Pentecost is the ‘art holiday’ of the Christian Calendar.

The Pentecost Painting by Mark Durham | www.maddogartgallery.com

Read our executive director Shannon Sigler’s full letter to mark Pentecost 2025 below.

Brehm family,

It’s Pentecost, so hear me out: Pentecost is the “art holiday” of the Christian calendar. The sending of the Holy Spirit is the beginning of our empowered partnership with the God of Creation and re-creation.

If you think about it, most of our teachings in the church emphasize the Biblical narrative as a story of sin to salvation. Yes, sin and salvation are true and core to this story. Understanding the reality and impact of our sin is key to receiving and grasping the depths of God’s love for us in our salvation.

But before we even hit the earthly scene, God still existed as Love. Before our fall, there is a Love borne in the Trinity that could not help but create. In the beginning, God created.

What if we thought about the Bible as really a story about art? About creation and re-creation. About making and restoring. And in the end, there is our salvation (praise God!). But we are not just saved, we are re-made. Restored to the image of God in which we were created to be the unique women and men which our God first envisioned.

So, what if Pentecost was a time to mark our empowerment; to partner with the Trinitarian God of love through the Holy Spirit in the re-making of all things?

At Brehm, we believe that our theology–the way we think about God, our world, and how we interact with our world–can and should be shaped by creativity. This was God’s first recorded act. As image-bearers of Christ, we are meant to be remade as creative beings who consider our world through eyes of grace, courage, empathy, and of course, the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Will you walk with us through the season of Pentecost with this idea of the “art holiday” in mind? You were created to create. Make art, view art, create a garden, make a soup, lift up words of prayer, write a sermon or a poem, even if you don’t consider yourself an “artist.”

And if you’re already creating as an artist, I encourage you to check out our different academic offerings like our Guide to Theology for Creatives and our Equip courses to learn how you can better integrate what you believe into what you make.

You are invited to partner with the Spirit in the restoration of God’s good creation.

May God’s Creative Spirit fill you,

Shannon Sigler, Executive Director