For the past three years, Faith Covenant Church has used their location on the corner of a highly trafficked intersection in Sumner, Washington, to display an outdoor art walk during Holy Week.
This year’s display contains nine pieces of art, each inspired by a passage of Scripture and a poem by Sarah (Are) Speed. Each piece was created by members of Sacred Spaces, a ministry of the church seeking to provide sacred space and time for creativity and fellowship.
The artists used a variety of mediums, and each piece was enlarged on canvas and displayed on wooden columns along the sidewalk surrounding the church. They were lit by solar-powered luminaries, and a QR code next to each station allowed visitors to read the Scripture text and listen to a recording of a Faith Covenant congregant or staff member reading the poem. The code also points to reflection questions designed for people at any stage in their faith journey.
The art walk was originally created as a way to experience the stations of the cross amidst Covid restrictions. Now the church has continued the event to invite community members to engage with the passion narrative. Cindy Conlin, who serves as director of children’s ministry and connections at the church, says the art walk is intended to serve as an offering to the community, meant to be accessible to those with and without a faith background.
“Jesus’s ministry wasn’t always in the temple,” says Conlin, who also created “In His Hands” with watercolor paints. “He met people where they were. We felt like we could use our location to bring Jesus’s message to where people are and to express the love he has for them by being present in the community.”
