impARTial

It's been a long time since I've written and that's because it's been a long time since I have had time to sit down without letters to cut out, photographs to edit or fishing line strung all across my living room. What have I been doing, you ask? I have been spearheading an effort on the campus of our local university that started with the question, "Who is Jesus?" This event coincided with Easter and served as a way for the college students I work with to begin spiritual conversations with their peers.

Here's how we did it:
We bought a bunch of white boards.
We set up a table on campus.
We asked if students were willing to write down on the whiteboard who Jesus was to them.
We took pictures of them holding their whiteboard.
We took all the pictures (over 150 of them) and built an art installation on campus.
We invited everyone back to check it out and throughout the exhibit shared the gospel.

The hardest part about the entire project was that it started as a vision...a God-breathed vision to use art and words together as an invitation into deep conversation about Christ and Easter and what life truly means. College students love freedom of speech and freedom of expression and I knew that we could tap into those desires and turn them into a discussion of true freedom - life in Jesus Christ. But between vision and reality lies a great chasm and it takes a lot of work to figure out how to bridge that divide and enter the promised land. My student leaders helped me refine my vision - what started out as something like, "Let's build something...I don't know what...there should be photographs...maybe with a hidden picture inside them... inkblots...interactive gallery...Easter...Jesus..." turned out to be the project outlined above.

It wasn't easy.
I had some moments...I stopped sleeping, talking and seeing the humor in things.
I worried that it would be a flop.
I doubted whether it would all come together.
I wondered why vision was so uncertain, why it was impossible to nail down and perfectly execute.
And then I realized that vision is an invitation to walk in faith, not knowing exactly what lies ahead but believing that whatever it is, it could be deeper and sweeter and fuller than the present reality.

I walked, not knowing where I was headed or what it would like like when I got there and arrived at Tuesday night. And then this happened:

our gallery with "Who do you say that I am?" strung across the ceiling

the Transparent exhibit, pictures printed on vellum

the Projection exhibit, featuring composite images of 8 students

the white boards on these prints were replaced with poster and students who traveled through the exhibit were invited to write on them

the building from the outside

me and my student leaders, so very blessed.

The impARTial project succeeded, not because of our talent or hard work, but because of our obedience to follow where He was leading. The vision He gave me was a call to trust, to step beyond what I could even articulate into what only He could orchestrate. I discovered that when I am unable, He enables, and that sacred is found within scared.


What is He calling you to do? What vision has He placed within your heart? Don't hesitate. Follow. It's worth it.