Student art, music, and video illustrate Bible learnings

Tyrel Baldridge created a broken cross using chain and wood to illustrate Romans 1 and people’s broken relationship with God due to sin.Bible 10 students studying New Testament during Bethany Christian Schools’ J-term created videos and used their gifts in music and art as they learned more about the New Testament in fun, creative, hands-on activities.

Throughout this two-week course of intensive learning (seven hours each day), students broke from their traditional classroom study to create and film their own stories that illustrated the life of the apostle Paul and three different types of miracles: natural, exorcism, and healing (see youtube clip).

They also partook in an afternoon and evening simulation of life in the early church, including meeting secretly for worship in the millrace woods to avoid capture by authorities.

In another project students could choose from memorizing selected Bible verses, presenting a dramatic reading of a longer New Testament passage, or designing and implementing a creative project (with approval from Bible teacher Dale Shenk).

Maddie Gerig expressed her understanding of the Sermon on the Mount instruction to love your enemies in a painting.For her project, Sadie Gustafson-Zook wrote and recorded a song,”Unless I Loved,” based on 1 Corinthians 13 (listen to clip, full song). She chose this method since she enjoys singing and finds it easier to memorize words that are set to music. Though she often enjoys sitting and playing different chord progressions, this time she added words and arranged the text to fit her music. Since her parents have recording equipment, she added in two background tracks of her singing as well as using two instruments: a guitar and a shaker.