by Leann Callaway

With a unique platform to engage with their artistic community, the Baptist General Association of Virginia provides students with a unique opportunity to collaborate and encourage one another through Eunoia Ministry on the University of Virginia’s campus.

For many young artists, this ministry provides a platform to fine tune their skills while also equipping them to stand strong against the pressures of today’s society.

Following her appearance on “The Voice,” Kat Hammock decided to pursue music as a career path  while finishing her academic studies at UVA and was grateful to find a community of believers through Eunoia Creative Community.

“It’s so cool to see just how many Christian artists there are around the grounds of UVA,” Hammock said. “You have no idea that there are other people that share your beliefs that are just, like, walking by, and this gives you the opportunity to connect with many of them.

“I knew that Eunoia was a ministry that I wanted to be a part of, and I think it’s a really important ministry to have on the grounds.”

Hammock has been deeply impacted by the faith-based ministry on campus and released her sophomore album “Ready When You Are” at Eunoia Live — Eunoia’s semi-semesterly art showcase — in May.

Another rising star who has been profoundly impacted by this ministry is singer-songwriter Luke Powers. During his time on campus, Powers played an instrumental role as the artist-in-residence at Eunoia and helped to craft the culture, mission and talent through events at Eunoia.

“The role affirms that it is a good thing to create and be a Christian,” Powers said. “It's also the expansion of your art and giving the gifts that God has given you to produce in His name and in His word. It's beautiful, and I love that both are really valued here (with the Eunoia Creative Community at UVA). It might be through the poem that is very clearly modeled after a song or the art piece that is clearly a depiction of a Bible story, but each piece is something that is created by a Christian, and it's created for God's glory. I think it's unique in the Christian community to have a space like this.”

As the director of this ministry, Dave Petty is encouraged to see the students coming together in this environment.

“The word Eunoia actually means beautiful thinking,” Petty explained. “It was used back in Greek, early ancient Greek days, for the relationship between the speaker and his audience or her audience.

“Another way of saying it, it was good goodwill. It's what it means. So, that is the ambiance of these two meeting for us — it is beautiful thinking, and it is redemptive.”

Petty hopes this unique setting and the rising talent coming out of this ministry will set the groundwork for other campuses to take notice.

“It's not an instant thing,” Petty noted. “It's picking the fruit off some trees that have been in the orchard for a good while, and it's really a joy to me to see that happening. The people involved in this ministry and the artists show how it can be done and what it means to visually, verbally and musically express the Kingdom of God.

“This is just one side of (Eunoia). The other is discipleship, but this is the expression side. It's taken some work, and it will continue to be one of these things that we will steward into the future so that it isn't just a flash in the pan, but that it is a growing community of artists. We are giving a voice, ears and eyes to recognize people that are not as recognized as you might think in the Christian community.

“These are people called to be artists to express God's Kingdom, and it makes my day, makes my year to see how it’s all coming together. We want to come alongside people. That's what discipleship is when you come alongside people to help them discover themselves in the way that God has made them, and then you fuel them by example as well as by inspiration.

“To ask students then to say: ‘God is like this, this is what Jesus has done, this is how He wants to recognize who we are and our sense of place in this universe,’ and put that in a poem, put that in a story, put that in a book, put that in a sculpture, put that on a two dimensional screen, put that in a sound and a lyric.

“If you can do that, that's an aspiration that we have here to encourage moving forward in that place. They are great people who are doing these things, putting them all together in a place where it is an incubator for the expressions of God.”

Leann Callaway is a writer for The Baptist Paper.

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Watch a video about Eunoia, BCM at UVA:

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