UPDATE on Partners:
Arts in Sacred Places Success Story
In 2006, when the Reverend Erik Christensen
arrived at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church of Logan
Square in Chicago, IL, it had twelve members.
Today, the church has 114 members, its finances
are stabilized, and its building is buzzing with the
activity of space-sharing partnerships that emerged
out of a redevelopment effort led by the pastor, who
worked closely with the congregation to identify
the church’s core mission – community health and
community arts – and how to live that out in the
community.
Through the congregation’s embrace of the arts, the
idea emerged for an Artist-in-Residence program,
which would allow the community to have a longerterm relationship with an arts organization. For
Theatre Y, the Artist-in-Residence at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church of Logan
Square in Chicago, rehearses its fall production, The Binding. Photo credit:
Rev. Christensen, “[the residency] is an endeavor
E. Aaron Ross for Chicago Reader.
with a ‘higher purpose’ that is about generating a
relationship with the artist and with the community. We’re
This commitment to each other is at the heart of the
really invested in each other; the residency binds us to
agreement that Partners has facilitated. It sets out a series
our artist in deeper and different ways than other space
of practical steps that bind the two together: a member of
sharing.”
St. Luke’s will join Theatre Y’s governing board; church
members will receive discounted tickets to Theatre Y’s
St. Luke’s newest Artist-in-Residence is Theatre Y, a
productions; the church will be recognized as a major
company inspired by Eastern European theatrical traditions.
donor in all Theatre Y materials and grant applications; and
Melissa Lorraine, the company’s founding artistic director,
Theatre Y will “curate” the performance venue, subletting
met Rev. Christensen through Partners’ Arts in Sacred
the space to other artists and sharing the revenue generated
Places program this past summer, and immediately both
with St. Luke’s.
recognized the potential for a long-term collaboration. Since
that first meeting, the three groups have been busy working
It is not just in tangible, financial ways that the two gro