Pastors’ Panel

We asked pastors and practitioners to reflect on beauty in the Christian life. Here is what they told us.

Talitha Arnold is pastor of the United Church of Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has been president of Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity and the Ministerial Alliance, served on the city’s first Youth Commission, organized Jewish-Muslim-Christian dialogues, and been recognized for her Human Rights work. Pilgrim Press recently published her book, Worship for Vital Congregations.

Leigh Campbell-Taylor is interim pastor at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. Along with her renaissance-man husband, Clark Taylor, Leigh enjoys the adventure of parenting their wonderful adult offspring, Malcolm and Ethan. She has decided the lockdown was an opportunity to begin her doctor of ministry degree.

Hannah Garrity is an artist in ministry, creating art for A Sanctified Art, Montreat, PAM, APCE, Union Presbyterian Seminary, and churches. She holds a BFA in painting from Cornell University; and an MS in teaching from Pace University. She is liturgical artist for the Montreat Conference Center, founding creative partner at A Sanctified Art, and is an art teacher in Henrico County, Virginia.

Mark Sturgess (MDiv’01) is lead pastor of Los Altos United Methodist Church in Long Beach California. Mark focused on church music in his undergraduate studies before earning an MDiv at Austin Seminary. He is an ordained Presbyterian minister who has served United Methodist Churches in Southern California since 2003, where he is an openly LGBTQ full elder in the California-Pacific Annual Conference of the UMC.

Talitha Arnold: I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. I also grew up in the Congregational (United Church of Christ) tradition with hymns about “snow on snow,” “flowering meadows,” and “flowing fountains.” My pastoral vocation has been serving a UCC congregation in the high desert of northern New Mexico. From the desert, I’ve learned to look for beauty in unexpected places and small ways—the hidden seep of water that gives life to a patch of green, the little red flowers that crown a hedgehog cactus. The tiny, stubborn golden poppy that pushes through hard rock has taught me that beauty requires both patience and perseverance. The desert’s lessons in beauty stood me in good stead as a pastor for a small, often struggling church. Being open to beauty in small, surprising ways has become even more important in “corona-time” when we can’t experience it as a gathered community.

Leigh Campbell-Taylor: Pondering the concept of beauty has me thinking that beauty is to prettiness what joy is to happiness or love is to liking. In other words: more complex, more profound, and augmented by awe because beauty is an attribute of and a connection with God. It’s unsurprising, therefore, that beauty is most abundant in God’s good creation: waterfalls and snowfalls, sunrises and silver-sliver moons, autumn foliage and spring blossoms, and common wonders like rain or birdsong. Daily, there is beauty even in the simple phenomenon of light in treetops, which, like God’s love, is utterly beyond my control and utterly necessary to life itself.

Hannah Garrity: Beauty is everywhere. The Bible and the world create a constant juxtaposition of surreal contrast in pain and truly stunning balance in joy. There are gradient values in an elderly person’s wise eyes and wrinkles. There is harsh beauty in an imperfect textured foreground against a distant smooth background, perfect only because we cannot see the details. In awe of God’s gifts, for me, beauty permeates both life and ministry.

Mark Sturgess: Earlier in my life I would have answered this question simply: I see beauty in music and the arts. Now, I understand beauty more fully as a window, a window into that surplus of meaning which lies beyond simply looking at the world. Beauty reminds me to pause and behold the world in wonderment. And wonder turns my heart toward God. One congregation I served was two blocks from the Pacific Ocean. One after the other, Pacific sunsets are easy to take for granted. With scientific reason we understand the physics which make sunsets colorful. But where that knowledge ends, the surplus of meaning remains. If one pauses to behold such beauty, it is breathtaking and a holy gift.

Campbell-Taylor: Authenticity is key. While I was chaplain at a retirement home, we celebrated Baptism of the Lord Sunday with an “affirmation of baptism” liturgy. I poured those little glass beads into the font and assured my parishioners, each of whom relied on a walker, that I’d happily carry the font’s bowl to anyone who preferred not to leave their seat—I assumed that would be the entire congregation. Instead, every single one of those frail disciples chose to come forward, reaching awkwardly, eagerly, solemnly into the water to retrieve a reminder of God. May I never forget the beauty of those dripping, gnarled hands.

Arnold: From the beginning, the congregation was committed to offering God’s beauty through flowers, banners, and music whether they gathered in a bar and grill, a school music room, or eventually a sanctuary (with lots of windows). They’ve been equally committed to connecting with God’s sacred creation. The preschool rooms have low windows for toddlers to see trees, bushes, and sky. The church’s xeriscape gardens invite the congregation and our neighbors to experience God’s desert beauty. We also believe in God’s infinite imagination, and our worship seeks to include diverse voices and traditions as expressions of God’s creativity and beauty.

Sturgess: As a son of the rural Midwest, I found my first years in Southern California to be frightening. On any given trip to a mall I heard more languages than I had heard my entire life. It was Pentecost at Macy’s. Eventually, I began to appreciate diversity as the true beauty of God’s creation. In the face of the need for racial and sexual justice, I have come to realize there is an essential conversion that needs to take place in our spiritual lives. Believing understood as conformity to right doctrine or singular ideas of truth can only take you so far. Empires and tyrants reduce truth to singular images. Creation is an astonishing plurality.

Garrity: Beauty is found in a dialogue, in time and space, between the text, the moment, and the medium. This blend culminates in a visual prayer, a visual sermon, a visual conversation with God. Ephemeral timing, anchored in text, is a signature of Reformed theology. One tenet is the idea that visuals in the worship space must not become idolatry— hence, the perpetual chance to reimagine and recreate. Each visual in the worship space should be placed intentionally in response to the Word of the Lord for that particular service. Thus, an invigorating creative process must be a part of crafting each service, grounding the visual offering in the biblical text.

Garrity: Working on an art piece in response to a biblical text is a visceral and beautiful experience. I yearn to draw the emotion that God is challenging me to explore out of the image that I am creating. I converse with God throughout my work. I read, wonder, and imagine. I draw, research, contemplate, and paint. I reread, correct, improve, and edit. I reflect. When the piece is complete with artistic balance and biblical meaning, it is a moment of great amen. This beautiful dialogue is emotional, interactive, tangible, deep, and challenging prayer.

Sturgess: The late Dr. Stan Hall of Austin Seminary taught me that good liturgy is also beautiful. I have enjoyed attempting and failing to shape worship that is also beautiful. One example was successful by accident. A beloved son of my congregation was in the University of Portland’s all male a-cappella vocal ensemble. They were in town for a competition on Palm Sunday. I had a full Palm/Passion service planned. The one sacred piece they knew was Biebl’s Ave Maria. What on earth was I to do with that at a crucifixion? Remembering the moment in John where Jesus gives his mother, Mary, and the beloved disciple to each other as family, I added that text to the service and put the Ave Maria there. In worship it was astonishing. At the foot of the cross we wept with Mary, and the church was born in a prayer of compassion for the world. It was beautiful.