The first four-week Masterworks Festival began in 1997 at Houghton College in New York as a ministry of the Christian Performing Artists’ Fellowship (CPAF) which was founded in 1984.
After five consecutive summers in New York, MasterWorks had established itself as a significant ministry, drawing students and faculty from around the world. [A Bible Study and prayer group leadership program were included in the curriculum to enable students and faculty to start up such groups in their conservatories and performing arts departments.]
After outgrowing Houghton College the Masterworks Festival moved to the campus of Grace College in Winona Lake, Indiana.
In 2016, the MasterWorks Festival moved to a temporary home on the campus of Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. The following summer the festival moved to Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where it continued through the summer of 2022. In the fall of 2022, MasterWorks announced that it would be moving to its new home of Campbellsville University, in Campbellsville, KY, for the summer of 2023.
MasterWorks has also had outreach in the United Kingdom, Honduras, China and Hawaii. Throughout the years participants have included such notable artists as guitarist Christopher Parkening, cellist Anne Martindale Williams, violinist Midori, and trumpeter Phil Smith.
Our prayer is that MasterWorks will become known world-wide as a center of Christian artistry. As with any long-term project, this will take time. We have a mandate from the Lord to hold a high standard for others to follow, a standard for excellence in the arts and a standard to walk a sincere Christian path, living a life worthy of the Gospel.
Please join us in prayer that this vision will be realized, and in such a way that gives God the greatest glory. Without the prayers of the saints and the blessing of the Lord, we labor in vain. Yet we believe that God has called this ministry into being, and that he “will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6b)
