Designed to help attendees get knee-deep in making and application, our workshops include hands-on sessions with makers, sessions for equipping ministers, and a series of panels with leading thinkers, practitioners, and clergy.
The Faculty
Workshop faculty include clergy, writers, artists in residence, non-profit leaders, faculty from Duke Divinity School, and more. Below are a snapshot of our faculty. Register now to learn more about the faculty and to view the full roster of workshop offerings—totaling over 40 sessions!
Section 1: Friday, Sept. 5, 1:30 PM
Section 2: Friday, Sept. 5, 3:30 PM
Register now to see the full roster of workshop sessions and to get your spot!
If already registered, please click above and modify your registration to select sessions on the third page of the form.
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Goodwyn Bell
Workshop: Grammar of Creation
Senior Pastor, Blacknall Memorial Presbyterian -
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Jack Bell
Workshop: Grammar of Creation
Agrarian, Writer, PhD, Duke University -
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Steve Prince
Workshop: Watercolor Monotyypes
Distinguished Artist in Residence, Muscarelle Museum -
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Pilar Timpane
Workshop: Documentary Storytelling + Ethics
Documentary Producer, TeaCup Productions -
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Wen Reagan
Workshop: Songwriting for the Church
Director of Music and Worship, Blacknall Memorial Presbyterian Church -
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Maria Geary
Workshop: Transparent Journaling
Fiber Artist, Duke Create -
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Andrew Hendrixson
Workshop: Nicaea, Painting, and the World to Come
Visual Artist, ThD, Duke Divinity -
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J. Warren Smith
Workshop: The Road to Nicaea
Professor of Historical Theology, Duke Divinity School -
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Molly McCully Brown
Workshop: Poems of Grace & Gratitude
Poet, Editor-in-Chief, Image journal -
![Hannah Anderson]()
Hannah Anderson
Workshop: Created to Create - Creating Poetry in Response to Creation
Writer in Residence, Hope Words -
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Rev. Nicole Vickey
Workshop: Created to Create - Creating Poetry in Response to Creation
Author of Still, Wild, God -
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Amilee Watkins
Workshop: Cultivating Spiritual Permanence
COO and CoFounder, Goldenwood NYC -
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Rev. David Kim
Workshop: Cultivating Spiritual Permanence
CEO and CoFounder, GoldenWood NYC -
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Jeremy Whitton Spriggs
Workshop: Performing Texts
Actor and Broadcaster -
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Debbie Pullinger
Workshop: Performing Texts
Poet -
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Kendall Vanderslice
Workshop - Bake & Pray - Nicaea
Author of Bake & Pray -
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Julian Davis Reid
Workshop: Notes of Rest®
Founder, Notes of Rest® -
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Wesley Vander Lugt
Workshop: One Holy Church of Oddkin
Acting Director of the Leighton Ford Initiative in Theology, the Arts, and Gospel Witness
Workshop Spotlights
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What are Nicaea’s implications for the primary human calling “to till and to keep” the earth (Genesis 2:15)? In our homes, our communities, and the ecologies that sustain all life on the planet? As the creed that emerged from the first council of Nicaea (325) stated plainly, Jesus, the Word of God, does not exist at the pleasure of the Father’s will. Instead, Jesus is “of one substance with the Father.” But creation is categorically different. Light, dark, seas, stars, soils, plants, animals, and humans: all these things exist not by necessity but because God delighted in making them. In this two-part workshop, Jack and Goodie Bell will explore how an ethic of care can help reframe what the arts are all about: not imitating the divine creator's creativity but receiving and responding to the world as gift.
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As the Nicene Creed affirms, we believe in one church, a community of people spanning every possible human difference through union with Christ. In this workshop, Dr. Wesley Vander Lugt will explore how the arts are a gift for nurturing and sustaining the church as a community of oddkin, people whose lives are joined together in surprising combinations. Using the work of Kinship Plot as a case study, this workshop is designed to equip for pastors, ministry leaders, educators, and lay people to use the arts to nurture surprising encounters, conversations, and relationships.
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In this two-part workshop, Jeremy Whitton Spriggs, trained English actor and experienced performer, and Debbie Pullinger, poet and researcher on poetry, memory, and performance, will together offer a fresh approach to even the most familiar texts. We’ll consider the relationships between words in the ear, words on the tongue, and words on the page. We’ll then introduce some gentle exercises to activate the connection between our body and voice before working with a poem to see how it might yield to our vocal exploration. Most importantly, we’ll have some fun playing with and performing a text!
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The Nicene Creed affirms that all things were made through God, the Father, Son, and Spirit. What might this mean for cultivating a artistic practice of gratitude? In this brief, generative poetry workshop, we'll look together at several poems of gratitude for the made world, cataloguing both its visible and invisible graces. Then, learning from these models, we'll spend a little time making our own catalogues of unabashed gratitude—to borrow a phrase from poet Ross Gay—and shaping them into a first draft of a poem.
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From God’s provision of manna in the wilderness to Jesus’ miraculous multiplication of loaves, bread functions throughout Scripture as a sign of God’s presence and provision. n this two-part workshop, participants will bake a loaf of bread from start to finish, reflecting on both the visible and invisible marks of transformation—both in the dough, and in ourselves as bakers. Weaving baking science and technique together with theological reflections born by the Nicene Creed, this workshop is appropriate both for experienced bakers and those intimidated by the thought of yeast.
Workshops will occur on Friday, September 5, at 1:30 PM and 3:30 PM. Register now to get your spot in this incredible list of hands-on sessions! And see below for more programming information!
Register now to see the full roster of workshop sessions and to get your spot!
If already registered, please click above and modify your registration to select sessions on the third page of the form.
The Panels
Saturday, September 6, 1:30 & 3:30 PM
Featuring leading professionals, academics, and non-profit leaders, these panels offer a rare opportunity to dialogue with and learn from a collective wealth of wisdom and cutting-edge voices. All panels will include time for Q&A with the audience. Register now to see the full list of panels. We hope you will join us to hear from these leading professionals, artists, and academics in the field of theology and the arts and beyond.
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Panelists: Christina Carnes Ananias, Natalie Carnes, Amy Peeler, Cat Ricketts
In this panel session, mothers in various seasons of their lives will consider what the distinctive vocation of motherhood might contribute to the theology and the arts conversation. The panelists will reflect on specific artworks, artistic processes, and personal experiences to explore the unique and specific theological and spiritual implications of the maternal life. All panels include time for Q&A with the audience.
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Panelists: Alex Sosler (The Artistic Vision podcast) & Amber Noel (The Living Church podcast)
In this panel session, leading professionals from the Christian podcasting industry will discuss the ins and outs of podcasting and the arts: how to curate an excellent podcast, how to engage guests and viewers, how to think about the medium as opposed to its more traditional counterparts, like online media outlets and print publishing, and how to put the arts in conversation with other disciplines.
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Participants: Image Journal, Timothy J. Keaderling (Plough Magazine) , David McNutt (Zondervan), Lisa Ann Cockrel (Eerdmans)
In this panel session, leaders from the Christian publishing and literary journal industry will join together to address a wide range of topics, from how to craft and curate a literary journal, to the work and process of academic and creative acquisitions, to larger conceptual questions about the current state of contemporary publishing and its future. All panels include time for Q&A with the audience.
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Participants: Winfield Bevins (CreoArts), Kirk Erwin (Friday Arts Project), Melissa Delcambre (Art House Dallas)
In this panel session, leaders of several non-profit organizations will discuss how to use and integrate art in theological, spiritual, and communal formation through non-profit organizations. How can art be used as a form of outreach? What are best practices for integrating arts into non-profit work and things to avoid? These questions and others will be explored.
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In this panel session, panelists will reflect on their experiences as part of a multi-year cohort which produced Naming the Spirit: Pneumatology through the Arts. Drawing on the wide range of relationships to and responsibilities within various academic institutions in the US, the panel will also reflect on the challenges and the opportunities facing the academic field of Theology and the Arts.
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Panelists: Sandra McCracken (Red Vineyard Musician), Cindy Morgan (Red Vineyard Musician), and Amilee Watkins (Goldenwood NYC)
Join us for an engaging panel conversation and song share with Goldenwood NYC, Sandra McCracken, and Cindy Morgan, as they share about the Red Vineyard experience, a unique 7-month songwriting journey that weaves together rich spiritual formation, collaborative retreats, and monthly workshops designed to nourish both faith and the songwriting craft. Through honest storytelling and original songs, the panelists will explore how art can hold both beauty and brokenness, and how the cultivation of rest and spiritual friendship in creative community can nurture hope for our lives, our work, and the world. (This panel is sponsored by the Creative Arts Collective.)
Register now to attend one of these excellent panels!
If already registered, please modify your existing registration via the button above and proceed to the session registration page in the form.
