Church-based art camp features portraits of grace

Pastor Randall Worley has found a way to blend his passions for preaching and painting to spread the gospel.

Worley has conducted weeklong art camps at Prairie Creek Baptist Church in Plano the last two years, with participants ranging from middle school students to adults in their 40s.

While preaching through the Old Testament book of Jonah, Randall Worley, pastor of Prairie Creek Baptist Church in Plano, took the wood from pallets and nailed it to plywood and then painted scenes from the book on his newly created rough-hewn canvas. (PHOTOS/George Henson)“I wanted to teach something about art in terms of technique. I’m interested in more than the ‘paint-what-you-feel’ approach that for most people just turns out to be a big mess. I want to teach techniques and concepts that can actually improve skill level. So, I try to think of that, but I also try to think of some way the project can build the church and benefit the church,” he explained.

In the first camp, Worley taught color theory, and participants painted tiles to create a multi-paneled mural of Jesus interacting with children.

“I thought we could use something that would decorate and communicate that we love our children and Jesus does, too,” Worley said.

This year, the camp focused on design. Around the theme “Portraits of Grace,” participants took photographs they then used as the basis of pencil-drawn portraits of individuals who demonstrated different aspects of the “multifaceted glory of God.” Those portraits now adorn a wall at Prairie Creek Church.

One of the winners of an art contest sponsored by Prairie Creek Baptist Church in Plano. The church also held an art contest this year to go along with Worley’s sermon series titled “The Death of God”—based on Mark 14-16—that included several entries from artists outside the church. The church paid $1,500 for the winning entry, which included the church retaining the piece for display. Any artist whose work did not win first prize was allowed to sell it to anyone interested in buying it.

Worley hopes it will become an annual event.

He wanted more than some really fine art. He provided the notes for his 11 sermons to the artists, so they would have a good biblical foundation as the inspiration for the pieces.

“I’m always thinking of ways for us to connect with our community,” he said. “As I thought about my passions and what I bring to table, I thought one of the ways we can connect with the community is through the arts.

“Most churches don’t make that a point of priority, so I thought maybe that was a point of connection we could build on. Being an artist, I knew that I would have loved to have something like an art show that I could have participated in.”

Art has been a key component of his life as long as he can remember.

Another winning entry of an art contest sponsored by Prairie Creek Baptist Church in Plano.“I was always good at art from a very young age, and something I just really enjoyed doing,” Worley recalled.

As a teenager, he thought art would be his vocation.

“But when God called me, that took me a different direction,” he said. “I was 15 when God called me to preach, and it was definitely not something I felt equipped to do. So the struggle was not that I was giving up art, but that I just didn’t feel I was capable of preaching.”

While he knew he eventually would go to seminary to prepare for ministry, he pursued an undergraduate fine arts degree in painting. His father, a missionary in Spain, always encouraged his children to use all their talents for the glory of God, and so Worley felt it was important to develop his skills as an artist as well.

“This church, when I got here, had so many undecorated walls that I felt there was a lot I could do here,” he said with a smile.

Worley’s artistic influence also is felt on a more frequent basis through other avenues.

“Since I’ve been here, I’ve designed our bulletin covers to go along with the sermons I’m preaching, as well as any posters,” he explained.

One section of a mural depicting Jesus interacting with children, created by art camp participants.He also uses art as a backdrop for his sermons. While preaching through the book of Jonah, he took the wood from pallets and nailed it to plywood and then painted scenes from the book on his newly created rough-hewn canvas.

“I’ve always felt we as evangelicals tend to neglect the visual arts. I think we’re pretty good at using music in worship, but maybe as a response to the excesses of iconography and the idolatry that is often attached to that—where the artwork becomes the object of worship—we go to the opposite extreme and don’t hardly use it at all,” Worley said.

“I think it is important to use all that we have to glorify God. Art is a medium of communication. Like you can preach a sermon, you can create artwork that is thought-provoking and challenging and communicates a message.”