Rediscovering Beauty with the Apprentice Track Network

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the church was known as a place that cultivates beauty and wonder?”

On Monday over 50 young adults gathered at Trinity Church Nottingham for an inspiring evening of worship and creativity at the Apprentice Track’s first network gathering of the year.

Exploring the theme of ‘Rediscovering Beauty’, we were joined by with Jon White. Jon is an artist based in Cornwall, who also leads Atelier Create, an organisation which runs retreats, events and an annual discipleship school in France. 

The evening began with pudding and a chance to chat and meet new people, before a time of prayer and sung worship.

There was then a chance to get creative, as everyone was given a pen and paper and chose an object in the room to draw. After drawing it for the first time, Jon got everyone to have a go at drawing the same thing three more times, but without taking the pen of the page, with your non-dominant hand, and finally without using your hand at all!

Jon then shared reflections on the story of the woman anointing Jesus at Bethany in Mark 14, and why he see beauty of essential importance to the life of the believer. The story pointed towards beauty as a way of wonder as the woman poured out her heart in worship, as warfare as her extravagant worship disrupted the room, and as witness as she points the people in the room to really look at Jesus. Jon concluded with the challenge of how we can bring forth and cultivate beauty in our workplaces, homes, friendships and other places in our lives, as we look to allow the gentle force of beauty to disrupt a chaotic world. The evening closed with a further time of sung worship.

You can find out more about the Apprentice Track here, and use this link to join the Apprentice Track Network mailing list to stay up to date with all the latest events.