Lakewood, Colorado
2022
To mentor and develop young people in worship leadership by conducting art lessons, providing creative spaces, and fostering collaborative music teams that will facilitate the full participation of young people in leadership in the community.
Summarize your grant project and how it will address a need in your worshiping community.
The Bridge Church at Bear Creek is developing a Music and Arts Center in order to facilitate the development of approximately 200 High School students into the worshiping body of the church. In order to see this program succeed, we are seeking to develop a studio, relevant programming, and a Resident Artist to operate inside of our studios to ensure that students are being ushered into both a lifestyle informed by worshipful practices and our worship services within our church.
What two questions might you ask about worship in the coming year that will generate theological reflection and shape your project?
What are key components of an individual's spiritual development that allow them to see their 'secular' artistic expression as having a 'sacred' purpose?
How might God, in this cultural moment, be using an individual's artistic expression in the context of Christian community to develop the next generation of Worshipers?
How will your project impact the worship life and habits of the congregation?
We expect both students and leaders to be tangibly formed into deeper worshipers of the Triune God. Initially, both students and leaders will be encouraged to utilize the studio for the sake of individual acts of grateful praise to God. As these habits are formed more fully, we expect individual students to be integrated into discrete worship services and broader youth ministry programming. Out of the overflow of these experiences, we expect the whole lives of both students and leaders to be more closely oriented around God.
What might be your greatest challenges (or challenging opportunities)?
We expect a few key challenges. Initially, we expect initial growth to be a bit of a challenge as students begin to understand the nature of our Music and Arts center. However, we also foresee retention to be a bit of a challenge. Many of our school's students are at-risk youth and, as a result, often have chaotic home lives which do not often prioritize 'regular attendance' of any institution's programming.
What do you hope to learn from the Grants Event and other grant recipients?
I hope to gain a deeper and more well-rounded view of Christian Worship as it applies to every area of our lives.