Fine Arts: Discovering, Developing, and Deploying their Gifts

Every year thousands of students come from around the country to participate in the National Fine Arts Festival. This year Fine Arts has 4,540 students participating in 74 categories. Not including warm-up rooms, these students are giving presentations in 30 rooms across the Anaheim Convention Center and Marriott Hotel. General Council attendees would be hard pressed to go all week without seeing students carrying around guitars, props, and even big buckets used as drums! The musical categories span everything from Rap Solo to Modern Hymn Songwriting to Christian Band.

Though 33 categories make up the instrumental and vocal divisions, Fine Arts isn’t only about music. In halls and corridors, students can be found practicing for their stand-up comedy routines, sermons, and drama solos, while groups practice puppetry and American Sign Language presentations.

But while the week of the National Fine Arts Festival is unforgettable, performing is not the goal of this ministry.

National Fine Arts Festival is offered because it helps students become the disciples Jesus calls them to be. God gifts every believer with talents and abilities to build up His Kingdom. The truth is, the Assemblies of God is accomplishing something unique through the ministry of Fine Arts. Nowhere else can students travel the nation to hone the skills God has given them in a Gospel-Centered environment.

Students are empowered, and it draws people to His ultimate gift of salvation when they use their God-given gifts for ministry. When students participate in Fine Arts, only the tip of the iceberg is witnessed at the National Fine Arts Festival.

The ministry of Fine Arts is a community. Churches across the United States support the students in their youth ministries. Youth pastors encourage their students. Coaches invest their time into students. Parents drive them to practices. Most of all, students pour their hearts into honing their craft.

This week in Anaheim, attendees have the great privilege of seeing the fruit of all their hard work and prayer. The festival culminates with the Celebration Service where the Award of Merit Recipients will be recognized and a few students will be chosen to present in front of thousands of audience members. Emotions are high and the talent seen from these students is breathtaking. This year, Fine Arts has even garnered the attention of a national television station. Keep a look out on Friday night to spot them!

Next year, Fine Arts is opening a brand-new Enterprise Division. God not only gifts people in the arts of music, acting, dancing, and communicating, but He also gifts people in the art of business. God raises up Christian women and men who will be Spirit-Empowered entrepreneurs, inventors, fundraisers, and business owners.

Every believer is Personally-Responsible for building up the church with their ministry gifts, and if one person refuses to participate, the whole body suffers (see 1 Cor. 12:12-31). The new Enterprise Division will help students discover, develop, and deploy those gifts through Fine Arts.

For more information about the new Enterprise Division, workshops, called “New for NFAF: The Enterprise Division," will be offered on Wednesday, Aug. 9. The leaders’ workshop will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Marriott Elite (Leaders’ Café). The students’ workshop will take place from 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. in room 204B in the Anaheim Convention Center.

Please pray that students will discover what God has called them to. Pray for the parents, leaders, and coaches who are helping students develop their gifts. Finally, pray the Holy Spirit will empower students to deploy their talents to the glory of Jesus Christ and become influential agents of change in our culture!

Eli Macha