Arts Fellowship Orlando—Its Beginning, Vision, & Future

Here are this year’s fellows! From left to right: Lizzy Brannan, singer/songwriter; Fletcher Wilson, orchestral composer; Rebecca Fox, creative writer; Joshua Luker, custom furniture designer; Jennifer Gaspari, creative director/costumer.

The Beginning

It was February of 2021, and for the first time, Karen Thigpen, Matt Guilford, and Lisa Brockman all sat together at a table in a Panera Bread. Lisa had met Karen at First Presbyterian Church of Orlando (FPCO), and when Lisa transitioned into a new role with Cru’s Transform Arts in late 2020, she had met Matt. After talking to each of them separately, and each of them sharing their visions for raising up a Christian arts community in Orlando, she knew she had to bring them together.

In their first meeting there at Panera, Karen and Matt each shared their visions. Then Matt said, “Well, Karen, we’re here to make your dreams come true with Cru. I will work for you.” Karen said playfully, “You don’t know who you’re saying this to.”

As Cru missionaries, Lisa and Matt raise their own support so that they can freely serve others and share the gospel in innovative ways. For 20 years, God had placed a backburner desire in Matt’s heart to start an arts residency, but no churches had been interested yet. Now with Karen, and FPCO, there was a crack in the door.

Lisa and Matt were ready to go all in. Matt says, “It was this big benefit of thinking [for Karen], I don’t have piecemeal people here. I can count on things getting accomplished. I’m not alone in this. And it was a historical time with FPCO, with a push for having lay ministers take off in church, pushing for discipleship.” It still took them several meetings to figure out that they did have something they wanted to do together, but once they did, it took off.

Lisa says, “We’re a unique team. God just brought three people together, the gifting, the equipping, the personalities that needed to come together to get this off the ground.”

Before they knew it, FPCO had approved Arts Fellowship Orlando (AFO) as a ministry. And then the Heart of the City Foundation came alongside them with the resources to make it all happen. Karen says, “The church and the Heart of the City have been incredible in getting us off the ground, embracing the vision. They really emboldened us.”

Now as of January 2022, AFO has officially launched its first cohort of five artists—Joshua Luker, custom furniture designer; Lizzy Brannan, singer/songwriter; Jennifer Gaspari, puppeteer/costumer; Rebecca Fox, creative writer; Fletcher Wilson, orchestral composer. The AFO team couldn’t be more excited!

The Vision

Arts Fellowship Orlando is an annual six-month fellowship for mature Christian creatives to explore the intersection of art and faith. Throughout the fellowship, the artists will engage with theology, spiritual formation, and their own professional and creative development under the mentorship of Karen, Matt, and Lisa.

Karen is the vision-caster and coordinator. Matt is the designer and theological mentor. Lisa is the writer and spiritual director. Together, their desire is to cultivate an arts community of lay ministers in Orlando.

Matt explains, “I think what we’re really trying to focus on is that art is a holistic experience for the whole Church, for the Church to feel a deeper intimacy with God through art. We are material beings—we live in a material world—and Christ is the apex of that whole story, and the incarnation. What is different about AFO is that it gives artists the opportunity to speak directly to the church, not just perform.”

Throughout the program, the artists will receive weekly one-on-one discipleship; monthly one-on-one spiritual direction; the opportunity to work with a renowned mentor in their field; opportunities to be featured in multiple showcases and programs; opportunities to grow in community with other Christian artists; and theological training that speaks directly to who they are as creators, helping them understand their role in God’s kingdom. They will also be an integral part of the FPCO community, leading worship, working with the youth, and assisting with the formation hour on Sunday mornings—embodying what it means to live missionally.

Further, AFO’s intent is to encourage Christian creatives to dream and create with abandon. “We’re the wind beneath their wings,” says Lisa, “so that they can move their dream forward and into fruition. It’s challenging them in ways they’ve never been challenged. They’re walking into a space they’ve never been in.”

Karen shares a story about an interaction she had with their fellow Fletcher who is an orchestral composer. He asked her, “How big will the stage be?” She replied, “How big do you want it?” She says, “He ended up going with something smaller, but he was tickled to know that he could have everything. That’s what we want to do—we want to ask them, ‘What do you want to do? Let us help you take the lid off your thinking. And what do you need to do it?’”

Each artist will also receive a stipend to create an original work. At the culmination of the program on June 16th, AFO will host a showcase at the Dr. Phillips Center of the Performing Arts where they will get to share their offering with the Church and people of Orlando.

Time and time again, as Karen, Matt, and Lisa have talked to artists about the program, the artists have gotten choked up. These artists have never had the chance to be poured into and lifted up like AFO does, to be a part of an arts community where it’s safe and good to talk about their faith and their art, and the idea that they could be is overwhelming.

The Future

All three of the AFO team like to imagine what AFO will become five, ten, fifty years from now; they dream about the impact AFO will have on Orlando:

Lisa says, “I love journeying with artists. I think they bring faith and community to the Kingdom that others don’t. I think their voice is a very unique voice in culture, and the Church has missed the opportunity to make them feel heard and seen. For me, in the Orlando culture, ten years down the road, we’ll have 50 fellows graduated. Here are disciples of Christ who are equipped in the intersection of art and faith. I can’t wait to see how that will impact Orlando.”

Karen says, “I’m excited to give local artists a chance to be supported in a profound way and help them feel a sense of abundance in creating in a way that expresses their personal faith and also reflects God—transformative and meaningful. Artists in Orlando who are not churched will be aware of and drawn to those who are a part of the Orlando Arts Fellowship community. It will be a community that is attractive because of the unconventional ways they express their faith. Appealing, provocative, profound.”

Matt adds, “Wouldn’t it be great if you saw people coming to the Church because we have something that’s not this clichéd, faddish faith, but a vibrant, robust faith that includes artists in engaging with our redemptive life in more than three-point theology? It’s really this tactile Jesus that we can experience. Like the gospel says, ‘We saw him. We touched him. We beheld him.’”

He finishes, “What if ‘the city beautiful’ was actually a spiritual statement?”

You can learn more about Arts Fellowship Orlando by visiting collaborativeorlando.com/arts-fellowship-orlando.