snapchats from heaven
The prophetic artist creates art as a spiritual connection between God and the viewer.
The paintings are ‘snapchats from heaven’ where we aim for a divine encounter and a direct personal experience of His goodness.
I believe artists shape the world.
I have dedicated my life to releasing spiritually powerful art into our communities and culture. My time leading the DaySpring Church creative arts worship team birthed a passion to motivate, inspire, and raise “an army of artists”. God-artists!
In those eight powerful years, we launched people into a closer intimate relationship with God through art. Prophetic art is more than painting Christian icons or illustrating verses, prophetic art carries an anointing that opens the way for the Holy Spirit to transform lives and to bring healing and hope into situations.
My story ~ is your story
I believe prophetic artists have a unique style of intuitive, spontaneous painting that has a significant impact. When we paint in worship, we draw the audience into a divine encounter as the artwork evolves on the canvas. The paintings have a life of their own. Prophetic art carries a message, always personal, always directly to your heart.
Through my eighteen years in practice as a prophetic artist, I have seen paintings carry the transformative resurrection power of Jesus to thousands of people. The prophetic anointing initiates a personal relationship with God. A relationship that ultimately changes the world.
The prophetic artist is called to be so aligned with the Father’s heart that they bring His creative flow into people’s lives. They are a channel giving people the freedom to see how the Father has placed gifts in them and placed them in a community to use those gifts. This is how the artist transforms culture, with Spirit-empowered people released into their God-given destinies, capable of crossing race, class, and gender boundaries and unifying communities.
As a church, DaySpring has intentionally pursued what role art plays within the worship service. When senior pastor Narelle Crabtree asked me in 2005, “What do you think of painting in the church service?” it opened the pathway for a creative arts team. I happened to be the right person, at the right time, willing to experiment along with my pastors, who had always imagined art had a significant role in their church. God had placed in me a combination of skills, experience, curiosity and temperament that enabled the gathering together of a community of creative people. As an art worship team, we each made ground-breaking contributions as we pursued what God was doing with art and surrendered ourselves to the Spirit with live painting during the church service. When we started it wasn’t yet labelled prophetic art.
Artists shape the world. God is reaching into the depths of our hearts through art once again, and redeeming the Arts that have been lost to the church. He’s bringing more joy into our understanding of who He is. This is why we paint in worship! In this blog, read about the early days at DaySpring and watch Wendy’s interview with Narelle Crabtree.
Art has always been the ‘marker’ of culture. Art matters. Foremost, art matters to God. The evidence of how important art is to God is in the Scriptures. Exodus records the Lord speaking to Moses, saying ‘I have called Bezalel, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God’. The first Spirit-filled person was an artisan.
