Tag Archives: Art and Worship

Creative Church Conference (July 25-27)

creative church conferenceWhat is the Creative Church Conference?

  • Creative:  The way you were born: in the image of God, with enjoyment for creating.
  • Church:  Where two or more are gathered in Jesus’ name.
  • Conference:  A time to learn, share, be inspired, and inspire others.

In 2012 a handful of art ministers launched a small conference in Boise, Idaho, to gather like-minded artists who follow Christ and also care about the glory of God being reflected in local churches. The conference was an overwhelming success. Artists were encouraged and refreshed, non-artists discovered their creative potential, pre-Christian artists were introduced to the Artist who designed them, Christ was glorified, and lives were changed.

This year’s Creative Church Conference will be hosted at the Vineyard Boise with a focus on “community.” We’ll experience the beauty of God when it comes to the arts He created. Seasoned art ministry leaders will bring community to the forefront as they provide wisdom and insight on being the body of Christ. Our workshops will put this into practice as together we explore creative applications of ministering to one another through the arts, and share practical lessons learned from our mistakes. Please take these opportunities to share your knowledge with us!While the conference is coming up fast, it is not too late to attend.

Check out the Creative Church Conference website for more information.

Why Some Christians Are Actually Thieves

I saw this video on a friends blog and couldn’t help but re-post it!

Author Jefferson Bethke talks about the way in which people view the sacred and secular while Scott Erickson creates this amazing piece of art.

Author description (as posted on YouTube):

Matt & I really had a blast on this video. So thankful to Scott for his AMAZING artwork. If you want to check out more by him, see his info below. Also this video was inspired by an excerpt from my book coming out Oct 7! Also just to be explicit, this video’s basic premise is that God created all things good so we can worship Him in those things. BUT the point is that the things themselves aren’t evil, but our distortion of them is. So, for example, Christians think that sex is amazing, but adultery and outside the marriage context sex isn’t. So this video isn’t a license to take things how you want them, but it’s an invitation to not miss God in all that he created.

Stories Around The Web About The 2013 Vineyard National Conference

vineyard all inAs mentioned before (here and here), the 2013 Vineyard National Conference in Anaheim, California, was an amazing conference! In fact, I even heard folks who have been around the Vineyard for 20 or 30 years say that it was the best conference they have been too since the 1990’s. They also mentioned that this past conference was the LARGEST gathering of the Vineyard family ever. Yeah, ever. The Anaheim Vineyard church was packed out with over 3,500 people – 800+ of which were youth and 400+ were children under 14. Big family, lots of fun. 🙂

And being a big family, here are other bloggers out there who have written about their experiences at the conference. Knowing that it is always good to get more than one option on a subject, here are some stories about the 2013 Vineyard National Conference:

A Day by Day Account

Luke Geraty (Trinity Christian Fellowship in Stanley, WI) wrote a great four part series detailing the main points and highlights of each day of the conference. If you want to know the ins and outs of what happened, then this is the series to read! (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4)

celtic cross vineyardThe Quick Summary

On the flip side, Jason Smith (Mason Vineyard Community Church, Mason, OH) wrote a quick summary of the conference.  Even though he didn’t details things out as much as Luke, Jason does have some good comments about the state of Vineyard worship and the Kingdom Ministry momentum in the movement.

The Art Piece

Six artists from the Vineyard Boise (Boise, ID) made the trip to Anaheim with one purpose: to create a prophecy piece of art live during the worship sets of the conference. The result was an huge Celtic cross interwoven with symbolism. If you are part of the Vineyard Movement then you NEED to read Jessie Nilo’s description of this art piece as it was created in the middle of a family gathering for the entire Vineyard family.

Deaf No More

One of the individual pieces of art created during the conference and interwoven into the Celtic cross mentioned above was a mold of an ear.  God used this ‘ear’ to start an conversation between the artist and a gal who was deaf in one ear. The reslut …well, you will just have to read the post to see what happens. 😛