Mission Yearbook: Michigan artist encourages ‘eyes of wonder’ to see faith in new ways

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Joel Schoon-Tanis was artist-in-residence at this past summer’s Worship & Music Conference. (Photo courtesy of Joel Schoon-Tanis)

Joel Schoon-Tanis is the artist-in-residence at his church in Holland, Michigan, and this past summer, established a mobile studio Montreat Conference Center for a two-week stint as the artist-in-residence for the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship & Music Conference.

Schoon-Tanis recently joined hosts Sarah Abushakra and Jeremy Roberts for their “Sounding Board” podcast. Follow their 73-minute conversation here. Schoon-Tanis is introduced at the 7:50 mark.

“I have always loved church and felt home in church, and I am super thankful to have two daughters who feel the same,” he told the hosts. His younger daughter arrives at church early every Sunday “to make sure everything is OK, and then she rings the bell,” he said. “She appointed herself bell-ringer,” which she does every Sunday 10 minutes ahead of the start of worship.

The son of a professor at Hope College in Holland, Schoon-Tanis attended the Christian liberal arts institution tuition-free. Halfway through his studies, he realized that “all I’ve ever wanted to do was paint and make stuff.” During his senior year, he met a woman in a painting class who was preparing to open an art gallery. “We became friends, and the next thing you know, I was her sole employee,” he said. She allowed him to show his work there. “It was the last time I held a real job,” he said, “but at the same time, people started buying my work.”

He said he’s always enjoyed the juxtaposition of painting childlike images “and the realistic.” He told the hosts he’s convinced “there are colors in God’s Creation we don’t know about yet.”

“I have this ache sometimes to find a color I expect to have on my palette but it’s not there,” he said. “To me, the new creation should be better than the old creation. That’s my hot take, and I’m sticking to that.”

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Jeremy Roberts

Asked by Roberts about the intersection of his work and his faith, Schoon-Tanis summed it up in one word: wonder.

Take a child on a hike and they’ll notice the tiniest things, including bugs, he said. They often describe what they’ve found “through a different angle, so a zebra is a horse with a striped suit. They’re piecing it together, which ends up being delightful and whimsical.”

When Schoon-Tanis prepares to paint something he’s done a thousand times, such as a tree, he’ll try to do it “in a whimsical, fun way so we notice it differently” and “so it doesn’t become just a bland thing that we’ve seen before.”

Similarly, when we study Scripture, “we can get locked into how we think a biblical passage should go or what it should mean,” he told the hosts. “If you hear a sermon on a specific passage enough times, you say, ‘Oh, I’ve got this.’ I know I can sometimes not listen as well then. I’m always thankful when pastors can prove me wrong and guide me in a different way.”

“What eyes of wonder or this whimsical approach can do is it can take on a passage from a different angle,” he said, “and help us look at the same story we might think we know deeply with fresh eyes and a slight change in perspective.”

That reminded Abushakra of Mary Oliver’s “Instructions for Living a Life”: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

Children are especially good with the “telling” part, Roberts said. While working with a children’s choir one day, the term “merciful” came up in a hymn the children were singing. He asked them: what does “merciful” mean? A first grader raised her hand and said, “My mom loves me all the time. Even when she gets mad, she still loves me, no matter what.”

“I thought, yes, that’s what merciful means,” Roberts said. “The way kids can break things open is so wonderful.”

Fatherhood “has absolutely reinforced my philosophy of wonder,” Schoon-Tanis said. He used to watch the way his daughters drew things and would sometimes steal their techniques. “Not anymore,” he said, “because they’ve both gotten pretty accomplished.”

Find the work of Schoon-Tanis on Instagram or through his website.

“Sounding Board” is available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Rachel Anderson, Global Ecumenical Liaison-US, Global Ecumenical Partnerships, Presbyterian Life & Witness
Molly Atkinson, Senior Administrative Assistant, Financial Aid Service, Presbyterian Life & Witness

Let us pray:

Gracious God, we praise you and also wonder at the great need we see around us. Forgive us for our failure to love our neighbors as ourselves. Strengthen us to work for a world where all are fed. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Montreat hosts young adults for ‘Strains of Joy’

College students live between worlds during winter break — no longer quite home, not yet back at school, suspended in the in-between space where old friends meet new identities and the foundations laid by hometown churches brush against the formation of campus ministries. A feeling of limbo characterizes early young adulthood, regardless of whether an individual is presently pursuing higher education or not. It’s one of many strains of struggle and surprising opportunities evoked in the winter’s young adult conference at Montreat Conference Center.

Video URL: https://vimeo.com/1151897823?fl=pl&fe=sh

On a Friday evening, more than 600 young adults and their group leaders chose to embrace the liminality of their lives, gathering at Anderson Auditorium for the opening of the annual Montreat College Conference, where the theme “Strains of Joy” promised to name what many feel but can’t quite articulate.

The conference brought together young adults for what Montreat President Richard DuBose called an opportunity for radical honesty.

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Richard Dubose welcomes 600 college students to Montreat College Conference held in early January. (All photos and video by Kristen Gaydos).

Aware of how the competing priorities that young adults face as they step into independence impact how they pursue Christian community in this time of life, DuBose emphasized that choosing to attend the conference over other winter break options was significant not just individually but communally.

“You could have stayed at home a few more days. You could earn a couple extra bucks while you’re home for Christmas, but you decided to come here,” he said, adding: “I think that’s going to be an important decision that you made for yourself, but I also want you to know that that’s an important decision that you’ve made for all the other people that are here.”

The welcome prayer led by an organizing team of young adults set an inclusive tone. One of the organizers, Rain from The Grove Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, prayed that “every child of God will know that they are loved unconditionally by their siblings in Christ, regardless of their race, their ethnicity, their ability, their gender identity and expression, sexual orientation or religious experience.”

Many attendees arrived in groups organized through PC(USA)-related colleges, campus ministries of secular universities or their home churches, creating a diverse mix of religious backgrounds and geographic regions. The Georgia Lodge, for example, hosted students from The Table at the University of Georgia, Georgia College and Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta.

“I’ve been coming since the beginning of college,” said Audrey Markham, who was in her fifth year at the conference. Markham, a University of Georgia graduate, was attending the conference in a new capacity as a Young Adult Volunteer with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This time, she lived with six other young adult volunteers while working at a nonprofit serving survivors of human trafficking in New Orleans. She co-led a workshop to tell college students about her experience and to invite them to consider a year of service after graduation.

Individuals without a group were also welcome. The Rev. Dr. Gini Norris-Lane, executive director of UKirk Collegiate Ministries, the national organization that supports more than 200 Presbyterian campus ministries, led a small group specifically for solo attendees.

The first evening’s worship featured musicians Blue Setzer on vocals and percussion and De’ Patton on keyboard, followed by preaching from the Rev. Natarsha Sanders, who challenged attendees to reconsider their understanding of joy through James 1:2–4.

Sanders, who works with racial equity and women’s intercultural ministries with the Unified Agency of the PC(USA), pressed fundamental questions: “When is the last time you've been able to count your joy? When is the last time you’ve ever even thought about it? Do you know what joy is? Are you still straining to see?”

She emphasized that joy emerges through trials that produce perseverance, which leads to wholeness, according to the Book of James. “James is telling us to count it all joy, not just for joy’s sake,” Sanders said, “because the tests produce perseverance. Our perseverance produces wholeness. And what are we here for? Other than to be made whole.”

Beth Waltemath, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Life & Witness (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Julie Tonini, Director of Production, Publishing & Editorial, Presbyterian Publishing Program
Joel Townsend, Desktop Support Analyst, Administrative Services Group

Let us pray:

For children who learn in schools, for teachers who help them learn, and for the many ways all of us learn of your world, we give you thanks, O Lord. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Summers at camp and conference centers are transformed by college-aged adults

Every summer, more than 100 college-aged adults from across the country call Montreat Conference Center home as they help run its summer programming. This tradition has continued for nearly a century, forming lifelong bonds between staff members and the Montreat community.

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Efe Egberi updates the chore chart inside the Balsam Lodge common area. (All photos by Tyler Busch)

This year’s summer staff filled a variety of roles, including A/V, Aud Crew, marketing assistant, rangers, Montreat Store staff, Huckleberry Café staff, clubs’ counselors, and lifeguards. Some were returning, but for others it was also their first time on staff.

Tyler Busch, a recent college graduate, was one of two summer staff interns in the development office. A year ago, Montreat wasn’t even on his radar. Busch grew up in the Episcopal Church in Atlanta and spent summers at the diocese’s camp in North Georgia.

That changed after attending Montreat’s College Conference in January 2025, held despite extensive damage from Helene just three months earlier. At the conference, Busch learned about applying for summer staff and decided it would be a great way to spend his post-grad summer. “Being here and the many doors that have opened has truly been a blessing, but I’m not the only one,” he said.

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Ministry team member John Curran plans devotions for youth conference attendees at the Moose Lodge.

John Curran, a student at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, served this summer on the ministry team, returning after a powerful experience the year before as a back home group leader for Week 6 of the Montreat Youth Conference. That year, Curran had a moving encounter with a conferee who had recently come out as transgender. “At the end of the week, the conferees wrote affirmations for each other, and that conferee wrote for me how they were really glad to meet someone in the LGBT+ community going to seminary,” Curran said. That moment shaped his understanding of Montreat’s acceptance of everyone and inspired him to return.

Maggie Reetz served as the music instructor, teaching “clubbies” all the nostalgic Montreat dances. She was introduced to Montreat through a friend at Elon University. Having attended a performing arts high school, Reetz loved reconnecting with music in her role as instructor.

Summer staff lived for 10 weeks in one of three designated lodges — Balsam, Lookout or Sylvan — each with a resident advisor. Balsam’s Lodge’s RA, Efe Egberi, learned about Montreat through her professor at Catawba College. Her responsibilities included ensuring residents enjoyed their living space and providing support. It was also a summer of firsts for Egberi. “I’ve never been to the mountains before, nor have I ever gone paddle boarding and rock climbing until now,” she said. She added that seeing a bear up close for the first time was both cool and a little nerve-racking.

“It’s not Montreat without the daily bear-sighting, that’s for sure,” said Busch. That sentiment was shared by summer staff coordinator Jason Nanz, affectionately known as “Ranger Jason,” who oversaw five summer rangers repairing hurricane-damaged trails, leading public hikes and building bridges, among other important tasks.

Summer staff is a welcome sight for the year-round employees, said Nanz, because it “fills in seasonal gaps in our employment, and without them we would not be to run the summer programs.”

While summer staff greatly support operations, each member also brings new energy and love to Montreat. The experience offers opportunities to deepen their relationship with God and gain a greater appreciation of God’s Creation. Here, they leave an impact on all who walk through the hallowed gate, furthering the conference center’s mission “to gather people to experience God’s transforming power and inspire love for the world.”

If you are wondering what your next summer’s plans could be, consider a summer staff job at Montreat or at any of the camp and conference centers of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Originally from Atlanta, Tyler Busch graduated with his bachelor’s degree in public relations from Georgia Southern University this past May. He contributed this article as part of his work on summer staff with the development office at Montreat Conference Center. (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Melaina Smith ,  Design Content Specialist, The Presbyterian Foundation
Natalie Smith , Product Manager, General Reader Books, Electronic Resources & Strategic Business Development, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation      

Let us pray:

Generous God, thank you for daily bread to share, for the hunger for justice and righteousness among all people, and for the first-received love that calls forth response in the humble power of Christ. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Montreat service highlights strength cloaked in gentleness

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Children got worship going by waving palm fronds. (Photo by Alex Simon)

Palm fronds, provocative liturgy and, of course, prophetic preaching marked worship at the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship & Music Conference, held at Montreat Conference Center. In all, about 1,400 people are participating.

The theme was meekness, which the conference preacher, Dr. Margaret Aymer, stressed is not weakness. “To clothe oneself with meekness or gentleness means to hold one’s power lightly, not using it to oppress or destroy,” she said, relying on John’s account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem as her preaching text.

Children were featured throughout the service, playing chimes, processing down the aisle of Anderson Auditorium and waving palm fronds, reading prayers and Scripture, and singing an anthem, “Festival Sanctus” by John Leavitt.

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The Middler Choir sings “Festival Sanctus.” (Photo by Alex Simon)

Meekness “affects how we treat others, how we walk through the world as followers of Jesus,” Aymer said. “Too often in our culture we have concluded a truly strong person is forceful, aggressive — even a bully. The cultural myth of the alpha male affects everything from middle school text messages to the rulers of nations, including our own.”

On the day of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, the Roman governor Pilate was there as well, as were upwards of 300,000 pilgrims “suffering under the thumb of Roman oppression,” Aymer noted. Pilate made a show of force; accompanying him were no fewer than 1,000 soldiers, brought in to reinforce the Roman garrison.

“People in his day understood strength,” Aymer said. “Jesus enters Jerusalem by the Eastern Gate. He also comes in strength, but his strength is not accomplished by bluster, threat or cruelty. His strength comes cloaked in meekness and gentleness.” In the Chinese martial arts, competitors greet one another with a fist covered by the other hand, “a show of strength cloaked in meekness, gentleness and self-control,” according to Aymer.

“John tells us Jesus has something Pilate never could have,” Aymer said. While Pilate could kill, Jesus could bring people back to life, as he did to Lazarus.

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Dr. Margaret Aymer delivers a sermon on meekness and gentleness. (Photo by Alex Simon)

As Jesus rides in, the people quote Psalm 126, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” They lay palm branches at his feet and cry out, “Hosanna!” which means, “Save us!”

“In this moment, the crowd recognized Jesus’ strength, and they hope for the toppling of Rome and the establishment of their own strong man, who will use his strength and brutal ways to help them,” Aymer said. But in this brief account in John, Jesus is silent. “His one action is to find a donkey and ride into Jerusalem,” she said. In this way he invokes Solomon and the prophet Zechariah, who wrote, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.”

“This is the promise of a ruler with meek and gentle power,” Aymer said, “a ruler who opens the way for peace.” Jesus is “a man so certain of his own power that he can be gentle.”

However, “Jesus’ strength can be hard to accept when what you really want is vengeance,” she said. “That’s why Peter’s instinct is to cut off the ear of an already oppressed, enslaved man.”

“Jesus’ strength does not allow for brutality,” Aymer said. “He heals even those who would capture him.” That can be “hard to accept when you’d much rather see the legions of heaven unleashed. It is to the cross that we as disciples are called to return, again and again, that we might learn the true strength of being clothed in meekness.”

“We are not called to be minions of any strong man,” Aymer said. “We are called to be disciples of Christ, to cry out our hosannas to the meek one who emptied himself and became obedient, even unto death on the cross.”

“Dear friends,” she urged, “let us clothe ourselves with meekness.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Monica Buonincontri, Vice President, Marketing & Commumications, The Board of Pensions
Donna Burkland, Apprentice, 1001 New Worshiping Communities, Interim Unified Agency

Let us pray:

Loving God, help us to love you with all of our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Help us to recall the story of the Good Samaritan and fill us with your Spirit so that we can go and do likewise. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: At Montreat, worshipers place prayers in a river of humility

People in worship at the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship & Music Conference saw their written prayers swept away in a river flowing through Anderson Auditorium at Montreat Conference Center.

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Numerous musicians combined to make a joyful noise during worship at the Presbyterian Association of Musicians' Worship & Music Conference. (Photo by Alex Simon)

The river was a long length of fabric, carried in by mostly young dancers who then deposited it on the stage. Later, worshipers placed their prayers for healing atop the river.

Humility was the theme for the service. “Rather than false modesty, the call to clothe ourselves in humility is to realize, demurely, that we are not always the main character in the story,” said conference preacher Dr. Margaret Aymer, vice president for Academic Affairs at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. “Today’s service celebrates God’s gift of healing and wholeness.”

David LaMotte sang “Boots and Gloves,” reflecting on Hurricane Helene and the compassion that followed. The dancers brought in the river while worshipers sang “Shall We Gather at the River.”

Aymer based her sermon on the healing of Naaman (2 Kings 5:1–19a). She said humility is not humiliation but “an invitation to reorientation, to shifting our perspective and changing our actions so we right-size ourselves in relationship with others and God.” She used a gaming term to illustrate: “You have to be willing to listen to the NPCs,” or non-player characters, who “are a part of the game, but they’re not the main character.”

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Young dancers bring the river to the front of Anderson Auditorium. (Photo by Alex Simon)

In Naaman’s story, two NPCs teach lessons in humility. The first is an enslaved Israelite girl captured by the Arameans and forced to work for Naaman’s wife. “She has no power, no authority, no wealth and no status. She appears once, has one line, and then disappears from our memory,” Aymer said. “She is an NPC, yet the story cannot progress unless Naaman listens to her.”

But Naaman hears only half of what she has to say, namely “cure skin disease” and “Samaria.” He goes to his boss and is sent to the king of Israel. He thus goes as an emissary of a king to a king.

The king of Israel cannot cure Naaman either. The enslaved girl said nothing of a payment, but Naaman — rather than showing humility — brings “an exorbitant show of wealth, a sign he is worthy to be cured,” Aymer said, “as though health and wellness belong only to the affluent.”

Naaman is “flummoxed at the prophet’s flat refusal of payment,” Aymer said. The army commander “sees his cure as a war bounty.” He’s “insulted by a prophet who doesn’t even come to the door to speak to him. Naaman still does not have the humility to imagine a posture not of intimidation, but of intercession; not of forceful demands, but of faith petition.”

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A few of the prayers were placed in the river. (Photo by Alex Simon)

It is humility that “offers us a chance to look beyond our own status to see every other person as the embodiment of God,” she said, “to see God’s power at work beyond our own imagining, beyond our wealth to see the benevolence and bounty of God, who gives us far more than we can ask or think,” Aymer said. “When we put on humility, we begin to perceive this God-beloved world more fully. We see God is in control and we are not, that God loves us more fully than we could even imagine.”

Naaman eventually learns to listen to the NPCs again, including his own servants, who “challenge Naaman’s lack of imagination, his unwillingness to put down his power and wealth, his disdain for a river he believes is too ordinary to wash his powerful Syrian body.” The servants “challenge his bravado to not do a task any child could do,” she said. They candidly tell Naaman, “All he said to you was wash and be clean.”

“Friends, we need to listen to those NPCs, the people who cook our meals and clean our rooms. No person is truly an NPC, and we do not always know how God will heal us,” Aymer said. “When we look for heavenly signs, God sends us angels wearing boots and gloves.”

“We may think these divine messengers are NPCs, but the truth is they are the main characters, sent with shawls of humility until we are right-sized, humiliated and able to trust our God once more.”

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

McKenna Britton, Communications Associate, Mission Communications, Interim Unified Agency 
Analise Brown, Registrar & Administrative Assistant, Office of Presbyterian Youth and Triennium, Interim Unified Agency

Let us pray:

Jesus, open our eyes to see. Open our hearts to respond to the least of these, our brothers and sisters. Amen

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