By combining art therapy and scripture, Contreda Navarro-Jewell began a new ministry that creates a safe space for people to seek healing and discover their God-given purpose.
JAMES DEATON
Content Editor
God has blessed Contreda Navarro-Jewell with a creative mind and a curious spirit. Her spiritual gift is teaching. Last year, she started a new art therapy ministry at local churches in the Greater Detroit District. The ministry focuses on empowering people, especially those who have felt oppressed or marginalized, to let their light shine and use their talents to discover purpose.
Through this ministry, Contreda has transformed her own healing journey by helping others do the same through art, scripture, and conversation. Her heart desires for people to see themselves in living color as beloved children of God — full of beauty, joy, and endless possibilities with the unique gifts God has given them. Each of us is a masterpiece.
A member of Southfield: Hope UMC, Contreda teaches children there and has served as the art director for the district’s Urban Methodist Youth Camp during the summer. She’s also a Certified Lay Speaker here in the Michigan Conference.
Contreda has had the gift of teaching from a young age, and her mother affirmed this gift. She explains, “My mother knew my calling and said to me, ‘Contreda, you are a teacher.’” Contreda also had a keen interest in crafts, drawing, painting, and later sewing, a gift her grandmother had.
Contreda was born and raised in south Florida, the youngest of 10 children to two Caribbean parents. Her mother was Bahamian, and her father was Cuban. With such a large family, there wasn’t extra room in the budget for luxuries.
“Even though we were poor,” she says, “my mom worked as a maid and found a way through her work connections that I could go to a private art school in grade school. She nurtured those gifts that allowed me to experience something that some people in my neighborhood couldn’t.” Later, Contreda became the first person in her family to attend college.
The idea of attending art school was actually Contreda’s. She saw a listing in the phone book and approached her mother about going. This God-given boldness to seek, learn, and grow is part of her personality, and this openness helped her stay in tune with God’s leading as she started this new art therapy ministry in Detroit.
Going to church was part of her formation, and she grew up in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. When she moved to Michigan over two decades ago, she got involved with United Methodist churches in the Detroit area, at Hope in Southfield, Beverly Hills, and Brightmoor: Aldersgate. Although she was raised AME, these United Methodist churches felt like home to her. However, her experience in the church as a Black woman hasn’t always been positive, for there have been times when she felt excluded or was made to feel as if her gifts were not good enough. But a steadfast faith in a God who gifts all has given her courage.
Recently, while working in the Greater Detroit District’s office, Contreda was invited to lead a painting session with her daughter for a clergy retreat at Lake Huron Retreat Center. The clergy there affirmed Contreda’s leadership, many of whom did not know she possessed this gift.
This event was just what she needed following a painful experience in the church, giving her a renewed sense of purpose. Then, when she heard about grants offered by the Board of Laity to resource and train laity within the Michigan Conference, God gave her a vision, and she applied.
“I had this vision about healing,” notes Contreda. “Certainly, it was my own healing, but I had a deep sense that it was not just me who was dealing with life and its difficulties. God has taken me on such a journey of trusting and believing, as I’ve learned that he has his hand on me for something special. I believe God has gifted something in you that he hasn’t in others. So, that makes you just as good as others. No one should make you feel less than.”
With the launch of Healing through Art Therapy and the Word of God, Contreda’s new ministry opened the door to ensure all are welcome. She hosts this ministry as a safe place for people in the community to experience healing through the interplay of art and scripture. Her small group sessions lead participants to engage in scripture themes prayerfully.
Contreda says she often tells participants, “Let’s deal with this hurt, mistrust, betrayal, whatever it may be. Let’s talk about it and see what it looks like from your perspective on paper. You’re not here by mistake. You’re here for a reason.”
For one of the coloring exercises, Contreda uses Jeremiah 29:11, a powerful reminder that God knows us from the womb and has a plan for our lives. She has them write out their name and create art from the letters using other words, colors, and objects to illustrate their life’s journey.
She walks alongside participants, asks questions, and engages in discussion as each person dwells on God’s gifts and purpose for them. “What do people say about you?” Contreda asks. “What do people come to you for? What gives you joy? What is the one thing you can do daily and not get tired? Then we go through the Bible, talk about the gifts of the Spirit, and think about what we have to give that will build up the body of Christ.”
Contreda believes that scripture teaches that everyone must be included to make this spiritual body whole. “You can’t feel like you’re left out,” she explains, “so the last session is always about being empowered. You are the light of the world, and you need to go out and let your light shine. Give that gift God has for you to others in the body so they can share their own.”
This sense of empowerment is what she wants to leave with every person who attends her classes. Empowerment, for Contreda, is part of the healing journey she’s experienced, and it’s what she hopes others will experience in time, too.
“Your healing will come,” she trusts. “But you must know and believe that God made you for something special. And once you decide that you’re special, you can do anything.”
Contreda is particularly drawn to take her class to faith communities on the margins, in those spaces that need reminders of God’s boundless love and favor. “Brightmoor: Aldersgate UMC is in one such place,” she notes, “since that community is an oppressed area of Detroit. And when you’re dealing with oppression, when you feel worthless, when you’re overcome by sadness or poverty, you need to know that you’re just as good as anybody else.”
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Last Updated on January 30, 2025