Lent is not just the season for giving something up. It’s an opportunity to lament and look inward. It’s an invitation to pause and regroup—to shake off old dust and take new steps. As a creative team, we have crafted resources to help you walk through the season of Lent with intention, reflection, and creativity.

Here’s a fun compilation of ALL of our Lenten resources over the past few years. If you are a busy pastor or church worker, we hope these materials offer you comfort and inspiration in the midst of your preparation.

A wholeheARTed life integrates all the parts of who you are so that you might welcome each day with courage and compassion, giving your whole heart to God, self, and others. Leslie Cox, our WholeheARTed guest this week, shares about her journey of becoming, of living into all that she was created to be. She cannot separate her creativity from her sexuality, her ministry from her love for storytelling and photography. Her journey reminds us all of what it means to navigate critique, vulnerability, and authenticity to truly come home to yourself.

A few months ago, we received an email that went something like this:  

"I am a Lutheran pastor and artist who has been feeling a strong pull of the Holy Spirit to express the Gospel through the visual arts.

I would like to talk with your group some time, simply as people who seem to share the same calling. I understand myself as a preacher who paints, or as a drawing theologian. I think we have that in common."

They called him the golden voice. He was tall and dressed to impress in his patent leather shoes and swanky tailor-made suit. He a carried a well-worn bible and displayed a formidable stride when he walked, which seemed in concert with his serious demeanor. After the choir finished their selection, he stood up to address the full-capacity crowd who had gathered to hear him preach. With skill and precision, he moved from introductory remarks and pleasantries into a masterful exposition of scripture in a sermon he titled, “What a little chicken saw.”

Some people are visionary creatives, seeing possibility for beauty and collaboration in the midst of what has become tired and all-too-familiar. Daniel Heath is one of these types, working graciously through music, people, and visual media to gently nudge communities forward into fresh ways of thinking, hearing, seeing, and worshiping. Daniel has both the imagination to dream and the determination to enact big ideas in real and vibrant ways. 

A Sanctified Art began with conversations around wholeheartedness. How could we as creatives offer a wholehearted approach to faith, and worship, and church? What would it look like to connect our hearts with our hands—to fully integrate art with our vocation and service to the world? How might we harness our creatives gifts to inspire others in living and loving wholeheARTedly?

This summer we're widening our circle to feature the voices of those who also find themselves blending creativity with their faith in a variety of ways and contexts.