Some projects just stick with you. Not necessarily because of the creative, the production, or even the finished product. Sometimes it’s because of what happens when people are given permission to be human.
One of my favorite teaching series and creative projects was My Anxious Thoughts: And What the Bible Says About Them, developed alongside Eric Geiger and an incredible team. What started as a church teaching series also became a five-week Bible study featuring Eric Geiger, Christine Caine, and Kenton Beshore. You can find it today at EricGeiger.com.
And apparently, I still can’t leave the artwork alone. I recently revisited the original creative and gave it a little 2D editorial reimagining. Think hand-drawn illustration, a little grit, a little more human emotion, and something that might feel at home in The Wall Street Journal. The original was intentionally dark, typographic, and crowded with anxious thoughts. The redesign brings those thoughts into the light, quite literally, with a face to the struggle.
But the most memorable part of this project wasn’t the artwork. It was a wall.
We built what we called a magnetic thought wall. Simple concept. Big impact. Church members were invited to write down an anxious thought, something weighing on their minds, something keeping them awake at night, something they might not feel comfortable saying out loud, and leave it on the wall. Those thoughts would then be prayed over.
What happened was remarkable. Across every church location, we saw nearly 100% participation in the exercise. Think about that for a moment. Almost everyone had something they needed to get off their chest. Turns out, beneath our Sunday smiles, neatly pressed shirts, coffee cups, and carefully rehearsed “I’m doing great” responses, we’re all carrying something.
Anxiety doesn’t discriminate. Pastors experience it. Parents experience it. CEOs experience it. The teenager sitting quietly in the back row experiences it. Even the guy designing an anxiety series probably has a few things running through his head at 2:37 in the morning. And that’s precisely why this series mattered. The premise wasn’t that following Jesus somehow exempts us from anxious thoughts. Scripture doesn’t make that promise. Rather, the Bible repeatedly invites us to bring those thoughts into the presence of a God who knows us, loves us, and meets us in the middle of life’s messiness.
Philippians 4:6–7 reminds us to bring our anxieties to God through prayer and thanksgiving. Not because our circumstances magically disappear, but because God’s peace can meet us in circumstances that haven’t changed. I think about that magnetic wall occasionally. All those handwritten worries. Some probably small. Others almost certainly heartbreaking. And the beautiful simplicity of giving people a physical place to surrender something they had been carrying internally.
Sometimes the most innovative thing we can do in ministry isn’t to create something new. It’s to create enough space for people to be honest.
That’s good design. That’s meaningful engagement. And, more importantly, that’s ministry.
So, back to the artwork. Two versions. One original, one editorial reimagining. Different creative approaches to the same very human struggle.
Which would you choose today? 01 Original or 02 Editorial Redesign?
And perhaps the better question: What would happen if we created more places where people could leave their anxious thoughts instead of pretending they didn’t have any?
#MyAnxiousThoughts #ChurchInnovation #CreativeMinistry #EricGeiger #ChurchCommunications #DesignForImpact
