Friday, August 29, 2025

During this year’s Easter services at CedarCreek, artists performed live paintings alongside worship leaders. Their brushes swept across giant canvases while the music swelled, and images appeared and disappeared before our eyes. When the service ended, black lights revealed what didn’t originally appear, and we saw a picture of Jesus in beautiful clarity.

Have you ever wondered how live art became a part of services at CedarCreek? It was a long journey with lots of risk, but ultimately it is a story of God’s amazing provision. Mike Fink, Director of Brand for CedarCreek, was involved from the beginning, and we think the story is best told in his words.

“In 2007, Ben Snyder asked if I could do performance art. I said I could try. I practiced a lot. I had to let go of perfectionism and be loose and let the paint do whatever it wanted to. It was a short three minute song. I had narrowed it down to three colors and a really big four inch brush.”

Mike remembers being overwhelmingly nervous, but he saw God move despite his misgivings.

“After doing several different paintings to different songs, I realized whatever I did was only so much and God must have felt it was important enough to come and steal the show and make me look good. Whatever good that I’ve ever been a part of is because of Jesus. I cannot take a single once of credit.”

And that first performance made an impact. “The paintings definitely captured the audience’s attention and was a bit of history in the making,” Mike recalls. Art became a part of CedarCreek’s special services ever since, and more artists got involved in the performances. But the process didn’t come without unique challenges.

During Easter one year, which Mike affectionately calls “the glitter year,” the team had to figure out a special recipe for glue—one that would be transparent enough to show the sparkle of the glitter without drying too quickly. By the time Good Friday came around, the artists still had not figured out the right mixture of ingredients.

Mike recalls the tension backstage as the clock counted down. “We went all in and gambled on the right mixture with all the different products we had in a five gallon bucket. As we were mixing and mixing we lost control of the drill and the glue splashed all over us all huddled around the bucket.”

It seemed likely that the glue would fail and the Good Friday art performances would be ruined. But at the very last moment, God provided!

“It ended up being the perfect consistency of glue and didn’t dry too fast like all its previously unsuccessful attempts. And just to prove again that God was the biggest part of any of this, I couldn’t see out of my left eye for half of a performance due to flicking glue in my eye.”

Through the “glitter year” and dozens of experiences like it, Mike has seen God work in amazing ways through the talents of artists. We often think that worship is limited to singing and music, but God doesn’t stop there. He’s given each of us a passion that he loves to see us use to introduce people to Jesus. And that is exactly what worship is.

“What better way to worship God than with what God has given us to work with?” Mike observes.

What has God given you? How is he asking you to use it to worship him?