Enliven Faith and Explore Theology Through the Arts
Intersect partners closely with Holy Cross Lutheran Church to celebrate and discover the beautiful ways the arts enrich faith through the following six initiatives:
Feast Services
Feast services at Holy Cross are intended to be a “foretaste of the feast to come” bringing people into the depth and richness of God’s promises by weaving the Divine Service together with the arts. Intersect partners to curate services that thematically entwine visual arts, writing, and music in order to attune the created senses as we receive, digest, and respond to God’s gifts in Christ. We believe the Divine Service is a time when God comes to His people in lavish abundance. By providing a feast for the senses, the arts simply help unveil the reality that already exists. While currently focused on reaching members of the St. Louis community, we are working to create resources that can be used by congregations across the country.
Visual Arts Worship Conference
In the near future we hope to build on the work of our feast services by physically gathering artists, pastors, congregations, and galleries. The historic church left a significant legacy of visual art. If we hope to impact our intensely visual culture, and continue a legacy of visual richness for a future of faith, we must invest in and encourage the work of a dwindling population of contemporary artists of faith. The conference will share pragmatic skills, including: how to work with professional artists, design workshops, strategies for building congregational visual literacy, how to develop commissions or gallery space, and networking.
Book Studies and Faith Based Discussion
Intersect is a place between. We have positioned our work to build bridges between people who feel at home in the Christian tradition and those who feel estranged, antagonistic, or apathetic. This aspect of our work gathers small groups of artists, congregants, or family members from our youth programs to discuss ideas around faith using arts literature as a catalyst for asking questions and dismantling prejudices.
Faith Focused Exhibitions
As a parallel to our exhibition space at Intersect, we curate a series of shows at Mezzo Gallery in the Bridge House, a small house between Holy Cross and Intersect. Mezzo Gallery seeks to support emerging and mid-career artists, particularly artists of Christian faith, by exhibiting their work in a unique and intimate setting. The gallery functions as a cozy and creative third space between Holy Cross Lutheran Church and Intersect Arts Center. Through exhibitions, artist talks, reading groups, and special events, Mezzo Gallery hopes to deepen conversations on faith, art, and what it means to work vocationally as an artist in this world.
Mezzo Gallery is located on the first floor of the Bridge House at 3617 Texas Avenue.
We have engaged local and national artists, writers, and musicians and look forward to developing these shows into traveling exhibitions, sharing this work with other churches, universities, and galleries across the country. In order to continue investing in the visual legacy of the church, we hope to develop consultancy services for churches interested in starting a gallery or incorporating the arts into their outreach or worship.
Artist Residency and Visiting Artists
Piloted in 2016 and again in 2023, this program hopes to weave a rich tapestry of musicians, writers, dancers, actors, chefs, and visual artists into the lexicon of the contemporary church and invest in the present and future enrichment of the church across time. We believe God’s promises of being in our midst when we gather, and this work aims to gather creative believers who need space, time, and resources to make the creative work they are called to make. We dream of renovating a space to house 3-4 residents at a time, up to 6 per year. In addition we hope to host 4-6 exhibiting artists per year from across the country for talks or events, providing housing and a stipend.
Faith Based Youth Programs
While our youth programs do not have a faith-based curriculum, Intersect and Holy Cross have a history of collaborating on faith-based youth engagement through mid-week chapel, Biblical conflict resolution and violence prevention summer camp, and our one-on-one mentorship program that engages Holy Cross volunteers. We hope to re-invigorate this work and grow our mentorship program in scale to include a network of local church volunteers.