Art and an amen: OKC church brings faith and creativity with decade-old Paint & Pray program
Paint and Sip, Paint Your Heart Out, Wine and Canvas, Paint and Play, Sips and Swirls, Painting The Town ― all offer opportunities for a bit of socializing and painting.
A local twist on this artsy phenomenon brings people together to explore a combination of faith and creativity. It's called Paint & Pray, and it's an outreach offered each week at Wesley United Methodist Church, 1501 NW 24.
The Rev. Adam Shahan, Wesley's senior pastor, said Paint & Pray was established through a grant from the Oklahoma United Methodist Conference's New People New Places fund. He said it was designed to bring together friends from the neighborhood and the surrounding area to create artwork, support one another and pray together.
Susan Howard, a local attorney who attends Wesley, came up with the idea for the outreach ministry in 2014.
"I had been to a couple of Paint and Sips, and I love art," she said. "I thought people love art — why not do this at the church?"
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Ten years of painting and faith
With paint, canvas and paint brushes in hand, she set up shop in one of the church's classrooms, hoping people would show up. That was 10 years ago, and Paint & Pray is still going strong from 6:30 to 8 p.m. each Tuesday. Howard, 68, said she's had anywhere from eight to 15 people drop in for an art session.
Some of them attend support group meetings and other gatherings at the church and find themselves intrigued by the pops of color and animated conversation seen and heard through an open door.
Howard greeted each person who came in for a recent session, and by the time she opened up with prayer, participants were already working on the evening's art project: mosaics. Howard read a brief devotional, this one based on scripture from the Book of Colossians. As part of the outreach's tradition, she gave each participant an opportunity to share a prayer request. The group then prayed for each request, led by one of the participants.
Barbara Hill, 70 said she found out about Paint & Pray through Howard when the two were neighbors not far from the church. She said she moved farther west, and now attends St. Mark's Methodist Church in Bethany, but she has continued to return to Wesley for the weekly sessions featuring arts and crafts and prayer.
"I've always been doing artsy things, and I thought the group was very welcoming," she said. "It's just a good, cohesive group, and then there is the praying — you can't have too many prayers."
Lou Dalton, 60, said he attends Wesley, and he's also on the house of worship's maintenance staff. He said he was part of one of the recovery groups that meet at the church, and someone invited him to attend Paint & Pray.
"I have not missed a Tuesday night in over a year, and I love it," he said. "Since coming here to Wesley, my walk with God has increased because they are so giving and loving. They do not judge."
Raven McMinds, 24, said she is part of a 12-step program that meets at the church. She said she likes the supportive atmosphere at Paint & Pray, where she also has learned to both receive and give support.
"You get to support other people through life's journey," McMinds said.
Howard said participants have worked on a variety of arts and crafts projects over the years, including painting with acrylics, greeting cards featuring paper quilling art, calligraphy and pointillism art with clay pastels. They have created art pieces featuring donated costume jewelry, made what Howard called Protestant prayer beads and created tie-dye T-shirts.
The group also has painted rocks with mandala art and taken field trips to places, including the House of Clay and Art Fusion. Howard said one Christmas, participants took old hymnal pages featuring Christmas carols and decorated their canvases according to the carol's theme.
Shahan said the welcome at Wesley doesn't come with an asterisk or any fine print. He said the church's vision statement says that it is an inclusive community living out Christ's love for all people, for the renewal of all things ― and this is lived out by ministries like Paint & Pray.
"Tables like the Paint & Pray table are 'equalizers,'" he said. "No one is more important or more valuable than another at Paint & Pray participant, and the projects they create are as beautiful and unique as the people who have found this ministry as a weekly spiritual discipline."
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Paint & Pray at Wesley United Methodist Church in combines art, faith
