We’re back with a special bonus episode! In this episode of Transforming Engagement: The Podcast, Dr. Rose Madrid Swetman sits down with Shannon Sigler, Executive Director for Fuller’s Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts, to explore how the arts can uniquely bridge divides and foster community—especially in polarized times. We hope this conversation inspires you to think about ways you can bring art, creativity, and imagination into your faith practice and the communities you serve.
You can learn more about Brehm Center at Fuller Theological Seminar at: brehmcenter.org. Brehm Center was one of the generous sponsors of the 2024 Christ & Cascadia Gathering, and today’s conversation marks an approximate halfway point to next year’s event! Be sure to save the date for the second annual Christ & Cascadia Gathering on May 2, 2025. You can sign up for event updates at: christandcascadia.com/gathering
About our guest:
Shannon Sigler serves as the Executive Director for Fuller’s Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts and is a PhD candidate at the University of Manchester (UK). Her art and research center around a Wesleyan paradigm for the arts, as well as explorations supporting the spiritual health of artists. Shannon previously served as the Associate Director for CIVA | Christians in the Visual Arts. She lives in Seattle with her husband, Matt, and son, Elijah.
Episode Transcript
Rose: Hey, Shannon, welcome to Transforming Engagement: the Podcast. Thanks for joining me today.
Shannon: Thanks, Rose. It’s so great to see you here.
Rose: Yeah, I think we met at Christ and Cascadia last spring, the gathering that we had down south, and I wanted to let you know that this year we already have a place and a date for the gathering. Christ and Cascadia is going to be May – Friday, May 2nd in Shoreline at Calvin Presbyterian. So we’re going to be sending out lots of information about that, but I wanted to let you know since that’s where we met.
Shannon: Fantastic. And you know what? It’s right on the way to my house, so that’ll make it easy.
Rose: Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, listen, let’s start out by, could you just tell us about the Brehm Center? What is the Brehm Center? What do you all do? Yeah,
Shannon: Yeah, absolutely. So the Brehm Center, our full name, it’s kind of unwieldy, the Brehm Center for Worship Theology and the Arts at Fuller Seminary. This next year, 2025 will actually be our 25 year anniversary, which is really hard to believe. I have been in the role as executive director for five years now, which is also a little bit hard to believe. But we exist for the integration of worship, theology and the arts for the renewal of church and culture. We were founded by a very generous endowed grant from Bill and Dee Brehm who are very passionate about worship and the arts. Bill is still living and is 95 years old and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan and has done many things in his life, but also still plays piano every day and writes his own worship songs. And so he’s pretty fabulous. Yeah, and we are part of Fuller Seminary, as I mentioned, and so we serve graduate students in seminary and we also serve outward facing audience, which is artists and ministry leaders out working, whether that’s in the art studio, in a church, in a nonprofit, and many other places.
Rose: I mean, I love this so much, and I was so excited to get to talk with you about the work that you all do because I mean, I will get a little into this later in our conversation about the times that we are living in – especially us in the US, but all over the world – very polarized time. And I was remembering the other day about, I don’t know if you ever read N.T. Wright’s book, Simply Christian when it came out, but he talked about there’s these distinct embedded echoes that are embedded in the air almost in the world, and one of those is beauty. And he talks about why the arts are so important for our souls, especially in uncertain times. So I love that. What do you say about that? Do you see that?
Shannon: I completely agree with you, and I mean, our uncertain times right now are everywhere. It’s not just the polarization of our nation, I would say, in higher education institutions that is refracting all over the place. There’s uncertainty about the nature of the academy, about the future of higher education, which is something I think about a lot in my role at Fuller. And I would start sort of small on that level with our institutions. I think beauty and not just beauty, but the arts more broadly perhaps help us ask questions of things that maybe we’ve been holding onto for a long time, maybe things we’ve been holding on for too long and the arts really help us turn the table on that and look at things from different perspectives in these times of polarization. And so just helping us think through what we might need to equip artists, ministry leaders, pastors for a new and different future. But I also forgot the beginning of your question. I think I didn’t answer all of it.
Rose: No, it’s fine. I think that, let’s get into that. We both work for theological institutions. Yeah. What do you see trends in the arts as a way to proclaim the good news through the arts even, which is going to be one of our questions at Christ in Cascadia Gathering this year, is like, how in Cascadia are we able to tell the good news in different forms? So I would love to hear your thoughts about how that fits.
Shannon: Yeah, so I can answer that a couple of different ways, I think the arts, Cascadia, I used to be a part of the early days of Christ and Cascadia when it was a part of Fuller Seminary. And often when we were thinking about the Pacific Northwest and faith in the Pacific Northwest, we talked about third spaces. And I think a lot of folks have and do feel alienated from the institutional church in many ways. And I have found that the arts can actually be a conceptual third space. So not so much like a coffee shop, but kind of, coffee shop or a brewery. But as a conceptual third space, the arts help us navigate between mind and heart, between words and affections and emotions, and often invite opposing ideas or opposing mindsets to come together in a space that feels safer than when we’re just engaging from a sermon or from logic-based arguments. I think the arts invite us more into a shared experience, which feels safer, I think, for folks when you know you’re about to disagree on something, to enter in with our guns down and to say, let’s share an experience. Let’s share a meal, let’s share a concert, whatever that may be, where there are really deep and powerful ideas communicated, but they’re not so in your face, if that makes sense.
Rose: It makes so much sense. I mean, when you think about the, approaching things through one of the art forms, as you said, that creates enough safety for us to even entertain opposing ideas through that media versus words and arguing and debate no matter what. I love that because I think there’s something about, well, there is the arts prick, our imagination, which is a part of our brain that can open up to creativity and ideas rather than when we’re so full of anxiety and fear and we’re trying to think about how to debate, what is my response going to be? We’re shutting down that part of our brains. And so I love that you said that it can connect our hearts, our affections, our and even opposing views creates a bridge in ways that we can maybe tolerate being in that difference.
Shannon: Yeah. Something you said reminded me of, so the idea of polarization versus paradox. I’m working on my doctoral dissertation right now on Charles Leslie, and if you guys don’t know who that is, he’s a hymn writer from the early Methodist movement from the 1700’s. And a lot of his hymns are still sung today in churches, and primarily because they’re so dynamic and rich with paradox and polarization to me is an end of dialogue. It’s a competitive stance that is wanting to defend yourself out of maybe fear or mistrust. But paradox, when it’s done well is actually an opening up of conversation. It doesn’t mean that there’s not two opposing views. It actually means that there are two opposing views that say yes and kind of like an improv. So how do we create a space where we’re hearing and seeing the other, but we’re holding these two ideas in tension together. And so I think that’s another really beautiful thing about the arts and how the arts can operate in our theologies, whether that is kind of a local grassroots theology that we have in our community or whether that is a theological tone that we’re studying in the academy, sometimes we need more than those systematics or those words.
Rose: Right. No, that is right. That is beautiful. And I love that you brought up paradox because that is absolutely necessary these days, right? I used to always think, and there are dynamic tensions where it’s this or that, and you’re holding that dynamic tension, but to me, paradox says there’s even more than that. We talk about wicked problems complex. There’s like this, this, and this. It’s very complex. So being able to hold paradox and be open and do deep listening feels so important. And I love how the arts could bring that about. We could hold that space through the arts. So that’s really quite beautiful. What trends do you see in theological education regarding the arts? How are you hoping you’ll help and the work that you all do will help shape that field in the years ahead?
Shannon: That’s such a good question, I just got back yesterday, two days ago from Belmont University in Nashville with a group of colleagues affiliated with Duke Divinity School, and we’re all writing a book together on Pneumatology, Holy Spirit, and the Arts. And we’ve been working together on this project for three years, and we’ve come a long way in this three year period. When we entered the room those years ago, many of us did not know each other. And as is the case with the academy, you can enter a space like that and feel really intimidated or competitive or fearful. And over the course of these years working on this project together, all of us who all work in some capacity in theology and the arts have become not just colleagues, but dear friends. And we had a conversation on Saturday where we all expressed this desire in the field for our future to be collaborative and relationship based. So we all work for different institutions. I’m at Brehm, we had several at Duke, we have Wheaton, we have across the board, some at Biola, many who had come from St. Andrews in the UK and thinking about whatever the future holds for theology and the arts, whether that’s in an undergraduate level or a seminary level, we want it to be generative, relational and invitational, and to not be having all of the scholars in this field working in our own silos. So more collaborative writing, more collaborative convenings, because we’ve found post-COVID that the generative spaces are not in the ivory tower. They’re actually on the ground with artists in communities, in churches. And how can our scholarship actually reflect that? How can the way we teach in the classroom and forming students for arts for ministry be encouraging them to be prioritizing relationships above theologies or dogmatics?
Rose: Yeah. Wow. I am hearing that across the board, whether it’s the arts, the social sciences, theology through the disciplines that I hear so many people saying we cannot stay in our own silos. The future of theological education. We’re going to have to be collaborative, which actually you started out by talking about how you were a part of Christ & Cascadia, because I love this because when you introduce the name, we’re the Center for Transforming Engagement at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. And we were gifted Christ & Cascadia Journal from Fuller when they closed that out of the northwest. So it feels collaborative. It feels like the fact that Fuller would just gift the journal to us. But for that, going into the future seems so important the more that we’re trying to collaborate around the same things really, and bringing different voices to the table and listening to practitioners and the artists on the ground feels so important.
Shannon: Absolutely. And I would love to see the classroom become a more practitioner fluid space to where perhaps if you’re teaching a systematic theology class, you actually bring in a painter to help flesh out some of these concepts. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Right?
Rose: Yes. Yeah. I love that. I did my DMin, doctoral work at Bakke Graduate University, but Ray Bakke was so into that. He felt like we needed that graduate spaces needed to be a laboratory and where we had petri dishes to experiment and that we had to be a lab for the church. So I love that whole idea about bringing a painter into a systematic theology class. What advice would you offer to young leaders or students who want to work at the intersection of faith, arts and culture?
Shannon: Yeah, very important question. I think the first thing I would say, which is really is a challenge I think for this youngest generation, is don’t give up on the church. And I don’t mean a very narrow institutional definition. I mean, the church as the body of Christ believers called to worship and commune and share the sacraments and community together. And it’s easy to do that right now. It’s easy to say, I’ve been hurt too much. I’m so misunderstood. I’m just throwing in the towel. And while all our smaller communities, our yoga communities, our brewery communities, are all really powerful places, very important third spaces, I would say don’t give up on being the hands and feet of Christ in community in a group. Related to that I will say the church needs you just as much as you need them, whether you think so or not. The church needs you. They need your voice. They need your insights. They need you to be thinking at problems from a backwards way or from a poetic way or from a musical way. And even if it’s difficult for you, I would say also, artists often think of themselves as being speakers into the culture, being prophetic, if you want to use that word. And I would say that’s still very important. And I would say be wise and discerning in your prophetic call, and then push the envelope. So any prophetic work can be fostered in trusting relationships instead of fear or disillusionment or alienation. And so I would encourage you to prioritize these deep formative relationships in your Christian community and go from there.
Rose: I love that. I love that. And I love when you talk about being prophetic, as you were saying that, I was thinking back to the Civil Rights Movement and all of the songs that came out of that time era, like a lot of music comes during social disruption. The arts become very important during social disruption in so many ways, and they become prophetic voices. So I really love that. I’m so intrigued about you and what you brought you to this work. What drew you to this, and yeah, what was your formation and part two that I’ll remind you of if you forget what led you into your PhD work and what were your thesis what are you working on?
Shannon: Sure. Sure. So I remember from even my toddler age, as early as I can remember, thinking of creativity in the art as something I was drawn to. So I remember my mom would be cooking in the kitchen and I would be over at this little desk and I’m gluing things together. I’m constantly, this is what I was doing in my life. I also remember from an early age feeling drawn by the Holy Spirit, which I know not everyone experiences at a really young age, and I’m really not sure why that was the case for me. And from that time forward, whether it was intuitive or conscious, I’ve been seeking to understand how this call on my life from the spirit and my own creative energy intersect. And then selfishly for me, how do they intersect? But then how do they intersect for the sake of others, for the church, for artists? So I ended up in seminary. I skipped over a lot. I ended up in seminary and didn’t fit into any of the boxes. I knew I didn’t want to be a head pastor or a missionary or a children’s minister. So ended up kind of building my own degree, degree that looked at theology and art because my school didn’t have that emphasis, and most schools still don’t. And fortunately had some folks on faculty that really encouraged that then was still kind of asking the question, okay, I’ve studied this. What am I supposed to do with it? And God has been very gracious to me in my very meandering path that I have been for a number of years, gainfully employed by looking at the intersection of theology and the art, definitely with some low points where I was doing hospital administration and other kinds of things to pay the bills. But I worked for a time after seminary at an organization called Christians in the Visual Arts, which has actually just closed very sad after many, many years of ministry with visual artists of faith. And shortly after that, my family and I were moving to Seattle, and my husband had gotten the job at Seattle Pacific where he now teaches worship. I’m actually in his office right now.
Rose: Oh, Wow. Okay. Yay.
Shannon: And so I started looking for something in Seattle, and this is where we’re going to kind of come full circle on the Christ and Cascadia thing. Someone had told me that Fuller Northwest, we used to have a campus here, had a job opening for a grant funded position called Cascadia Worship and Arts. And it was a wing of the grant that actually founded Christ in Cascadia. And my boss, my future boss, was looking for somebody to run the arts side of things. So interviewed for that job and was hired and worked for many years in the Pacific Northwest with Fuller thinking about Cascadian Pacific Northwest culture, arts, and worship. And so those were some really fun Wild West years. We were trying to figure out what to do with the grant money and what people needed in this region of the country, how to serve them well, whether they’re in ministry or they were artists. And that lasted a few years. And then the arts part rolled into Fuller’s Brehm Center, which is where I work now. And then the Christ and Cascadia Journal was then gifted to Seattle School. And so those two things kind of separated, but are now both thriving in their new homes. And so I’ve worked for Brehm since, well, I’ve worked for Fuller since 2015 and for Brehm since about 20, 19/20, and feel extremely fortunate to get paid to do what I feel like not only God has called me to do, but what I really enjoy equipping artists and ministry leaders with community, with the tools they need to do the work that they’re called to do.
Rose: I love that. I was reading about the Center, and here’s a few things that I read that I thought… cultivating embodied worship for changing times. Learn to tell the story of God in new and creative ways artists can help us reimagine the story of God in congregational life, especially during seasons of uncertainty. The great story found in scripture is much bigger than our hearts and minds can comprehend in a single way and must be experienced through all capacities of our humanity. Artists can help us embody God’s narrative, fostering sanctified imaginations and well, well-formed worshipers. I love that so much. And honestly, that’s kind of going to be what we’re going to gather around at Christ in Cascadia this next year, is how do we learn to tell the story of God in new and creative ways in Cascadia. It’s so exciting. It’s very exciting. I’m super excited for it. And just cultivating relationships between artists and the church and for the culture. All of that just seems so important right now. So I love, love that you could come on today and share with our listeners the work that you all are doing. And will we see you at Cascadia at Christ Cascadia this next year?
Shannon: Well, most definitely.
Rose: And what about your PhD work? I do want to hear about that before we go.
Shannon: Sure, sure. So I mentioned Charles Leslie earlier. Yeah. I grew up in the Methodist Church in the South and yada yada, moving on into my seminary work. All the things I was reading that were related to theology and the arts were, if they were Protestant sources, were from a more reformed perspective. Then of course, you have Catholic and Orthodox resources, which are very rich. And I asked my mentor at the time, his name is Bill Durnas, why there were no Wesley based arts resources. And his simple answer was, because nobody’s done that work yet. And so I sat on that for a while, like 10 years, and then a few years back, I reached out to him and I was like, I said, I think I’m ready. I think I’m ready to do this doctoral work that’s looking at a Wesleyan lens on theological aesthetics. So specifically, but I’ll try not to get too in the weeds, I’m looking at Charles Wesley. He was the more creative younger Wesley brother. Some people think retroactively, looking back on him, he may have struggled with some anxiety issues, was very prolific in his poetic output. And so what I’m looking at is how his assurance of salvation and so put in sort of layperson’s terms, his knowledge of God’s love and adoption of him actually freed him to be tremendously generative in his creative practice. And so artists often think about needing freedom from any constraint to be creative. But my argument in my exploration is that actually being tethered and rooted in the love of God promotes a deeper and more profound freedom than sort of a freedom to be yourself, which is something that our culture really promotes right now. So how can we be rooted and grounded in love, which is aligned from one of Charles Wesley’s hymns and how can that promote the flourishing of our artistry for the sake of the culture?
Rose: I love it. I thought immediately of Ephesians 3, Paul’s prayer being rooted and grounded in, he talks about the depth and the length and all of it. I love that because I am such a proponent in all of our work, if it’s not grounded in the love and tethered to the Lord and love accepting that God loves me even with all my flaws. That’s the output, it’s beautiful.
Shannon: Yeah. Thanks for asking about that.
Rose: Yeah. I’m always interested in that work. But thank you so, so much for being with us today. And yeah, I look forward to seeing you in May.
Shannon: Absolutely.
Rose: If not before.
