Message from the Chair

Arts Centre Group is a unique and vivid organisation which draws its membership from Christians who are working in a great variety of artistic fields such as music, fine art, design, sculpture, writing, film, theatre or television.

If you are a Christian and working in the Arts then ACG is for you. We need to be right in the Centre, a group of Christians who are artists contributing to the world around us, a group of artists learning to be Christians in a world where belief is what you make it, where icons are greater than gods and God and Jesus are words to curse with. Some have come to us and asked, 'what will Arts Centre Group do for me?' Our best reply is 'what will Arts Centre Group be without your contribution?'

As artists, we are a 'called' people, not called to squish and squash ourselves into the rigidity of a politically correct society. Rather, we are called to challenge, to push through boundaries and to bring fresh insight to long held opinions and to life's stories. We are called by a calling that reaches into the heart and into the very core of our nature. We're called to greatness, to wholeness, to an expression far beyond the norm. We are called to envision, to create the new, to tell stories not yet told, to dream the impossible and bring it to life.

As Christians, we are a people called to be 'in this world yet not of it'; to be to this world what the world cannot be to itself that is to say to be lovers and givers and people of hope; to be transformers and rebuilders of the breach. In this world of push and pull, take and leave, we are called to hold and bind up, to release and stand fast. We're not called to fame and success, these are but trappings. However, we are called 'to shine like stars' and to show the love of God.

Whatever area of the Arts you find yourself in, whatever your needs, your hopes, your successes, we hope we might help to bridge the gaps.

Susanne Scott
Chair of Arts Centre Group