Worship Arts
The Worship Arts Ministry at NCEL exists to serve, equip, and disciple our church through music, liturgy, visual art, and relational ministry.
We seek to use elements of the service, such as the liturgy, music, and cross installations, to guide worshippers on the Scripture theme. Through these elements, we want the “Word of Christ to dwell richly” in the hearts of our people. We value balancing intercultural expressions, especially from cultures represented in our church and neighborhood. The worship arts ministry will accomplish these things through Sunday morning worship as well as collaboration with other ministries, as we equip church members to serve and help develop leadership.
Our vision for Sunday mornings is that they be improvisational, informal, and inviting.
Our services should be planned but flexible. Thoughtful and careful, yet listening and waiting for the Spirit’s leading. As a team, we pray for people to walk into our church service, excited to see what God is going to do through His people. May the improvisational joy or lament that erupts from the congregation spur us on to love God deeper and learn about a different aspect of His character.
Music:
One of our goals for worship at NCEL is to consistently write and arrange music for our congregation.
We have been richly blessed with musicians and songwriters who have the desire and ability to do this. Writing songs for particular services, seasons, or sermon series is a way for these artists to specifically serve our church, as well as opening the possibility of blessing people beyond New City East Lake. These artists also have original works that may not be used formally on a Sunday morning, but can still enrich the lives of our people.
Visual Arts
Over the years, NCEL has had a vibrant community of visual artists. Cross installations, gallery shows, and original art in the building have been a beautiful contribution to the life of our church.
Artist and original NCEL member Ray Padron graciously designed and fabricated a metal cross to be hung at the center of the stage wall. This cross was made with several shelves intended to house art installations. Our arts team believes that an installation is “something you put in place in a space.”
An installation can be used to help provoke, challenge, convict, disrupt, refocus, provide cues, inspire, and change an environment.
We’ve been blessed to have several installations. There have been designs that extensively use mirrors, cloth, and even bread. Often, we utilize visual art to point toward a theme from the church calendar, sermon, our neighborhood, and many other points of reference. We hope that the art tells the story of the Gospel, the stories of our church body.
Resources & Events
