Tag Archives: art

Artist’s Soul

Posted on by under C.cada: Arts and Stuff

Our church administrator, Charlotte Dorais, is retiring at the end of the year. Today we are honoring her  at our staff Christmas party. Charlotte has served in just about every ministry I have had oversight of through the years I have known her. Her love for Jesus has called her to take up posts outside her comfort zone many times. I just know that love for her God is going to lead her on to even greater adventures now.

She was one of my adult champions when I led the youth ministry (we called ourselves “the Beyonders”). She has worked as a shut-in visitor for the Compassion Ministry and as an artist manager for C.cada. She has been an untiring intercessor and a woman always willing to lend a hand in practical ministry. She is an incredible artist as well as an able administrator. Above all she is a committed friend.

Thank you Charlotte for your love for God and his church. I have written this two stanza Cinquain in your honor. It is entitled

Artist’s Soul

by JE Lillie

Artist’s

Soul, disciplined

By the brush of prayer.

Colors careful mixed until God

Brings forth

Artist’s

Strength, directed

Unafraid of future

Steps into the blank canvas called

His plan.

The Daily Post: OOPS!

Posted on by under Photography

The Daily post has challenged us to show some of our OOPS PICTURES.

Check them out by clicking the underlined link.

Truthfully I am an abysmal photographer. Most of my pictures are epic fails. But I am given to flights of fancy and a certain love for impressionism; so I just take that to a photographic level.

Here are two of my “failures”

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“A Dublin Bird Days ‘No!'”

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“Puppy On the Beach”

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Murals

Posted on by under Photography

We are in the second week of Cee’s “MANMADE CHALLENGE” and this week she has asked us to show her murals.

C.cada is the artist’s ministry of our church. A few months ago I asked our artists a question, “What is your God project?”

Several of our artists took up the challenge and donated their time and talents to refurbish the playroom in our local pediatrics ward.

Here are the results
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Artist Lisa Johnson and her section.
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Artist Elijah Haas at his post.
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Ken Knowlton and his train.
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The bridge that Charlotte Dorais built.
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Wendy Brouillet the brick maker.

Mission Netherlands #missions # missionaries #funding

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

Hello WordPress  followers. My sister Brenda is a missionary to the Netherlands. She is currently home itinerating (raising funds for the mission). She has a little over 3,000.00 in monthly support to raise plus a sizeable cash budget. She needs a financial miracle. She needs to have the funding raised and be back in the Netherlands by November. We are believing with her that God is big enough to get this miracle done.

Here are some ways you can help:

  1. PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT GOD WOULD GET BRENDA BACK TO THE NETHERLANDS ON OR BEFORE NOVEMEBER
  2.  SHARE THIS POST WITH YOUR NETWORKS. THE MORE VIEWS THE LARGER THE PROSPECTIVE GIVING BASE
  3.  GIVE.  THE VIDEO ABOVE EXPLAINS BRENDA’S MISSION AND HOW TO GIVE TO GET TO HER WEBSITE TO GIVE.
  4. IF YOU ARE A PASTOR IN: MA,CT, RI, NH, VT, ME, NY NJ OR AL CONSIDER HAVING BRENDA IN. SHE ONLY HAS TWO MORE SUNDAY MORNINGS BETWEEN NOW AND NOVEMBER BUT SHE HAS SUNDAY NIGHTS FREE AND WEDNESDAYS AND IS OPEN TO PARTICIPATING IN MISSION CONVENTIONS. SHE IS ALSO A DRAMA TRAINER AND DOES WORKSHOPS TO HELP LAUNCH DRAMA MINISTRIES OR TRAIN EXISTING ONES

WOULD YOU CONSIDER HELPING?

Share Your World 2015 Week 25

Posted on by under C.cada: Arts and Stuff

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Here we are back at Share Your World for another seven-day spin and an answer to five questions. Click the icon above to see what Cee’s many friends have been up to this last week.

Here are the questions and my answers

What did you or did not like about the first apartment you ever rented?

The first apartment my wife and I rented was on the campus of a Bible College. It was so small we could sit on the living room couch and eat off of the dining table. The toilet and the shower were so close together you could wash your feet while sitting on the commode. The heat was not under our control and ran so hot we kept our windows open in the winter. The living room walls were sky blue and the carpet was a dirty orange. We had a two burner stove and no oven in our galley kitchen. We did all of our cooking in a crock pot or in a toaster oven my mother-in-law gave us ( 6 cookies at a time). Our Korean neighbors wonderful people (and I really mean that they were the best) often cooked really aromatically frightening dishes that smell has stayed with me all these years.

 Some days I find myself longing to be back in that itty bitty smelly apartment that clashed!

What kind of art is your favorite? Why?

I could get in real trouble with this one. I run an artist’s collaborative and I have met artists who are extremely talented in many genres. I don’t think I have a favorite art form. I have learned to appreciate many. The art forms I excel in are writing, music and photography. I am really bad at painting.

How many siblings do you have? What’s your birth order?

I have one sister and I am the oldest by two years.

Complete this sentence:  I’m dreaming of a white …. (and no you can’t use Christmas as your answer)

rhino playing Claire De Lune on the piano  in my bedroom. (You did say I was dreaming correct?)

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I am very grateful that we successfully completed our summer art show in the park this last weekend. Now my eyes are turned towards finishing my work on my novel this week so I can meet deadline!

C.cadaOur Current Projects

Posted on by under C.cada: Arts and Stuff

C.cada is an artist’s collaborative based out of Cornerstone Church in Winchendon MA. Our mission is to help people discover, develop and deploy their artistic gifts to build the church and their communities.

Every month we meet together for one whole Saturday to practice our art. The church becomes an art center for a day and we spend it practicing music, learning to paint, crafting, writing and even clowning around (one of our newest artist’s is a Christian clown). We also spend time every month trying out different group art projects to expand our artistic horizons. To see a list of our monthly group projects go to our website

http://www.artistdayapart.com

Beyond that C.cada  is constantly encouraging each artist to find a God project on which to use their God given abilities. Currently we have:

five artists working on a design they created for our local hospital’s pediatric playroom (pictures above).

The Prayer Shawl Ministry is getting ready to  host prayer and distribution booths for their healing shawls at both the Relay For Life and our town’s annual Solstice Festival.

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Two of our artist’s are creating monthly newletters the first for distribution in church and the second via mail to supporters of Special Needs programs.025

Two of our bloggers have just finished reviews for a new Christian book just hitting the market. You can find those reviews

Here

And Here

And finally our choirs, poets and artists are preparing for an outdoor art expo in town to promote God in the arts and for three services to be held at local dayhabs throughout our region.

What I have found is that there is no shortage of work in the Kingdom of God. If we desire it we can always find something to put our hands and our talents to that will reap an eternal rerward.

Courage To Be

Posted on by under The Stories

I am way behind this week with the story writing….But in my defense last week was one bussssssssssy week! Patricia’s prompt was from ee cummings and you can find the link to her blog along with the rules of the game at:

http://patriciasplace.me/2015/02/23/courage-to-be-in-other-words/

Our story prompt was

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.“
ee cummings

The Girl Who Never Came Out Of the Barn

by JE Lillie

She remembered cold winter mornings spent filling the manger for the scrawny milk cow her parents kept. She recalled sweeping the seat of the outhouse on hot summer nights to make sure there were no spiders before she sat down. She never tasted soda until she was teen-ager but drank only water from the hand pumped well all her childhood. In her girlhood angst she grew to hate the farm. She grew to hate the poverty that clung to it even more.

In high school she would steal magazines from the local drug store: McCall’s, Harper’s Bazaar and even Forbes. She would dream of life in the big city, being a business woman or an actress. But it takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

She married the farm boy down the street when she was seventeen when he promised to give her indoor plumbing. He built her a house on a hundred acres five miles from her parents. She had four children. She milked her own cow, Their artesian well spilt better water than any other well in the county. The girl  who had hated the farm, never came out of the barn, but one day when she was dandling her grandson on her knee in the parlor of her country home she realized it was because she had never really wanted to.

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What’s A Maker-Space?

Posted on by under C.cada: Arts and Stuff

C.cada is the artist’s wing of Cornerstone Church. It is a place people gather to discover their talents, develop their talents and deploy their talents in community. That is a simple definition of a makerspace. C.cada was birthed almost five years ago and since then our artists have met one Saturday a month at our church to practice using their talents in community and to figure out how do we use those talents to enhance our region.

Every month I am amazed at how much work can be accomplished by these dedicated folks in just one day: This month a group of ten artists met via Skype with  Kidzark, a drama ministry in the Netherlands. Our team participated in a read through and editing workshop of Kidzark’s newest play (scheduled to go up fall 2015). The prayer shawl  ministry met and put the finishing touches on 48 new shawls slated to go out sometime this month to sick and hurting individuals around the world. While that was happening two of us met to edit next month’s newsletter. Our circulation of this letter has recently found an open door in a prison church about 40 minutes East of here and some of their members have begun writing devotional articles for publication. I met and interviewed with another young artist who is looking for ways he can collaborate with us for community monthly even though his work is not transportable and while I was meeting with him one of our  members was giving music lessons to a group of elementary students. All the while individual artists were working throughout the building on instruments or easels. Finally in the afternoon twenty of us met for  a choir practice in preparation for Holy Week.

This is makerspace, people coming together to be creative in community and to better their community…and the world. We are not a group of geniuses or prodigies. We are just regular people who don’t want to neglect the gifts God has put in us any longer and so we have decided to be intentional and set aside time to use those gifts. We know that most of us will never make a living off of our art. That doesn’t mean our art can’t produce a better life for us or those around us.

If you would like more information about C.cada you can view our website at artistdayapart.com or you can contact me directly at 978-297-3125 xt. 105

Pastor J