The Rev. Twila Gibbens-Rickman is one of two Oklahoma pastors awarded Lilly Endowment grants to participate in the 2009 National Clergy Renewal Program.

Gibbens-Rickman is pastor of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 1442 S. Quaker Ave.
She will use the $31,000 grant to take a two-month sabbatical next summer to Scotland, England and France to study how faith groups use the arts to connect with their communities.

She and her family will visit the Iona Community in Scotland, the Greenbelt Festival in England and Taize Monastery in France, all places where people from across the globe gather to worship in ways that are visually and musically diverse.

In the grant application, she said she hopes to gain insights that will allow her church to "reflect diversity in worship, to nourish the creative souls of folks who gather each week at the (church’s) soup kitchen and to build a sense of community in the diverse Cherry Street neighborhood that surrounds the church."

• Full story at Tulsa World.

• Filed under Americas, Arts, Methodist Church, Scottish Christian News Monitor, Worship.