Liturgical Art – Encounter Gallery

October 24, 2025October 24, 2025

The Evening Meal Was Being Served

The disciples (plus one) are sitting around a table with wine and bread. Jesus is just beginning to wash their feet (bottom left). Peter is in the mix somewhere, asking himself, “How can this be happening?”.

During an exhibition recently at a local Anglican church, I was asked by one of the members if I did commissions and answered “Of course”. It turned out that Stan was interested in a personalized version of the 24 Feet. He had experienced some intense challenges with alcoholism and wanted to honor his many mentors in Alcoholics Anonymous. From his perspective, they had been Jesus to him, and he was interested in a composition where Jesus was getting ready to wash their feet.

At one point, Stan said to me, “Russ – you know what Alcoholics Anonymous is, right?”. I answered “sure, I’ve heard many stories.”. He said, “Alcoholics Anonymous is where alcoholics can meet and talk about God without having to go to a church.”

So, Stan got all his mentors together one Saturday afternoon and I set up the lights in his office and took nearly 100 snapshots of their feet. These men (and one woman, his wife Kimberly), were incredibly important to Stan and his recovery, so I realized the gravity of these ‘portraits of feet’.

Stan had a couple of additional requests. He wanted to include the Lord’s Supper elements in the painting, because that is what they did after Jesus had finished washing their feet, and Communion services had been very powerful in his life. He also wanted to include his wife’s feet in the composition. Kimberly had been extremely helpful as his partner on the way back from alcoholism and he wanted to honor her for this. He also said that someone else could have been there to help serve the wine and bread to Jesus and his disciples, and Kimberly could be that person. as she has such a servant’s heart. I thought that was so personal, and beautiful. So, of course, the answer was ‘Yes’.

The painting is one of the largest I’ve done, 4 feet by 5 feet, and took over 6 months, and it looks amazing in Stan’s office. As he invites clients and colleagues into his office, it’s the first thing they see, and some venture out and ask: “What’s that?”. Then Stan gets to tell the story of how Jesus used these disciples in his life to return him back to life.

The painting was unveiled at their Christmas Party last year.

Exhibiting permanently above the office couch

May 20, 2025May 20, 2025

Simon Helps Jesus Carry the Cross

My closest artist friends and I were a part of the Art & Faith Life Group. One year, 16 of us decided to create our Scriptural Way of the Cross. For this project, I chose to do Way #8: Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus Carry the Cross.

But, as usual, I needed the right model. My son Jonathan worked at Starbucks at the time, and through him I met Oliver, one of his long-time customers. I shared the story of the Encounter Gallery and my idea for this next painting. It turns out that Oliver knew the story well and said he would be my Simon of Cyrene. He even agreed to change into a suit & tie and meet me at our church where I knew I could borrow a large cross. Then, as my friend Andy carried the front, Oliver carried the back end of that cross up a hill many times while I took pictures.

WestWind Christian Church, Keller TX
Maundy Thursday 2025

Simon of Cyrene did not volunteer his service for Jesus. He was forced to serve. But, he did it.

We might think that this was just an accident, because he was somehow noticed by the soldiers. But I think he was noticed and singled out by God, who used the soldiers to pull Simon forward.

However Simon did not shrink back when called – even forced – to serve. I’m sure that a direct order from armed guards was quite convincing. But he did not complain, he was not too proud to carry a cross for a convicted criminal.

April 4, 2025May 20, 2025

Disciples Serve the Five Thousand

This painting began after listening to my friend Takiyah tell me about the gospel story that most resonated with her. She described in detail an evening when she was young, and her mother was crying because of their lack of food. Unexpectedly, to her at least that evening, God provided. That was the first time that Takiyah knew that God was present and that she could talk to him. She talked about the abundance of God and how he has constantly provided in so many ways throughout her life, and that was the reason that Jesus feeding the 5,000 was her favorite gospel story.

I imagined Takiyah as one of the followers at the front of the crowd that day, who saw the fish and loaves multiplying, pitched in and helped deliver the food to all the folks on the hillside. Her contemporary clothing and the modern dishes are my way of imagining what it would look like if this happened again today. It brings the story into the immediacy of now.

Takiyah’s story is one of my favorite evidences of the power and abundance of God. I was invited to share this story in a message to Midway Hills Christian Church in Dallas a few weeks ago. Eight of the Encounter Gallery paintings of saints impacted by Christ are exhibiting at Midway Hills during this Lenten season. We retitled the painting as St. Takiyah Serves the Five Thousand for this exhibit as we know that all who trust in God are truly saints in His eyes.

March 23, 2025 at Midway Hills Christian Church

The church members did a wonderful job of hanging the five paintings in the sanctuary and three more are just outside in the gathering space. It was an honor to speak on the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand and God’s abundance through the eyes of Takiyah.

July 2, 2019July 19, 2019

Disciples Serve

This is my latest work in the Encounter Gallery series entitled “Disciples Serve the Five Thousand”. I was talking with my friend Takiyah about my narrative portraits and that I had started out painting almost exclusively my own family members, mostly because they were willing. I said that as I looked back over my paintings, it occurred to me that my family was awfully white. Takiyah laughed and said “well, my family is awfully black!” I asked her if there was a gospel story that she most identified with and characterized her and her history. She said that the one that most often came to mind was the feeding of the 5,000. She told me about growing up fairly poor in the Los Angeles area, but definitely not realizing that they were poor. She recounted a few of the numerous times that her family was unexpectedly confronted with the Lord’s abundance. This idea of abundance is central to Takiyah’s experience of God in her life. He has supplied her and her family’s needs abundantly and continually. There were powerful stories from her childhood in which her family was blessed with abundance that could only have come from God. As I listened to her stories, I thought of my own history. My father had a good job, and worked steadily throughout my childhood. I never really questioned or wondered where the groceries came from. I realized early on that Dad was paid regularly, and the money went into the bank, and that was how we bought the groceries. I knew then that God provides, even in this way. But Mom and Dad were very frugal, and I never really got a sense of abundance or unexpectedness. Our abundance was more a sense of “enough” and “steady” for which I’m very grateful. This very consistency was and is a gift from my Dad. The groceries always got bought, so that meant that Dad was working, and God was providing both.

But Takiyah’s experience was different and in its own way glorious. God has continued to provide for her in an abundant and sometimes an unexpected way.

While meditating on the story of the 5,000, I began to think about how much labor it would have taken to distribute a dinner of fish and bread to so many men, women and children. Thousands of meals delivered across a hillside next to the lake would have taken so much effort. I imagined that as Jesus multiplied the fish and bread, his disciples saw what was happening and quickly realized what it would take to serve this crowd. They loaded up with plates of the newly created meals and went throughout the crowd, handing out delicious food to everyone who was there. I set the scene on the northeast shore of White Rock Lake with the skyline of Dallas just barely visible in the distance. I pictured the disciples as seasoned diner waiters and waitresses with arms full of plates of baked fish and rolls headed up the hill to the people. This was a day of extraordinary and unexpected abundance, and Jesus’ many followers and disciples were there to serve. It is the perfect story of Takiyah’s experience with the unexpected abundance from God.

“Disciples Serve the Five Thousand” is currently on display with the Encounter Gallery series at Lovers Lane United Methodist Church in Watson Hall (in Dallas) until August 22, 2019.