Saturday, November 1, 2014

His Kingdom Come Blog Hop

Welcome to a very exciting blog hop.  Today we are celebrating the launch of a brand new online Christian Creative Community: His Kingdom Come.

This is an online Community where fellow Christians can encourage, share and learn about Christianity and explore the God-given creativity that he has put in us all.  It will be a safe place to share your faith, be inspired, and explore creativity across many art mediums - journaling, mixed media, painting, bible journaling, textiles, watercolor and more.  His Kingdom Come will offer free tutorials, technique classes, devotionals, crafts to celebrate the holidays, opportunities to go deeper in your faith and in your knowledge of God and the Bible.   The website will also offer Christian artists a platform to host classes (free or fee-based) which you will be able to sign up for.

A team of talented Christian artists have come together to launch this exciting new community.  This blog hop is your chance to get to know them.

It doesn’t matter where you start within the blog hop.   Or you can start at the beginning with Diane.  Each blog has the complete list of participants.


As you visit each blog you will be given a letter eg. D.   When you have collected all the letters they will make a word.  When you have worked out the word email Bernice (hkcbloghop@gmail) with the word.  We will randomly choose 3 people who have the correct answer to win a prize.   All entries must arrive by Noon (Pacific time) on Monday 3rd November.

The letter to collect from my blog is O

Let me introduce myself:

I live in Toledo, OH, have been married to Bob for 23 years, and we have two grown daughters and two step-grandsons. I have been a Christ-follower for 26 years. For the past 12 years I have worked in full time ministry at our church as the Executive Director and the Director of our outreach ministries. 

Below you will find some questions each of the blog hop participants will be answering:
1. How does your faith impact your creativity?  
When I got connected to art journaling it opened up a new life of creativity for me. God has used art journaling in my life as another spiritual practice. It has become another way of drawing me near to Him. Madeleine L'Engel says, "Art is incarnational." Art, whether in word or image, helps me put form to what is inside my heart and mind. When I take what I am seeing in Bible study and prayer and express it visually it is planted in my heart and mind more fully. Art becomes another tool used by God for spiritual transformation in my life.

Bible study art journal page


2. What is your preferred medium of creativity? What appeals to you about this? 
Art journaling is my main medium of creativity. I am drawn to it by the opportunity to practice so many different art mediums within this one world: collage, lettering, mixed media, painting, memory keeping, etc. I can spend hours painting backgrounds, cutting and gluing paper or writing out quotes and Scripture. Lately I have delved deeper into collage and am exploring different ancient art forms in modern ways, such as mosaics with magazine paper or painted papers.

Mosaic background from magazine pages
3. What other areas of creativity do you dabble in? 
Decorating, photography, making travel journals. Being in nature is a form of creativity for me. I enjoy altering photos and making digital art in PSE. I also make my own journals from old books. I enjoy this so much I started an Etsy shop a year ago in order to do something with the many, many books I pick up at book sales.

Digital art


4. What is your role within the His Kingdom Come group? 
I will be helping with the Take Me Deeper devotionals and participating in various ways with Logos365 and other projects. I hope to contribute tutorials and classes as well. I will also serve as one of the moderators for the Faith Art Journaling group.

5. What are your hopes for this new community? 
For me, faith and creativity are so intertwined and I hope this community will be a place to connect with others who feel the same way. A place where we can share our creativity and our faith stories and find encouragement, support, prayer, and friendship. A place where we get more in touch with our Creator and with how we have been and are being made in His image. I hope it will be a place where people can come and explore, connect more with their own creativity and with the God who loves them so very much. A place where we can find prompts and challenges to stir our creative juices as well as a place of learning, whether it's art techniques or Bible study skills or spiritual practices that help position ourselves for God's transforming work in our lives.

6. Where to find me: 
I hope you are as excited as I am at being part of this online venture.  Our vision is to build an online community not just be a project-led site.  A place where you can find encouragement, share your heart and your problems and find help.

To join our community please visit His Kingdom Come

And now for a peak at the prizes for our three giveaway winners!


If you haven't already been there, your next stop is Marjolaine Walker.

21 comments:

  1. Great to hear how your faith and creativity connect. Love your journal pages

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    1. Thank you Sarah! I'm a big fan of your art as well. :)

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  2. Beautiful artwork Mary, I look forward to working with you!

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    1. Thank you Marjolaine! I am also looking forward to working with you and getting to know you!

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  3. It was such a pleasure getting to know you more, and learning about your creativity.
    Beautiful projects.
    Thanks for sharing and being in leadership in His Kingdom Come.
    Blessings,
    Debbie

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  4. Hi Mary. It is so good to know you better. I have followed your blog for awhile now and love your artwork.

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  5. I hope to grow and transition to faith art, I make cards alot now and dabble in all kinds of paper crafts etc. Thanks for being such a inspiration.

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    1. Thank you for stopping by Kim! I hope you join us in the His Kingdom Come community!

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  6. I enjoyed reading your bio and how your faith and beautiful art collide. I'm looking forward to joining in the community at His Kingdom Come.

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    1. Thanks Meg! We are looking forward to connecting with everyone and building a community around our art and our faith. I'm glad you"re joining us!

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  7. Mary...thank you so much for sharing your faith and your creativity with us! I look forward to getting to know you better through HKC! Love and hugs!

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    1. Thanks Anita! It's going to be a wild ride! Looking forward to being on the journey with you and getting to know you better too!

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  8. Thank you Susie! So glad you are joining us!

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  9. Mary, So lovely to meet you! Your work is beautiful. I am so excited about the coming year!

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    1. Thank you Zuda! I am looking forward to the community we are all creating! Glad to see you are joining us!

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    1. Thanks Cat! So glad you're joining our community. :)

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  11. Thank you for sharing a little about yourself.... Fun getting to know everyone....

    Faith

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    1. Thank you Faith! I hope you'll be joining ur community!

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