Dean R. Heetderks

Since I first saw pictures of Janet Echelman’s sculpture made from thirty-five miles—yes, miles—of technical fiber hanging over a park in Greensboro, North Carolina, I’ve been thinking of ways to capture some of the same airy, flame-like look for a Pentecost visual for worship.

What if we strung netting of some sort—dyed or left natural—from floor to ceiling? But to keep it from looking like a spiderweb, it needs an anchor of some sort—something to give it focus and a purpose.

I tend to be a bit wary of trends that get too popular too fast. Pinterest, the online social networking app for collecting and sharing ideas visually, was one I was certain wasn’t a good thing—especially for “serious” artists working with visuals for worship. Serious artists—that’s us, right?

It hit me a couple of weeks ago when I realized the worship planning team or someone—the pastor, probably, late Saturday night—used a banner I had designed at least fifteen years ago to signal this Sunday was Communion Sunday. Surely we must have done something different or new since then, right? Nope. I couldn’t think of anything beyond an on-screen graphic done up a couple of years ago for a Good Friday service.

On my way to and from the office are two buildings I can’t get enough of. One, a two-story office building, has the most beautiful roofline of repeating round arches over a lacy infrastructure encased in walls of glass. The other is a city library built a few years back. The design is fairly modern and appears as a collection of square and cylinder blocks of brick set next to each other in the most pleasant way. I’ve heard that taking different routes to get to the same destination is supposed to keep your mind sharp but these two buildings keep me traveling the same roads.

A news story I read today about a popular picture-sharing smartphone app included this quote: “People wonder why their daughter is taking 10,000 photos a day. What they don’t realize is that she isn’t preserving images. She’s talking.” This struck me. It’s common knowledge that pictures speak louder than words and that vision is one of the strongest of our senses. Why then do we have such trouble including pictures in our worship? Certainly it can’t be a carryover from the fifteenth-century Reformation, can it?

I’m old enough to remember worship without projection or large displays. Oh, there were times when a really progressive pastor would lug a clunky overhead projector upfront and supplement his message with rough words or pictures drawn on clear sheets of plastic called “transparencies.” The bulbs were hot, and the fans keeping them cool were loud. And then there was the problem of the transparencies sliding off the glass at precisely the wrong time.

This banner was created to celebrate World Communion Sunday, but it could be used in many other settings because of its simple symbolism. Its beauty comes from the artful combination of many diverse elements.

A seven-year-old friend of mine showed me his sketchbook after the service last Sunday. It was a drawing of one of the electric guitars used by the praise band of our church. He was quite proud of his work, but he was quick to point out that the strings weren’t quite right. They were a little heavy-looking, but it was a very well-drawn picture for a kid his age. Afraid Sam would quit drawing guitars because the first one he drew wasn’t perfect, I told him how in art school you get to draw and redraw the same thing over and over until it feels just right.

Last fall I was asked to lead a workshop at a church in a nearby town. I had never been to this church before and knew only a couple of the people attending the workshop. If I was anxious at all, my fears vanished the moment the door swung open. My hosts warmly welcomed me with eager hospitality. The group was lively and fun, and it was obvious they loved their church very much. “Can we show you around?” they asked. And so I got The Tour.

The next issue of Reformed Worship will celebrate our twenty-fifth anniversary—number 100.

Anniversaries of any sort are a great time to take a look at what you’ve been doing for months or years or decades and to ask if what you’re doing still works. Has your audience or environment or approach to worship changed, but you’re still thinking the old ways are doing what you want them to?