The Making Of A Space: The iD.Cafe

We’re in a season of making final preparations for our Institute One Year Diploma students coming to St. Stephen’s University in a few weeks.

One of the spaces we’re putting the finishing touches on is our primary classroom, which is essentially an informal Cafe hosted and supported by our community of the St. Croix Vineyard.

The space has been designed to cover multiple uses, from live music and cafe nights for our youth in town, art seminars connected with our middle and high schools, small gallery showings, a media-viewing room and a creative space for our more liturgical and “ancient-future” expressions of worship.

True to sharp eyeMatt Frise and his excellent article on How To Humanize A Worship Space, I’ve “delegated the space crafting” to great friend and interior designer, Robyn English. She’s art directing the space with me keeping in mind color, multi-generational usage, classroom usage and youth usage – which is no small task.

It’s turning out beautifully, despite the challenges of making a space “work,” no matter what the space starts out to be. Craftsman Jeff Way , Mike McGaw and others have made a simple space a place of conversation, soul-sharing and growth. Our leadership team continues to put resource and encouragement behind the development of a space that I believe will become a hub (a small one, but a hub nonetheless) of creative, social and character formation for many.

It’s my prayer that a simple space brings great honor and glory to Jesus Christ, lifting souls to God in a way that transforms individuals, families and communities to come through those who are impacted here.

To work with what we have is a beginning; to expand it with what we have within, that is progress.

AVAILABLE NOW

Sheltering Mercy and Endless Grace help us rediscover the rich treasures of the Psalms—through free-verse prayer renderings of their poems and hymns—as a guide to personal devotion and meditation. Sheltering Mercy helps the reader pray Psalms 1-75; Endless Grace leads in prayer through Psalms 76-150.

The church has always used the Psalms as part of its prayer life, and they have inspired countless other prayers. Each book contains 75 prayers drawn from the Book of Psalms, providing lyrical sketches of what authors Ryan Smith and Dan Wilt have seen, heard, and felt while sojourning there. Each prayer is a response to the Psalms written in harmony with Scripture. These prayers help us quiet our hearts before God and welcome us into a safe place amid the storms of life.

These artful, poetic, and classic devotional books are a perfect gift, and feature compelling stunning illustrations and hardcover binding, offering a fresh way to reflect on and pray the Psalms. Co-written with Ryan Whitaker Smith, Brazos Publishing.

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