Nancy Irving, Kay Young and Carol Haider splatter snow paint on strips of cloth that will be used as altar cloths during Lent.

Coloring snow for worship

With three to four feet of snow surrounding the church, Rev. Ruth Morrison came up with a creative plan on how best to use it as part of our worship.

Between the 8 and 10 a.m. services on Sunday, Feb. 27, Ruth and members of the congregation mixed tempera paint with cups of snow and splattered the colorful mixture across long, narrow strips of felt. After drying, the long strips will be used as altar cloths during our Lenten services.

As Rev. Jim Young said in the 8 a.m. service, “Now that’s an approach to snow no other Methodist church in New England will be talking about today.”

And another reason why the Cape Elizabeth United Methodist Church continues to be unique in some of its methods of worship.

As if splattering paint on cloth wasn’t enough, Ruth and some church members went outside with their cups of colored snow and tossed them onto snow banks to create a Jackson Pollock-type creation — a truly blessed event for a winter Sunday morning.

Click here to see some of the results: