One of our greatest fears in life is dying, but one of our glorious hopes is leaving this earth. We endeavor to make ourselves have a comfort with death and dying when as believers in Christ, we cling to the words He shared about promises made concerning the eternity of being absent from the physical body yet present with Him.

On All Saints Sunday in 2008, we gathered in the sanctuary of Glencoe United Methodist Church for an experience that stretched clear across into April 2010. Artist, Fernando Padilla, Jr. in a twenty minute time frame created the rough draft used for this painting as Rev Ron Weathers shared in message about the observance of All Saints Sunday in the life of the Church. On All Saints Sunday we light candles in memory of those who have gone to their eternal reward before us, symbolizing that the light of their presence is still with us but also with Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven. Plexiglas was used for Christ’s image so that when you stand in front of it, you can see yourself in the heart of Christ.

“I was scared out of my wits and sweating bullets” says Fernando, of his second Art In Worship performance. “I had to keep telling myself over and over to keep painting” until he was signaled time was up. The decision was made to allow the artist to take the panel to his studio to put finishing touches on it, this image is the result.

The “Master”piece became part of the collection of religious art seen throughout the Church. “We are honored to be included in such a way” says Fernando, “we have always loved the people here in this community”.

As we look at this rendition, it will give us reason to imagine what this event would look like; may He grace us with the strength to remain steadfast until the angels signal His return “Coming In The Clouds”.

What an amazing weekend in Eufaula, it was a huge blessing to get out of the city to enjoy peaceful moments by the lake and with townsfolk who were friendly and very hospitable. Nice article in the local paper.

Open Hearts, Open Arms, Open Doors

Our heartfelt thanks to Joe and Lynn Carrier who opened doors and let us in, they received a five star award from me for the lavish accommodations. They took wonderful care of my family while I busied myself with final details on the panels. This was the first time Stefani and the children experienced a salt water swimming pool, no chemicals and no burning eyes. Joe’s willingness to indulge me time to pray at the waters edge, to touch the cool water and remember God’s life giving source made my day.

Testing 1, 2, 3…

Huge THANKS to Eric Breon, sound technician who made transitions from one segment to the other seamless and professional. We had no time to rehearse beforehand, everything was do or die, live and in person but he handled his part like we had done it numerous times. I was the one lost and in the dark, literally, Pastor John Breon had turned out the lights too soon. I ended up having to read narration blindly, my fault for not thinking ahead of time to place a reading light on the podium.

If Anything Else Could Go Wrong…

Unfortunately I did not preview the digital recorder beforehand either for lighting compensation, so the performance can be heard…but hardly seen, we will not be able to post this event on our website. And maybe it was meant to be seen by Eufaula only, who really knows. In my excitement of doing the event and wrapping it all up, I also forgot to take any photos of the completed panels or of anyone else for that matter. While we were driving back out towards the highway I wondered if people would really believe me when I tell them we went to Eufaula on Pentecost Sunday but that only the Spirit knows what we did there?

May God Bless and Keep You…

Thank You’s to Hal Kirkpatrick, Rev. John Breon, the fabulous congregation & Choir, the Nursery staff, and Mike Kirkpatrick Family. May God richly and generously bless you all a hundredfold for the outpouring of God’s favor towards the Padilla Family, we will not easily forget you in our prayers.

We hope to come out very soon and get post photography of the assembled panels to share on the website, pray it happens.

There is a new business line just for Padilla of San Felipe: (405) 445-7498. Leave your name, number and message so we would be informed of your call or order whether we are in the studio or on the road doing shows.

As the day of Pentecost approaches, we reflect. The geographical and economic changes to our lives became the physical evidence that we are moved in multitude of ways that keep us holding on to the promises of God all the more.

The challenge of facing the unknown is for the strengthening of our hope in God’s grace; trusting in the power of His word through the life changing resurrection of Jesus Christ. What scriptures says about the working of Christ takes on new deeper meanings when the Incarnate Christ comes alive through our struggles with the everyday. The importance of the Holy Spirit in my self-conscious has taken on greater significance as I prepare myself for sharing this coming Sunday at Eufaula United Methodist Church with Rev. John Breon and the “unsuspecting” congregation. I say unsuspecting because they have no idea what’s going to happen to all of us this Pentecost. Actually, I hope we get blown out of our pews.

That the Holy Spirit would come alive in the most visually stimulating and intimate worship experience is all I ask for:

I believe that we completely underestimate the power of God’s word when we year after year read and hear the “same old” story told the same old humdrum way. Sometimes the public reading of scripture lacks the intimacy to be personal for the liturgist, not to mention the lethargic parishioners’ head-bobbing in the pews. I’ve found making it intimately personal for me makes the hearing of it a surprise that catches the listeners attention. Inserting my own name, the name of the church, or the name of our town in place of those listed in verses can be pleasing to the ear. Being courageous with the imagination that God blessed our minds with could stretch out “that old time religion” in ways that we would have never thought possible, or dared plausible. Something has to push us to that point of experiencing the drastic unknown especially when it comes to our church participation because if left up to us, we would rather not take the trouble to stir ourselves up out of our comfortable predictable religiosity. Awareness of God has diminished so much we think everything is alright between the Creator and creation. We need an experience of going back to that very first day of Pentecost more than once a year, when the Holy Spirit thundered and crackled out of heavens glory and exploded on that mild mannered, well meaning, and fearful congregation of missional do-gooders.

Well, that may not happen to us on Sunday but what if…

There is a new business line just for Padilla of San Felipe: (405) 445-7498. Leave your name, number and message so we would be informed of your call or order whether we are in the studio or on the road doing shows.

I was so anxious to share how much the service meant to me I forgot to mention what the theme was for that December 7th service. Children were a big part of our focus, and not just what they mean to us as precious gifts compacted into little packages but how deep an impact they will have on the world around them.We realize that soon and very soon these babes of ours will run right out into that big old world…without us to protect them and the world can be a vicious and cruel place evident by the many broken hearts & lives.

That was the life discovery Mary made about the babe born in that smelly cold stable, from the beginning she knew he was special, but that his entrance into this despairing existence would actually blow the doors off the gates of hell and break the chain of sins bondage through death by crucifixion was something she probably never saw coming…and maybe something she would not have allowed.
Those of us with small ones understand where this is going, the discovery is always the same: there are things, consequences, life-altering decision-making situations that belong to each individual, and the hardest thing to do as a parent is to step aside and let things happen. So we do what Mary and Joseph did, we take our precious gifts to God and present them to Him there in His sanctuary, and allow the never-changing God of grace and mercy to anoint their gentle yet resilient lives with His love.
We could probably never comprehend the agony that Mary underwent on the dreadful day of Christ’s execution, no words or pictures could ever describe it either. But those who are drawn to examine that event and are overcome by the magnitude of the meaning of love will without a doubt experience the undulation of exuberant elation when they discover that that is not the end of the story.

I have been led to discover that we cannot see the full beauty of Christ’s sacrifice until we stand and look at the wretched ugliness of his death by crucifixion, and to confess that it was the shouting of our sins that screamed “Crucify Him!”
It was the gift of God’s love to send His Son, it was the gift of Christ’s death to redeem and reconcile us back to God, and it’s the gift of love gone full circle when we come and lay our life and our children’s lives at the foot of Jesus this Christmas.

We are back home from spending Sunday worship with Pastor Rev. Sharon Fletcher-Taylor and the congregation & friends at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma; our Art in Worship format was wonderfully received.
However, it’s important to share that it was the combination of many participants and those present to make the experience what it became…a living mosaic of our gifts and talents that witnessed to the heart and body of Christ alive among us. And that means there was a definite response of emotions evident by the comments received afterward.
Pastor Sharon led the flock to the feet of Christ that morning; the Minister of music directed a magnificent choir & musicians to surround us with glorious sounds and uplifting music appropriate to the occasion; the 240+ attendance graciously welcomed the Spirit of God to minister among all of us in just the way we needed.

We hope that our video snippets of that worship time will be online very soon. For those who have been to an Art in Worship event, would you post your thoughts and comments so that we can share and even adjust our methods to better enhance the experience, of course we acknowledge that it’s to the glory of God that we do these things but I would hope that offering our heart and soul into these deeds would somehow be pleasing to God.

Bill Sherman, Tulsa World religion reporter, was guest on hand to record and make observations during morning worship. There is a possibility of his story being included in Saturday’s edition of the Tulsa World newspaper; you can check it out at TulsaWorld.com if your subscription has run out.
We want to thank Rev. Sharon Fletcher-Taylor, worship leaders and the congregation for receiving us so warmly, for going the extra mile and hosting a reception afterwards so that those who stayed could visit with us. We also displayed artwork we offer for sale, Gabrielle debuted her first monotype print image (you can see that on our website), and Stefani’s photograph of Kit foxes was on display. Next time we will spotlight artwork from Raphael and Emmanuel.

Studio phone number: (405) 445-7498.

We were wonderfully received at Mayfair Heights UMC yesterday morning for our participation in Sunday worship. Of course sweating bullets for no reason at all seems to be my occupation. I pulled off my part much better through pre-planned praying. Plus the use of thumbnail sketches for each painted panel to keep me targeted, and believe me I put my confidence in those thumbnails. The only concern not resolved until I stood up to begin painting was “what two colors am I going to use?” (I had decided to use only two colors for the added features).

The six seasons of the church year (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter & Pentecost) were segmented throughout the service with plenty of awesome assistance from the worship planning committee: several scripture/narrative readers, candle lighters, musicians, the Pastor and even the congregation related words and music pertaining to each season while my six correlating panels received additional artistic renderings. Rev. Bob Younts had shared his script with me several weeks in advance, and it was from that script that key words and images brought about the painted panels. Each panel received a sectioned image of the face of Christ, outlined in black and accented with the gold color, however it was not until the conclusion of the worship portion that all panels were placed together in their respective placement that the entire face of Christ could be seen, with enough of the original painted panels showing through to show the “mosaic” presence of Jesus throughout our life seasons. It also showed me how every one who participated in one way or another made what we saw and felt as the working of God’s grace and Spirit bringing all our “pieces” together as one mosaic body of Christ.

I was very impressed by how the “flow” flowed, I never felt rushed for more time, a few mistakes, here and there, went un-noticed by the congregation and before asking how much time in the service remained, we came to the end—and I was about as done as I could have been.

Not only were we there to share during worship but it was an opportunity to

see friendly and familiar faces, that was such a blessing for us. Even our children didn’t put up much of a fuss except maybe Emmanuel, when during the Children’s Time he spotted Daddy over in the painting corner and escaped from the loving embrace of the person watching him and ran to wrap himself around Daddy’s leg. He reluctantly and somewhat noisily went back to the nursery with the rest of the children. Well, eventually Mom had to rescue the nursery worker from Manny’s unhappiness.

Our many thanks to the Pastor Rev. Robert Younts and Congregation at Mayfair Heights United Methodist Church for making our second Art in Worship such a blest event, we’ll be visiting with you from time to time but we’ll hold you up in our thoughts and prayers all the time.

Just around the corner from us is Christ the King Sunday (Nov. 23rd, 2008) and Mayfair Heights United Methodist Church (3131 NW 50th OKC).
I’m starting to get those nervous jitters again, in anticipation of what could be another exciting display of spontaneous artistic expressions of praise in worship. My “spontaneous” plans include a multi-paneled, mosaic-like painting that when finished will present a composite portrait of God’s love. Another added feature could be my eighteen year old daughter, Sara Don, assisting and painting alongside me during the worship time. We may also begin the painting process a little earlier in the service than we have before.

They have a wonderful choir at Mayfair UMC and the people are so welcoming, it always makes us feel like we are home. In fact Mayfair Heights UMC was the first home church we joined as a family in 1996, and, it was from Mayfair that we were sent out into the pastorate ministry in 2000.
The challenge with this particular project will be encapsulating the entire Christian Calendar and seasons of the church into one finished artwork. After sketching several ideas and probable designs, I finally settled on what may prove my mettle as an artist than I have had in quite some time. The other task will be allowing my daughter to infuse her style, her way, and as she sees fit to render this concept of relating the essence of Christ to others. In fact it’s the best example of what it means to be as different as you can be and yet in that diversity of styles & techniques we find Christ weaving our lives, gifts, and talents together as a mosaic cloth; and what we would think is how things should be (our way) then God allows us to witness the miracle of grace using the best of others as the perfect combination to make our best even better together. This part will truly be the spontaneous component, as we have not practiced or coordinated every detail.
However, this will not be the first time that Sara and I have worked on a mural together. In 1994 she assisted on the “Anasazi Splendor” mural creation for installation at Denver’s brand new International Airport, she was four years old at that time but she remembers that experience clearly.

Come out to meet us and see how much she has matured as an artist, and what a beautiful young lady she has become.

Just a short video of our Art In Worship Experience at Glencoe United Methodist Church.