Hello and welcome to the home of BREATHE!

This web location is an exciting new arts adventure that springs from the worship experiences at the Presbyterian Church in New Providence, NJ. Here’s a bit about how it started.

For some time now, there has been a gnawing in my deepest core for two main things: 1) the weekly purpose of worship and 2) the role of artists in the church. On the first point, my heart’s desire is for the church as a whole to discover more fully what it means to enter as people who are awed and overwhelmed by the presence of One so deserving of our attention, of our time, of our lives. To move beyond merely the attendance of a 60 minute service, and begin each morning from a new place of adoration for Jesus Christ – a place where we pray, “In my worship today, God, I want to celebrate You, revere You, thank You, and surrender myself to You.”

I believe a way we get to that place as a congregation could be greatly influenced by the second point: the role of artists. By inviting artists to express their talents as acts of worship, we see embodied and exemplified a renewed concept: our lives are to be an expression of celebration, reverence, gratitude and surrender in response to who God is. This redefines our worship experience as more than liking this or that song, or whether we’re “good at something” or “the creative type”. This approach includes all the words and actions of our lives as an expression of worship to our Creator. And if artists of all kinds found a home where using those gifts was not only welcomed, but also expected as the “norm”, imagine how that would permeate throughout the body of Christ. To offer God who we are because we just can’t help it.

Through this site, we hope to provide a glimpse into the arts at PCNP, to offer a creative space for artists to share their talents, and to help each other discover a truer sense of our purpose as a worshiping church. As we embark on our “prologue” stage of the site, I encourage artists to consider contributing to the content found on these pages – to offer their art form as an act of worship and to share with the arts community.

To contact the Worship and Arts Ministry about what you’d like to contribute, please visit the Connect page. We will continue to update the site over the coming weeks and months. Thanks for visiting!

In Christ,

Chris Fortin
Director of Worship and Music

Tags: Chris Fortin