Pop-up Art Walk Brings Symbols of Christ’s Passion to Lynden, Wash.

For the past two Easter weekends downtown Lynden, Wash., has been host to a pop-up art walk featuring 12 sandwich-board drawings representing some of the traditional Stations of the Cross—a devotion used by Catholics and other Christians especially during Holy Week to convey the biblical accounts of Jesus’ Passion. 

Created by The House, a house church movement sponsored and supported by Sonlight Christian Reformed Church in Lynden, the project takes that gospel message to the city sidewalks. “We had panels displayed in front of all sorts of businesses,” said Sean Taylor, church planter for The House.

Washington artist Scott Erickson designed the panels that The House displayed in 2021 and 2022. Participants of house church groups mounted them on boards between three and four feet square and set them up in front of the Chamber of Commerce, a beer and wine store, a bar, a barber shop, and many other downtown storefronts. Each panel included a QR code linking to the church’s social media channels so that participants could further explore the gospel message. For 2023 The House intends to work with a different local artist to create a similar interactive walk.

While it's tough to count the project’s audience, Taylor said he estimates that hundreds of people participated in the event over the past two years. The display is open 24 hours a day over the Easter weekend.

“The biggest thing for me is that at a certain point, if the community is not coming into the church building, it becomes our responsibility to take church out in the community,” Taylor said. “This is also one of the drivers behind the house church movement that we at The House are working through.” 

Taylor did not grow up in the CRC, but he says his passion for the gospel and desire to reach the community brought him together with Sonlight CRC when the parent church wanted to sponsor a church plant. “In the (19)70s and ’80s this area was known as a Bible belt,” he recalled, “and now, it is one of the most unchurched areas of one of the most unchurched states. If anywhere needs the gospel, it is here.”