This week has been busy at GPCC as we hosted four creative workshops run by Kingdom Consortium members as part of the national Age of Creativity’ festival. This aims to get people over 50 involved in the creative arts, not only because these are fun but because there are significant health benefits (phyiscally and emotionally) to being involved in ‘creative and cultural participation.‘ We didn’t have any age limits on our workshops, so we had teenagers and older people, along with everyone in the middle, involved this week!
One session gave us the opportunity to try our hands at needle felting, as we made little mice. Needle felting basically involves stabbing pieces of unwoven wool until a shape is formed and many commented on how therapeutic they found this apparently vicious activity!
Next up was drawing, where people enjoyed learning to draw leaves and get the shading right!
Then we had a session on poetry and song, looking at how poetry can express emotions on a range of levels and how the psalms are great poems leading us into honest communication with God.
Finally, we had a singing workshop where we were encouraged to learn how to breathe properly (using the diaphragm) in order to sing without strain and to sing with dynamics!
Creativity comes in all kinds of different forms and we will enjoy some more than others. It was good to have the opportunity to tackle new things, however, and to see the benefits that the arts bring to us. The motto of Kingdom Consortium is ‘arts change hearts’ and this is true on so many levels.