I got asked to participate in the Catalyst Conference this fall in Atlanta, GA.

Catalyst is a church leader training conference that brings together a lot of big speakers, bands, spectacles, and just an all around good time. It draws about 13000 church leaders from all over North America. I painted at the Atlanta conference last year, and Catalyst Dallas in June, and guessing that I didn’t suck at those they asked me back again this fall.

I would like to say that the live painting involvement is a very tiny thing that goes on during the event… even almost never seen. Myself and fellow artist Blaine Watson were on the floor just left of the band stage. They had us paint during a few worship music sets and our paintings were placed outside one morning for people to see as they entered. Here’s a few paintings I made in about 15 minute increments:

To be honest, I’m not sure why they have us do what we do where most of it is not seen by the attenders at all, but my guess is that they want this involved somehow cause they believe it’s important… they’re just not quite sure how it fits production wise in a large venue where speakers/bands/spectacle makes the most sense. I’m just not sure if live painting is in the culture where most of the producers of this event come from.

But I’m glad I get asked to do it. I’ve come to love the Catalyst family… and the people I get to work with are all all-stars. I’m thankful for the chance to get to participate and I had a great time.

So the theme of Catalyst this year was BE PRESENT.

One of the things they wanted us artists to do was to be outside Friday as people were coming in (all 13000) and to be creating in an area. There was no real direction in that decision… just for us to be out there doing it when people come in. The event starts fairly early so I wanted to do something devotional in nature. And cause the theme is Be Present, I had the thought that you can’t be present unless you’re being honest. So I decided to make some pieces about honesty.

Christian conferences are a strange beast. On one hand, they exist to uplift the common Christ follower to go deeper into their discipleship by Jesus… alot of which the nature of that road is lowly and looks like a servant. On the other hand, people come to events drawn by their favorite speakers or bands, unintentionally creating a religious celebrity culture. What I find intriguing is the dualism between wanting to be a simple obedient disciple and also wanting to rise the ranks of church celebritism. I think this is kind of the elephant in the room. No one really talks about it… but it’s there. It comes up in me, if I’m honest, and I hate that it’s there.

So…. if I had to be honest, this is the stuff I need to confess. So i decided to do a morning confessional piece. On thursday I made 4 large signs about the things I find that come up in my soul when I’m at events like this. I posted all these signs around me as I worked on a central painting about putting these desires to death…. Let It Die… so something better can be resurrected.

A great friend of mine who lives in Atlanta, Jonathan Rich, actually wrote a song inspired by this art piece. Here’s a video of it:

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