Throughout the week, students in grades one through eight painted, acted, sang, played instruments, took photographs, cooked, wrote stories, sewed, and learned liturgical dances. On Sunday, all of the work culminated with participation in the worship service or displays of the artwork elsewhere in the church, says Janna Kooi, the church's director of worship.

"We wanted to grow the children as worshipers and show them they could lead worship right where they were at," Kooi says. "They didn't have to become adults to lead worship." Students also learned of God's creative gift in every person and how art can relate to the Christian faith.

The camp began June 19 and culminated with the following Sunday service. The students enrolled to work with three different creative arts during the week. They also observed demonstrations presented by various artists.

Kooi says two moments were highlights for her. The first came during the week as she sat in an office in the basement and heard the different sounds echoing down the hall: handballs, guitars, sewing machines, and the strains of a flute. "It was like hearing practice rooms in college."

Then there was Sunday morning, "seeing the faces of all the kids up front doing the different things - and that it was multi-ethnic."

The new relationships across ethnic lines and with people outside the church were major goals for Kooi. The church linked with an inner city mission in downtown Grand Rapids, so that a church picked the students up each day during the week, and did the same on Sunday.

"The thank-you notes we've gotten from the kids in the community have been thrilling," Kooi says. "They were so excited because they didn't know they could do this."

The excitement was not limited to the students. "There were a lot of people from the community who said, 'Please do this again,' " Kooi says.

New relationships also were formed in the church as people who had not previously been involved assumed leadership. "There were about a dozen adults, who are not plugged into ministry elsewhere, that we were able to use to teach kids," Kooi says.

She adds that the addition of a teacher for painting with watercolors was evidence of God's hand in the camp. Within five minutes of one teacher having to back out of teaching the class, another called to say she was interested. "I had no idea who she was," Kooi says. "She was kind of new to the church."

Kooi says the church was able to put on a large worship arts camp because the congregation has a lot of members with artistic and musical abilities. About 40 adults were needed to run the camp.

"The arts camp is very different from a VBS," Kooi says. "VBS is very high energy - every half hour you're doing something different. This was very low key and relaxed."

Kooi says she developed the idea after talking with Julia Carr, pastor of worship arts at Saranac Community Covenant Church, who conducted a similar camp on a smaller scale.