When Art and Faith Collide
A Lifetime of Ministry. For the last 30 years, Sherri McCready has dedicated her life to sharing the Gospel. Now a recent transplant to Boone, NC, she’s starting an art school to serve the community in a tangible way that is close to her heart.
For more than 30 years, artist Sherri McCready dedicates her life to ministry
By Nikki Roberti
“Stay Alive.” It’s tattooed on her wrist in Hebrew—a reminder never to quit when the voice of despair had tried to convince Sherri McCready her life’s work was useless a couple years ago.
For most artists, creating is like breathing. And while that is true for McCready, her reason to never quit comes from God’s calling on her life. Her mission: to spread His Story throughout the world with community and art.
“I never planned or imagined the life that I have now,” she said. “My only dream was to be a wife and mother. The rest has been God calling me and dreams that I believe He has given me.”
Art School
A recent transplant to Boone, NC, McCready and her family relocated to Boone to start a new church and live in a cooler climate for their daughter who battles Multiple Sclerosis. With the help of two Church planting organizations, Waypoint and Church Planters of the Smokeys, she and her husband Shannon planted Mountainside Community Church, which holds Sunday services at Galileo’s on King Street.
But now McCready is launching her next passion project for the High Country community—a mission she wholeheartedly believes in. She’s starting an art school.
Last fall, Mountainside School of Mentoring and Art offered classes such as private guitar lessons, creative writing, beginners crochet, and theater for all ages. Their spring semester promised even more options. The goal, according to McCready, is to offer new opportunities to people at affordable prices and to share love through art.
My family couldn’t afford art or dance lessons for me. I was the kid peering into the window of dance studios wishing,” she said. “It is so helpful to a community when we are willing to pass our skills along to someone else, whether it is life skill stuff or some sort of art. We all benefit from sharing what we have learned.”
The Power of Art
For McCready, art has always been a part of her ministry. Growing up a pastor’s kid, she struggled throughout her childhood. It wasn’t until she was 16 years old that she developed a true relationship with Jesus Christ and decided to follow Him without looking back. When she was 17, she felt God’s clear calling on her to stand boldly for him when she attended the Youth Congress on Evangelism in Washington, DC. Shortly after, she won the title of Kansas Junior Miss in 1985 and found herself invited to speak to youth groups all over the state where she trained teens on how to start their own student-led Bible studies in public schools.
Praise through Performance. Sherri’s children, Eliza, Isaac, and Annie starred in the musical she wrote called The Story of God. The entire family took the show on the road to share the Gospel with audiences and experienced many hardships along the way.
“I am bold only because of my love for Jesus,” she said. “If He hadn’t called me, I feel certain I would be a hobbit who would’ve never left the Shire.”
It was through the 20 years of her nation-wide ministry travels that McCready truly saw art thrive for God in action.
“I found that every message was swallowed easier when it came through the form of art,” she said. “I learned the great power of humor in disarming when we were performing Abstinence Assemblies for public schools. I learned the great power of skits with attention deficit young people. I have seen a musical set a man free from condemnation. I have seen a musical compel a young offender to surrender his life to Jesus. I have seen a dance open a heart to an important conversation. I have heard a church crowd sing so loudly and with so much passion that I was certain they shook the gates of hell.”
Elevate School of Life and Art
In 2005, McCready and her husband, Shannon, settled down to plant a church in Asheville with their four children. Shannon would serve as Lead Pastor and Sherri would take on the role of Creative Arts Director.
While in Asheville, McCready started Elevate School of Life and Art in 2009, which serves as the inspiration and model for Mountainside School of Mentoring and Art. Less than 10 years later, Elevate has grown from 25 students to over 300 and offers multiple classes from art and dance to full on academic tutoring. She hopes to bring that same kind of school to the High Country as a service and blessing to members of the community.
“Private school tuition is out of reach for most, and many working families don’t see a way to homeschool,” she said. “We started Elevate with after school classes to ‘lower the fruit of the branch’ within reach of the many who have never tasted it-- be that dance, photography, video editing, writing, acting, crocheting, or whatever.”
Her time as the administrator for the school in Asheville blessed McCready in ways she never expected. One dance student even said to her, “I came to take a class and I found community.” And to McCready, that’s the heart of what this new art school through Mountainside will be all about. “I have seen students discover talents in area’s they would never have imagined simply because they had the chance to try,” she said. “I believe this is love in action… I believe this is God saying to a city of kids, ‘I see you. I love you. I am reaching to you.’”
Sharing the Gospel through Art
The dream to start schools like Elevate and Mountainside came after she directed a production of Godspell at Highland Christian Church. She said the congregation was full of 100 artists who were the most creative group she’d ever known.
“I felt God challenging me to invest this talent and not to bury it,” she said.
The production performed to a sold out audience at the Orange Peel and later toured to other cities for 27 more performances. It was those artists who became the first teachers at Elevate to offer classes of all kinds.
“I love artists,” she said. “They rarely ever feel good enough, but they have to create anyway. It is the same as needing to breathe. It is my favorite to watch God minister to them and through them at the same time.”
It was McCready’s passion and calling to use art to spread the Good News to the world that led her and her family to leave their home and church in Asheville to travel the country performing a musical she’d written called The Story of God.
The Moment of Truth. Siblings Annie and Isaac McCready star as “the Bride” and “the Called” in the original musical, The Story of God, by Sherri McCready. They performed live in Asheville to two sold-out audiences the weekend the show debuted.
Originally her husband had asked her to write 16 episodes of the Story of God to use over the course of four months for his sermons, one Sunday at a time in 2012. McCready loved performing it so much, she wondered what it would be like to see it all at once. It wasn’t until 2014 when she traveled to East Asia with some of the dancers from their church that she realized the profound opportunity presented before her.
“[I] witnessed the true hunger for both performance art and the Story of God,” she said. “I witnessed villagers watching our dancers for hours. I knew that if we had the Story of God accessible to them, they would never forget it.”
“I believe the whole game is won or lost in the heart. I would rather aim there.”
The calling she felt from God asking her to pursue writing the musical was so strong, McCready immediately started writing and raising the funds to perform it when she returned stateside. The McCready family performed it live for the first time to two sold-out crowds in Asheville. She and her husband then stepped down from their leadership roles at their church and toured The Story of God musical for the next two and a half years.
Following God’s Voice
While McCready was certain of God’s calling, it didn’t mean the journey was easy.
“It was the most difficult mission assignment of my life,” she said. “The hardest part was the toll the travel and performance took on our cast, which were all my family.”
Those two years were riddled with health challenges and personal crises that the family felt like they couldn’t appropriately embrace because “the show must go on.” McCready said they’re still recovering from the difficulties of those years even today, but that won’t stop them from following God’s calling.
A Heart for Art. Sherri McCready walks preschoolers through a performance of the Three Little Pigs at Mountainside Community School of Mentoring and Art’s first student showcase. Growing up with limited opportunities, she said her passion is for making art accessible to those wanting to learn.
The last 30 years haven’t been easy, but to McCready, the main thing she’s learned is to always follow God’s voice and that art is a powerful vehicle in reaching people. She can’t wait to see how God will use Mountainside School of Mentoring and Art in the High Country.
“Art is the language of the soul.” McCready said. “When you speak to someone, you are often engaging their mind. When you present art, you are often engaging their heart and soul. I believe the whole game is won or lost in the heart. I would rather aim there.”
This article was originally written for the Summer 2019 Edition of The Journey magazine.