Making church a work of artists
Wheaton conference seeks to enliven services by infusing the arts into worship
By Denise Linke
Special to the Tribune
Published May 26, 2006

Gone are the days when churchgoers had nothing more to look forward to Sunday mornings than drowsing through a sermon and opening their hymnals to page 147.

Now, many Chicago-area churches are enlivening services with arts and technology, from liturgical dances to heavy metal hymns to multimedia sermons presented in PowerPoint.

And Christian artists are increasingly going to Karitos, named after an adaptation of a Greek phrase meaning gift of God, to learn how to make it all happen. The program's 12th annual Christian arts conference will run Thursday through June 3 at Wheaton College.

"In the past, pastors preached against Hollywood and the arts as being too worldly. Since then, there's been a sea change: The churches that are growing are the ones that incorporate artistic performance into their worship," said conference founder and organizer, Rev. Bob Hays of Arlington Heights. the rest