[u-dog]

Instead, I am a Pastor. The questions you are asking are exciting ones to me... I hope they are to the pastoral staff at your church.

Here are some ideas that I have experienced.

1. Visual artist (painter) paints an oil or water color on a fairly large canvass during the worship service. Obviously the composition and its execution are planned well in advance so that certain images appear on the canvas at certain points in the worship. A quick and shallow example off the top of my head might be that a landscape is laid out first. A person is added in foreground. A cross appears on the hill in the distance, a sunrise is added at the conclusion of the service.

2. three dimensional fabric art that shapes and defines the worship space drawing the peoples attention to certain places in the room. Banners are the most common form of this but vestments, communion table design , fabric hanging sculptures that move with airflow. Long bolts of brightly colored cloth that soar overhead.

3. i attended a national conference for preachers this spring where all of the worship was held in a large music auditorium. It was not particularly beautiful or worshipful space but they had engaged this guy from Kansas city, MO (his business is called "Gospel Colors" I think) he's a gay guy and its him and his partner who are the business. his partner is the business end of things and he is the artist. They transformed the stage with fabric art ... everyday of the conference it was different. It was amazing! He sold vestments and banners all during the conference.

Anyway... its exciting that you are thinking in these ways, kiddo! sounds like you have a ministry taking shape inside of you. Blessings on that!

Ooo! Ooo! how about this! A huge sculpture in the center of the room (chairs arranged in a circle around it) somehow the worshippers participate in the sculpting. Clay? Paper mache? fabric? junk? I don't know but somehow everyone participates and it is focused on a theme in worship. Maybe its a cross they are building together and people in the congregation are writing sins on scraps of cloth or pieces of wood and then glueing or nailing them to the cross!