This article was written for the Brethren in Christ History & Life Journal in 2022

New Clothes:

Exploring the Brethren in Christ Core Values

Visual Art Project Brings the Community Together

 

by Geoffrey A. Isley

 

This community art project at the Grantham Church (Grantham, PA) came about because of some brainstorming among the worship planning group in August, 2007. We knew that senior pastor Terry Brensinger was preaching a series on the core values of the Brethren in Christ, starting in September, and going to January 2008, with a short break for the Advent Sundays. We were asked to develop a visual that would help convey the core values. in 2022

We started with Terry's sermon theme "New Clothes" and we talked about ways to help people relate to the need to purposefully "wear" these values in their lives, not just talk about them in church. These values get right down into the very fabric of our daily lives. We talked about how we might use various common clothing fabrics in creative ways. Eventually, we arrived at the idea to create ten "robes" that would be sewn or created from the fabrics donated by the congregation and put together by as many people who wanted to participate. We felt the community involvement itself — regardless of the appearance of the resulting robe — would demonstrate the value, and the congregation would feel more ownership both of the finished artwork, but of the core values themselves.

 

Before the first Sunday of the series, Dale Wolgemuth helped me cut a sheet of plywood into the shape of a eight-foot-wide clothes hanger which I painted gold. This was hung alone at the front of the sanctuary, so that the first thing you saw was this giant golden hanger. A short, funny skit by Liz Bar and Ron Ross drew even more attention to it at the beginning of the service, so that everyone was aware that we were starting a new series of sermons. I had prepared some rough sketches to show people at a table in the narthex after the service, so we were able to promote the project and ask for volunteers and donations. All the interested people were invited to a quick meeting the following Sunday to see more specifically what needed to be done, and within an hour the first four robes had been claimed by a group of eager, creative people.

 

These separate groups started working on their robes. Fabric donations started showing up each Sunday in a huge laundry hamper placed strategically in the foyer. These robes needed to be designed and created and ready to hang in just a few short weeks. Each subsequent Sunday, the hanger displayed the newest robe — which the sermon would bring to life. The robes then moved to the side walls of the sanctuary, so that by the end of the series we had ten new robes in the worship space  — like a beautiful community closet of new clothes.