Training Artists Made in the Image of the Great Artist

Redeemer School of the Arts | Coming Fall 2024 | West Monroe, Louisiana

Check out this teaser video below from a new project I am helping to start and run.

Regular readers of Musically Speaking will have noticed a January hiatus from posts here. Things have been hectic here in northeast Louisiana, my little corner of the world. Part of that business has been the planning and rollout of the Redeemer School of the Arts, a new ministry of Church of the Redeemer, where I am a member and am on staff. Our pastor, Steve Wilkins, is featured in this video, and he had the idea to start this program.

A Different Model

Throughout the centuries, the Christian church has been the great patron, steward, promoter, and preserver of the Arts. Much of the best art has come through the inspiration and connection with the church. That’s why this Redeemer School of the Arts (RSA) has been founded. We want to cultivate artists who can echo back God’s goodness through music, paints, flavorful morsels, and more. I realize that calling arts back into the church seems wildly outdated and irrelevant. But it’s time to recover the ground lost when it comes to imagination, art, and recreation.

RSA will function as a community conservatory of lessons for young people. In addition, it will offer a two-year ARTS CERTIFICATE program where students will come and live here in northeast Louisiana and take classes in one of three arts concentrations—Performing, Visual, or Culinary. They will live among the community of Church of the Redeemer. Some of the instructors and faculty will be local, and others will be remote, with on-site visits each term to meet in person with the students and get to fellowship with them in person.

In some ways, this program is like a technical college but for the Arts. The goal is to train worshipers (homo adorans) who can live the good life and use their abilities to glorify their heavenly father. We need church organists, chefs, painters, sculptors, and more who are grounded in biblical theology and community and can rightly see the vital role the arts have played in Christian civilizations through the centuries. Students in this program will be able to do art in a community of believers who take seriously the joy and privilege it is to image our Heavenly Father, who is The Great Artist.

As you think about it, please pray for the Lord’s blessing and provision upon this project. We have a lot of work to do in anticipation of our Fall 2024 opening.