As a Christ-centered organization, the staff and board of Glorify Performing Arts affirm the following tenets of Christian faith, as outlined in the Apostles’ Creed, and the Biblical value of the performing arts.

We believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…and God saw that it was good…Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…” (Genesis 1:1, 12b, 26a)

One of the first things we know about God from Scripture is that God creates.

Visual artist Makoto Fujimura writes that “God’s exuberant love invites us, broken vessels of God’s choosing, to co-create…It means to be invited to a dance, invited by God’s grace to be on the stage, to step into a journey of New Creation that we do not yet fully understand” (Art and Faith: A Theology of Making, 2020).

As creatures who reflect the image of the creative God, we embrace our own creative capacities as gifts that God has given for the sake of our participation in God’s purposes of redeeming the world and bringing about the fullness of new creation.

We believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

The good news of Jesus’s power over death means that all who confess that Jesus is Lord are saved from the consequence of sin, which is death. This gospel forms the core of our faith and inspires us to tell stories about God’s redeeming love. We are each on a journey of understanding God’s love through God’s word in Scripture and through personal relationships with God through Jesus.

We believe in the Holy Spirit…

When God gives Moses instructions for building the tabernacle, God says, “…I have filled [Bezalel] with divine spirit, with ability, intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft, to devise artistic designs…” (Exodus 31:3-4).

God’s Spirit is associated with the knowledge of physical materials and the imagination that are used in creating works of art. We believe that the Spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead also gives us new life (Romans 8:11), and one aspect of new life in Christ is imagination being sanctified to envisage new possibilities that glorify God.

   …the holy, catholic church…

The church is a diverse body of followers of Jesus from all times, places and cultures. Paul writes, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body–Jews or Greeks, slaves or free–and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many” (1 Corinthians 12:12-14).

Paul goes on to explain how different members of the body each have unique gifts, purposes and needs. We endeavor to use our unique gifts in arts production and leadership to serve the whole body of Christ by creating works that encourage, empower and inspire other Christians.

   …the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. 

Theologian NT Wright notes that “the purpose of God is not to save humans from the world but to save them for the world, to enable them to be his kings and priests ruling and redeeming creation…God’s people are not just worshipers but also workers, bringing God’s new creation into reality.”

Because of our redemption in Christ and our imaginations being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, the work we do in this lifetime can generate goodness and beauty that will be part of God’s new creation.

Amen.