My family and I used to live in Columbia, Maryland, about 20 miles north of Washington, D.C., where all the Smithsonian Museums are located.1 One of the perks of visiting a Smithsonian Museum is that they don’t charge admission fees, which means my wife and I can do something with our children without breaking the bank.

I never thought I would enjoy visiting an art museum, since I thought it would be boring. However, my wife wanted to visit the Smithsonian National Museum of Art. So we took the children, which meant we would only be there for a couple of hours because they would get bored. Once we started touring the museum, it became apparent that we should have gotten someone to watch our children.

My assumption that art museums were boring was way off. As we walked through the Smithsonian Museum of Art, I was mesmerized. Every display was so captivating. It became apparent that I could spend all day just walking around that art museum, taking it all in.

I mention this experience because I’ve also given some thought to the church as God’s artwork and what that means for the mission of God.

There’s a passage in Ephesians that is significant to this line of thought. In the second chapter, we’re told that we were dead in our sins and transgressions, but that we were made alive in Christ by God. Now that matters because it’s God, not us, who is doing the redemptive work of salvation. We were dead, and couldn’t do anything but God did. So Ephesians 2:8-10 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”2

There it is. By God’s grace, we have been saved. It’s not by our works, but by the redemptive work of God, which makes us alive in Christ to do good works. But there’s a particular word in v. 10 that I find very fascinating.

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The New International Version uses the word handiwork. “For we are God’s handiwork…” Other English translations might use the word workmanship or masterpiece. In the original language, the word is poiēma, which is where our English words “poem” and “poetry” come from.3 Of course, poetry is a form of art. So v. 10 in the New Jerusalem Bible reads, “We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has already designated to make up our way of life.”

I’m not sure if you have given much thought to the church as God’s artwork. But I believe we need an ecclesiology that views the church, both universally and locally, as God’s artwork. The congregations you serve with and the congregation I serve with are all displays of God’s artwork.4

Our task as the church is good works, not to earn salvation, but because we have already received salvation. A life of good works is our way of participating in the mission of God.

Now I’ve served as a minister of the gospel for long enough that I’ve seen trends come and go. I recall reading books about church growth, some of which were good. I even took a seminary class on the subject. There was a time when every church I spoke with about ministry opportunities asked whether I had read Rick Warren’s book The Purpose-Driven Church. Then came the Spiritual Formation phase, followed by the Emerging Church phase, and then the Missional Church phase.

I’m not sure what phase we’re in now, but I know many congregations that are experiencing decline. They realize that door-knocking campaigns and gospel meetings don’t work as effectively as they once did, but they’re unsure what to do. Well, I’m not here to offer any advice that promises church renewal if your church will do this, this, and that. Frankly, I’m weary of such notions. However, I do want to say that perhaps we’re overthinking what it means to participate in God’s mission.

What are the good works we’re supposed to be doing? It’s the life we live in the name of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. So when people from the church visit someone in a hospital or assisted living facility, it’s good work. When the church prays for a young couple whose first pregnancy has complications, it’s a good work. When the church does a giveaway for people in the neighborhood, it’s a good work. When some people from the church invite a guest to lunch at the local diner, it’s a good work. When the church embraces people whose nationality, language, and documented status differ from its own, it’s a good work.

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Earlier this year, I asked my church to invite people to our Easter Sunday worship gathering. That meant I had to ask someone because far be it from me to ask a church to do something I’m not willing to do. However, that meant talking to a stranger, which, as an introvert, is always a chore. So, I knocked on my neighbor’s door and invited her to our Easter worship service, and she came.

Most of the church I serve knows the story of my wife and me losing our first child. But because it’s Easter Sunday and I’m preaching on the resurrection of Jesus, I say something like “The resurrection of Jesus says that my son’s not dead forever.” As I say that, I look at my neighbor, and she’s in tears.

After the sermon, I approached my neighbor, and she asked if she could share something with me. “Sure,” I said.

My neighbor looked at me and said, “Two years ago, my daughter took her own life, and this is the first time I’ve been back to church. My husband won’t come and doesn’t want to talk about religion with anyone because he’s so angry with God.”

Of course, I told my neighbor that I was sorry about the loss of her daughter. And then I said, “I hope being here today helps you know that there’s hope.”

This past July 6th, my neighbor, Barb, was baptized into Christ. I share that with you just as a reminder that we never know how God is working, but God is always working for the redemptive good. So let’s open our eyes to see the opportunities God is opening for us to do such good works. For as we do, God is working redemptively among us, putting us on display as portraits of the gospel.

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This is the manuscript for a “talk” I gave at the Resoration Collective gathering in Dallas, Texas, on Tuesday, November 11, 2025.

Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

D. Edmond Hiebert, “God’s Creative Masterpiece,” Direction 23 (Spring 1994): 117.

K. Rex Butts, Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2022), 60, the church as God’s artwork is an embodiment of the gospel understood through a Christ-centered and Kingdom-oriented reading of the Bible. “As we follow Jesus, embodying the gospel in a manner that is centered in Christ and oriented towards the kingdom, God is painting a picture for the world of what the future will be when Christ comes again. Of course, the painting isn’t complete, but as we engage in doing the good works that God has prepared for us, we become a living portrait of what the gospel—then good news of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God—really looks like.”