The image above was the result after our first night’s teaching and worship time focused around “moving mountains”.  It was as though the herald was going before the army, announcing to the distant mountains that it was going to be moved.  I felt like I was declaring with my brush the Spirit’s revealed intention for our church.

During the second painting and worship session, there was a deep sense of repentance and a desire to come in a posture of confession.  Equally, this contrite figure is leaning into the mountain, as a metaphor that our spirits were now contending and appealing to the Spirit to move this mountain of spiritual stagnancy and release us in our development as disciples.  The red emerged as a symbol of the cost of Christ’s sacrifice, and in reference to Isaiah “though your since are like scarlet, they will be washed as white as snow”.  It is not by our power that the mountain will be moved!

And then it came: During week four or five while I was painting, I had a vision of a mountain with it’s two angles merging as they move up.  I saw this like a funnel upside down, and God’s presence and purpose raining down from above, but with the funnel upside down only a small portion of this  water could come through, and what was below the funnel was mostly sheltered from this rain of grace by the umbrella of the funnel above.  Then I saw figures standing with hands held wide in worship (like the above figure to the left), and opposite to the mountain, the arms raised and outstretched hands formed angles that diverging as they went up.  I saw the funnel again now flipped over, and the purposes and presence of God raining down were being caught everywhere in this funnel, channeled to a center, and rushed from the conduit with power and vigor.  This, my spirit understood, was a vision of us a powerful disciples, centered in worship, focused on the Source, and overflowing with a river of his Love and Power.  WE were the mountain that needed to be moved, and it would happen through by changing our hearts to a posture of worship.

I shared this word privately first with the pastor of the service, and was invited to share it the next day along side the painting at the meeting of over 15 of our church’s elders. They were gathering pray and prepare that morning for a church-wide leadership equipping and empowering conference.  They tested the word for our church at large and acknowledged that it was indeed from the Lord.  As an exclamation point to God’s goodness, My senior pastor Clive Calver came up and asked when I had been to Jerusalem and if I had known that the mountain I had painted in the distance was Mt. Horeb, the spot scholars believe was the location of Christ’s transfiguration.  I was dumbfounded, “No”, I responded, “I’ve never been and have no idea what that mountain looks like.  I was just following my brush around the canvas.  That word must be for you Pastor Clive, as God’s validation of this crazy thing of ‘prophetic painting’”.   Moments later, Clive was asking me to share the word in front of more than 300 leaders of our church, and he introduced me that morning by saying “I have been in ministry for over thirty years, and have witnessed amazing acts of God.  I know the power of prophetic words, and I know the power of the arts in worship, but until today, I’ve never witness a both combine in a “prophetic painting”.  Bryn is here to share a word to our church in the form of a painting, and strange as this may be, the elders and I have weighed the work and the words and found it to be in line with God’s heart and scripture.”

Mt. Horeb in the distance.