on planting a church

Here's the finished product.

It's a meditation on the process we've been in these past 9 years of 

planting a church (namely, The Village in Tucson, AZ). As I worked on it, 

I was reminded that it is the Holy Spirit who grows (or waters) the church, 

and that our local expression of the church is part of the body of Christ, 

who "makes the whole church fit together perfectly" (Ephesians 3). 

So, while it has been both a joyous and a deeply painful journey, the 

responsibility for success or failure isn't mine. I also liked how 

(this wasn't planned) the petals are paper, but the center of the flower
is a jewel. This seems symbolic to me of the way that over time and space,
the form of the church is changing, falling away and being renewed;
however what it displays is "God's wisdom in its rich variety" (Ephesians 4),
something which is lasting and carries its own weight of glory.