Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

This picture shows the final product of my church’s autumn-long effort to create a glass mosaic representing our fall theme of Bountiful Abundance. Over 100 people laid tiles and we completed the piece in one long-day and a half-day follow up. Like our community-built Stained Glass Great Window (also pictured), the Bountiful Abundance Mosaic will be an important symbol of our community life.

The design resulted from drawings submitted by our church school children. Our artist-in-residence, Cheryl Smith, drew themes and images from the drawings to create a cartoon for the mural.

The central symbol is the Tree of Life. It is fed by the Living Waters on the right that interacting with the Sunburst behind the tree creates the Rainbow on the left that results in the bounty at the murals bottom left hand corner.

As we gathered on All Saints Day to construct the mural, some worked on the Rainbow. Some worked on the Tree of Life. Some worked on the Living Waters. Each individual piece of glass – yellow, red, blue, green, orange – carried its own color but taken together they created our complete scene of God’s bounty.

That is just like us. Each individual generates color and light in the world as we make our way. From above, the pattern of all our individual lives of faith forms a mosaic made in God’s image and reflecting our love and faithfulness.

The image on our mural shows God’s bounty in the sunshine light of the full spectrum and the flow of the life-giving waters that together cause the Tree of Life to sprout and fill the middle of our glass mosaic. The Tree then gives life to the world, replenishing the air and creating the elements of water vapor that will once again renew the cycle.

In our dedication sermon on Nov. 18 I asked the congregation, “would the aerial image of our collective life patterns created out of the individual mosaic tiles of our lives offer as clear an image of God’s Bountiful Abundance?”

As people of faith we understand the importance of symbols. Our congregation now has a tangible sign of our commitment to living bountiful lives.

My blog will take a different direction in the new year, using video blogs to open up our community’s life to Vital Post visitors. St. Andrew’s is one example of a growing, healthy, multi-general Episcopal Church. I hope to share our story in the 2013 through short videos that show how fun church can be.