Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 1 Peter 4:10
First Peter calls us to steward the talents the Lord has given us to serve others. Each of us has been given gifts from God, and no two people have the exact same talents, but what they all have in common is that they can be used to glorify the Lord. And He asks us to do this by serving others.
Harnessing an Ancient Art Form for the Local Church
Recent alumna Taryn Chan answered this call by using the artistic gifts the Lord blessed her with to serve the body of Christ. During the fall 2025 semester, she designed and assembled a mosaic for Covenant OPC, the church family she was part of during her time at Grove City College, depicting its old building built in 1890.
Chan discovered her talent for creating art out of clay last spring when she took a ceramics class at the college. The following summer, she traveled to Greece and Italy with a group of students led by Grove City College professor of history Dr. Graham on a trip with the Archaeological Conservation Institute (ACI), an organization that teaches students skills they can use in fields such as public history, museum studies, art conservation, and archeological work. Working with ACI, Chan learned about the process of building a mosaic from professionals, and she and her team collaborated to design and build one.
“The ACI trip got me interested in mosaics in particular and showed me how beautiful and diverse they can be. It also showed me how prominent mosaics are in traditional church art,” Chan said
When she returned to Grove City for the fall semester, she took another ceramics class with Professor Bauer, and he offered students the option to partner with the CRM to make a clay community project with a local church for extra credit. She reached out to the pastor of Covenent OPC, Pastor Jones, and started working with him to design the mosaic.
Collaboration and Renewal
Chan started the project by collaborating with Pastor Jones to come up with an idea of what the mosaic would depict. Jones suggested she design the project to feature the church’s first building. The building, built in 1890, was rescued from a flood site in Nebraska, Pa. It was taken apart, transported, and rebuilt in Grove City. Eventually the building was renovated in 1998.
“I realized the nice thing about mosaics specifically is that multiple people can work on a single mosaic at the same time. There are other mediums of art that communicate a similar theme of using broken things to make something new, like Japanese kintsugi or recycled art, but not all of them invite collaboration like the mosaic does,” she said.
The project started in the ceramics studio, where Chan and fellow students Mackenzie Di Cello and Chrissy Kang rolled out 25 squares of tile. These squares were fired in the kiln once and then the students painted the image on them with glaze before they were fired again. Professor Bauer built a frame for the mosaic and provided the supplies they needed to assemble the mosaic.
The students transported the materials and tiles to Covenant, where they began the process of putting the mosaic together. Chan mixed together mortar and drew the design on the backing of the frame so that they would know where to set the pieces. Then members of the congregation helped her break the tiles into fragments that could be reassembled on the frame to display the image of the old church building.
The Intersection of Art, Faith, and Community
“This project piqued my interest because I’ve been interested in the relationship between art and faith since high school, and I felt this would be a wonderful way to see them intersect on a practical level. But as the project progressed, I realized I also owe a lot to the community at Covenant. I have received lots of encouragement and comfort from Covenant members during difficult times in my journey of faith. It became a joy for me to use my artistic skills for the sake of my local church,” Chan said.
In answering the call in First Peter, Chan was able to give back to the church that poured into her over the past four years and supported her through a season of learning, building character, growing pains, and of strengthening her faith. Her project became a demonstration of what it means to be a part of the body of Christ and the joy that comes from being blessed by the church and being a blessing to the church. The beauty of that relationship is reflected in the artwork she created.
Emily Fox is a senior at Grove City College and a CRM Student Fellow. She grew up in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and is studying English with minors in Writing and Digital Marketing at the college. Post-grad, she hopes to pursue a career in Public Relations.
