CHICAGO, IL (December 3, 2013) — Throughout Advent, Covenant pastor Kari Lindholm-Johnson will speak at weekly chapel services at Covenant Offices on the theme of turning swords into plowshares. The first service is Wednesday at 9 a.m. (CST), and each service will be live-streamed.

Lindholm-Johnson currently serves as artist-in-residence at Swedish Covenant Hospital. Her theme comes from Isaiah 2:4, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
 and their spears into pruning hooks;
 nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.” She says, “I always thought that beating swords into plowshares was a static image…kind of like it’s already done. But I’m realizing that it’s an active and ongoing image.”

She describes the work of Pedro Reyes, an artist in Mexico City, who collected 1,527 guns from the citizens of Culiacán, a city with an especially high rate of gun violence. Offering coupons for appliances and electronics in exchange for the guns, Reyes had the weapons melted down and recast into 1,527 shovel heads to be used to plant 1,527 trees throughout the community. Lindholm-Johnson explains, “The weapons of destruction become tools of building something new.”

The series will continue on December 11 and 18, considering the themes of “Who is this shoot of Jesse?” and “Landscape” and will include an original piece of music composed by Lindholm-Johnson. All services will be webcast live.