What is Fine Arts Festival?

Fine Arts Festival is a discipleship tool of NCN Student Ministries designed to help students discover, develop and deploy their ministry gifts. This is done by providing a space where Jr. High and High School students can perform or exhibit their talents and art to qualified adjudicators who will then provide constructive feedback for students. Students will also have the opportunity to receive an invitation to the National Fine Arts Festival where they can compete for scholarships and receive even more feedback to help develop their talents for ministry. More details about National Fine Arts below.

New To 2025-2026 NCN District Fine Arts

In addition to our standard Fine Arts Festival, we will be adding a secondary option to increase our accessibility to those who are unable to participate due to location, date, or finances. Our team has built the infrastructure to enable us to allow digital submissions for those unable to participate in the Festival. This new element increases the reach of our already existing Fine Arts program, without changing the overall vision.So, to clarify, in March we will have our Fine Arts Festival as it has been in previous years.

Registration will open at our Presence Conference in November allowing students to sign up for the Fine Arts Festival in March. Our Fine Arts Coordinator will reach out to churches that have previously not participated and provide them with the information of the event. If any church states that they are unable to participate because of time, location, or finances, he will inform them of the digital options we are providing this year.

Any church participating in the digital submissions will be encouraged to have the student present in a public forum (like they’re youth service or a special gathering for fine arts presentations). They will be provided a link to a locked folder only they (and the administrator) have access to. They will upload their students’ presentations to the labeled folder. Access will be provided for a limited time to qualified and fully vetted evaluators to “view only”. All permissions to save, download, share, or delete will be disabled. They would be asked to only view once (as would be the case in a live festival) and then they would have all the time they need to make their comprehensive comments and leave scores for the student. After they’ve evaluated that student, the folder would be locked. A full history of the file’s locked status is saved on the administrator’s dash board.

The evaluation results will be sent to the youth pastor, as it is done in a live setting, to share with their students. Our hope is to be able to livestream or record our awards service so that they can view it and hear their names announced if they receive a Superior Score. Digital submissions will have to be uploaded by January 31st so that we’re able to process them and include their results in our closing ceremony at the live event. Any submissions given after that will be evaluated and sent their scores, but they will not be a part of the live event.

All in all, we believe this best improves the accessibility factor for those with legitimate reasons for not participating in the past, while maintaining the festival atmosphere that so many of our churches, pastors, and students have engaged in over the years.