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When the large clock in the fellowship hall stopped working, the congregation of Central Freeborn Lutheran Church knew they needed something to replace it on the otherwise bare wall.

Soon after, during the church’s annual meeting in January 2024, the church council voted to reach out to Twin Cities-based artist Chandler Anderson and ask him to paint a mural.

Anderson has done many local murals, including at the Albert Lea Public Library and a few area churches. He also recently painted a mural for the city of Ellendale when the town celebrated its 125th anniversary. For Central Freeborn Lutheran Church, though, Anderson’s connection is much deeper.

“Chan is from our church. He’s confirmed in our church,” said the church council president, Dianne Thompson.

In addition to growing up in the church, Anderson painted a mural outside of the fellowship hall in 2005.

Anderson agreed to paint another mural for the church and got to work preparing ideas. He described the fellowship hall as full of potential. He needed to design a mural that would accommodate the various structures of the room, including doorways, cupboards, the entrance to the kitchen, a speaker and a large air vent.

Anderson said he also wanted the subject of the mural to be appropriate for the space.

“It’s a dining room in a church, so there’s a lot of events that happen in that space,” he said. Sometimes, he said, people are there for emotional reasons like a funeral or wedding reception.

“It was a large space … and I knew I wanted to do something that was uplifting, feel good. I just wanted anybody who was in (the) space to feel good,” Anderson said.

He said the church let him have a lot of creative freedom when designing the mural, which was very helpful. Thompson said they trusted his judgment because they knew him and because he had done a mural for them before.

Anderson settled on a design that included a large lion lying with a lamb. The background includes rock formations, vegetation, a waterfall and other natural elements. It also contains the verse Matthew 5:9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

The Rev. Matt Griggs said he talked with Anderson about the painting and verse. The lion and lamb imagery is from Revelation, Griggs said, but the verse is from the Sermon on the Mount. He said the painting and verse went well together, and Anderson soon brought his design idea to the church council.

The council voted yes to the design, and Anderson began the project. It took about a month, he said, to paint the mural.

Griggs said Anderson offered to leave the sketches of the mural at the church for people to see, but Griggs thought it would be more fun for people to be surprised and see the painting as it was being made.

Each Sunday, members of the congregation would enter the fellowship hall and look for what new elements Anderson had added over the week.

“The process evolved nicely,” Anderson said.

The finished mural ended up covering most of the wall and is about 30 feet by 17 feet.

Thompson said the overall reaction has been people simply saying, “Wow.”

They’re in awe, she said. Sometimes they even have tears in their eyes.

The church uses the fellowship hall for many occasions, including coffee fellowship each week, Sunday school and vacation Bible school activities.

They also use the space to host their annual soup and dessert supper, a fundraising event they have held since around 1998.

“This will be the topic of discussion at the next soup and [dessert] supper for sure,” said church office manager, Karen Borneman, referring to the new mural. “Everyone will be talking about it.”

There will be a dedication event for the mural at 9:30 a.m. May 11. It will be following the Sunday morning worship service, which begins at 8:30 a.m.

Thompson said she hopes Anderson will have a chance to do a “meet the artist” for the Sunday school class, as he used to be part of the Sunday school himself.

Anderson said he is excited to return to the church to see the mural with fresh eyes. He is pleased to think that people have been “living around it.”

“It really is their mural,” he said.

Griggs said the mural gives an ambience to the room it didn’t have before and also compliments the stained glass windows nicely.