in the ordinary work we're given to do.

The day job. The house chores. The projects; the tasks. The tending; the mending. The slow. The difficult. The boring. 

These, too, are invitations to look and see how God is always silently at work, in us and through us, bringing about His good purposes in His good time.  

Every Sunday we gather to remember and celebrate the mighty acts of God on our behalf. And just as reliably, at the end of every service, God sends us out into the world to do the works he's given us to do. 

The scrubbing. The carving. The brushing. The digging. The typing. The serving. The sculpting. The preparing. The playing. The writing. The lifting. The blessing. 

God puts good work to our hands, and tells us that he's prepared these works beforehand. God uses the hands of the people as His own, working His works in the world.

God has gifted artists

To PUt their hands to Good work
To Display the Grandeur of His Own Works
to make good work in the world

If you have been given and have nurtured creative gifts—gifts in the visual arts (from sculpture to painting to glass-blowing to design), gifts in the narrative arts (poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction), or musical gifts (performance, composition, etc.)—we invite you to devote those gifts unto the Lord’s service. We again invite you to make an offering of beauty.

We would love to display your visual art in our Ordinary Time Art Gallery, or feature your narrative or musical art in the gallery opening event (and the accompanying arts journal).

If you have been given and have nurtured creative gifts—gifts in the visual arts (from sculpture to painting to quilting to glass-blowing to design), gifts in the narrative arts (poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction), or musical gifts (performance, composition, etc.)—we invite you to devote those gifts unto the Lord’s service. We again invite you to make an offering of beauty, a sacrifice of praise.

As you anticipate the coming ordinary season of ordinary work, meditate upon the works which God has put to your hands, and the hands of those you know and love.

Where do you see God working His works in your own works? In the works of others?

What are His purposes and where is His presence in the work of our hands?

Help the church to see the divinely appointed dignity of the ordinary work He’s given us to do.

If you’re interested

Contact the Arts Ministry Council at ctkartsministry@gmail.com.

We’ll talk details on your project, and any questions you have will be answered!

Deadlines

Sunday, April 20th Deadline to indicate initial interest
Saturday, May 24th Deadline for written submissions
Saturday, May 31st Deadline for music submissions
Friday, June 13th Deadline for visual art submissions