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Steve Thomason faced a massive blank canvas, his back to the congregation, and opened his arms wide, lifted his head and prayed. He was preparing to accept whatever God wanted to come out of his hands and onto the canvas.

Then, like a tennis player with a winning shot, his right arm swung forward and dotted the canvas with specks of smoky paint.

While the congregation sung and spoke the “Seven Last Words of Christ” cantata, Thomason—whose vocations of artist and pastor have merged for decades—transformed his first vigorous splashes of paint into a journey of Jesus to the crucifixion. Many watching were so mesmerized that when a video projection prompted them to leave quietly, they simply sat and stared at what they had seen, taking in what it did to them emotionally and spiritually.

When Charles (not his real name) knocks on our church door during the week, he sometimes wants to play the piano, often requests food and bus fare or asks to use the phone, and always leaves with the benediction “Love you.”

On Sunday, when the door is unlocked and staffed with an attendant, Charles will get coffee and treats, chat cheerily with people and perhaps interrupt the steady bubbling of table conversation with some improvisation on the baby grand in our fellowship hall. His vulnerability and dignity are evident in his daily struggles with mental health issues and bureaucratic public assistance.

In The Great Omission: Rediscovering Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship, author Dallas Willard examines the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer—in particular, the German theologian’s venerated book The Cost of Discipleship. Willard concludes that the cost of “nondiscipleship” is even higher: “In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring.”

In his many temple talks, Jesus undoubtedly rubbed his listeners the wrong way. He didn’t sugarcoat the terrors, torments or trials of discipleship. But he also encouraged them not to crumble when persecuted for his sake because God sees their hearts.