The Art of Asking – Having conversations, paying attention, asking questions, being brave.

“How can we create a fresh expression of spirituality for the community involving art?”. That’s a question Margaret River Uniting Church didn’t ask and yet received a beautiful answer to over Easter.
Story by Rev Craig Bosman, first published in the August 2025 edition of Revive magazine.

Earlier this year local artist Nari Jones and local church member Rev Don Dowling had a brief conversation after a Sunday service, setting in motion a remarkable journey for the Margaret River community. Don simply invited Nari to watch a YouTube video documenting a ‘Stations of the Cross’ art exhibition which he had curated at Wesley Uniting Church in Perth in 2015. This propelled Nari to ‘have a go’ at creating her own 14 images of ‘The Way of the Cross.’

As she progressed, posting images of her work online, Rev Craig Bosman asked if she’d be interested in collaborating with Margaret River Uniting Church (MRUC) to have a Way of the Cross art exhibition over Easter. To everyone’s delight, she said yes, though in retrospect she feels baffled as to why, admitting that “it’s always safer to keep your hands down, to stay in the comfort zone, to not stick your neck out.” Notwithstanding a sense of inadequacy and uncertainty, she decided to go for it explaining that in her artistry she has “learned to take leap after leap in the dark through this precious life, which is less of a perfectible quest and more of a singing stream”, referencing this Wendell Berry poem Our Real World:

‘It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work
and when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.’

This journey speaks of the importance of conversation, paying attention, asking questions, and being brave. The result? A two-week art exhibition at MRUC, drawing in visitors all the way from Perth while encouraging local community members to have a sticky beak especially those who wouldn’t normally visit ‘the church’. Don shares that Nari’s work “allowed us an opportunity to enter the Easter experience in a genuine visual and realistic way”, while also creating a “unique occasion to participate in conversations around the meaning of life, the fragility of life, enduring suffering, and reflecting on justice and peace.” Nari gave a talk during the Easter service after which she had a live conversation with Craig.

As if all this weren’t enough, on a weekend two weeks later, Nari created a Labyrinth in the church to mark World Labyrinth Day. On the Saturday local church members and visitors gathered to hear Nari give a talk on the Labyrinth as a spiritual practice and then walked it together at 1.00pm. Similar events were held throughout the world producing a rolling walk for peace as each group walked at 1.00pm local time with the theme, “Walk as One at 1.”

On Sunday, Nari gave another talk followed by Communion being served at the centre of the Labyrinth. Those who attended the service found it to be a deeply moving spiritual experience.

Asking Questions, Being Brave

While these events surprisingly answered the question posed in the introduction, they have led MRUC to keep asking the question going forward. There is a desire to reach out to the community in ways that go beyond ‘business-as-usual’, showing the community that the assumptions they have about church may very well be outdated. Perhaps the church is more open-minded, forward- thinking, dynamic and flexible than commonly imagined?

The deeper question being asked is, “How do we change the narrative around Church?” This is important to ask because the ‘nones and dones’ are growing. These groups consist of those who have no religious affiliation (nones) and those who do but are disengaged (dones). MRUC wants to show them that contrary to popular belief, the church has changed and is now an inclusive, experimental and creative space, and even an ideal space for those who claim to be ‘spiritual but not religious.’

Another example of an event that aligns with this intent is Conversation Church where a person with a different belief system is invited to come share during a Sunday morning service. For example, earlier this year Dr Andrew Jan, a local Christian Daoist, and Paul Tonson, a visiting retired minister from Victoria, had a live conversation during the Sunday service. Next month, Loma Sonam, a local Universalist Buddhist Darma teacher will be joining us for a live chat.

These types of engagements with the community are opportunities for having conversations, paying attention, asking questions and being brave – themes that are at the heart of the MRUC community.

So, what questions are your church asking, and how are those questions being answered?

Editors Note: Many conversations and videos referenced in this article can be found on the Church Resources YouTube channel – https://www.youtube.com/@churchresources2079
To find out more about the artist Nari Jones go to narijones.com
To find out more about World Labyrinth Day go to – worldlabyrinthday.org