Michelangelo, the famous Renaissance artist and sculptor, was responsible for painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which includes nine scenes from the book of Genesis. The work is amongst Michalangelo’s greatest and must have been extremely difficult to do, given the height of the ceiling (it took four years to complete, which gives some inkling as to the size of the task!) In order to reach the chapel’s ceiling, Michelangelo designed his own scaffold, a flat wooden platform on brackets built out from holes in the wall near the top of the windows, rather than being built up from the floor which would have involved a massive structure and would have meant that the chapel was unavailable for services. Only half the building was scaffolded at a time and the platform was moved as the painting was done in stages.
Painting Goldthorpe Pentecostal Community Church was by no means as difficult a task as painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but it did give us an insight into working at heights. Scaffolding is much easier to put together these days:
We even had a paint-spraying machine to help us in the main hall and we weren’t painting intricate designs.
But in one thing, we perhaps understand Michelangelo. When people discovered the attention to detail he had put in to his work, detail which would never be seen by the majority of people, he is reputed to have replied, “God sees it.”
That kind of attention to detail – which could be labelled perfectionism – was something people in Goldthorpe demonstrated time and time again. Brushstrokes had to be just right. Each paint stain had to be removed by hand from the wooden floor. Look at this picture of people working on the floor in the main hall – a floor that is now covered by carpet and chairs…
Why do people do this? Why do we care so much about what things look like?
We believe God sees everything that we do and that He deserves the best. Every coat of paint or varnish, every little bit of cleaning, were labours of love. They were, at times, physically demanding. They were, at times, emotionally draining. But we believe God is worth our best.
Our best may always fall short of perfection. But we continue to aim high.
“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Col 3:17)