Thursday, December 08, 2005
Getting Started with a Drama Ministry
All of this sounds good, until I remember the small churches across America. Do we really want to encourage them to do drama? Won't it be terrible? Won't it be distracting? Who wants to sandwich amateur hour between the homily and the holy communion?
Perhaps Sunday morning is not the best place to start. Sunday morning the stakes are too high. People have certain expectations for the tone of a worship assembly. Bad drama can make church service feel like a spoof.
On the other hand, elaborate outreach productions may not be the place to start either. A long show can just be overwhelming. Elaborate costumes and sets, long scripts, eternal rehearsals, large casts, and often small audiences.
Three months of work sometimes serve up a half-baked play for a crowd of a few hundred. Even though God is glorified, we wonder if there aren't better ways to serve him with our time.
Start slow, find an appropriate venue. Children are gracious audiences. Tap into a puppet ministry. Once a month, substitute a drama of similar tone. A children's curriculum often comes with skit ideas. Use these to gain confidence, then write your own.
Once you move to the Sunday morning service, recognize the special demands for this context. Most short skits will still feel too long. Five minutes is pushing it. Ten minutes will feel like an eternity. Sunday morning drama needs to be the same length as other elements of worship.
Many churches use soloists or choirs. Rather than worship actively, the congregation will listen to one song from a soloist or the choir and sing the other four with the choir.
Give the choir a break one Sunday. Adapt a skit to the same length as a normal choir song. Or write your own. Three to five minutes long.
HillCountryWriter Category: Drama
Technorati Tags: drama scripts acting church
Perhaps Sunday morning is not the best place to start. Sunday morning the stakes are too high. People have certain expectations for the tone of a worship assembly. Bad drama can make church service feel like a spoof.
On the other hand, elaborate outreach productions may not be the place to start either. A long show can just be overwhelming. Elaborate costumes and sets, long scripts, eternal rehearsals, large casts, and often small audiences.
Three months of work sometimes serve up a half-baked play for a crowd of a few hundred. Even though God is glorified, we wonder if there aren't better ways to serve him with our time.
Start slow, find an appropriate venue. Children are gracious audiences. Tap into a puppet ministry. Once a month, substitute a drama of similar tone. A children's curriculum often comes with skit ideas. Use these to gain confidence, then write your own.
Once you move to the Sunday morning service, recognize the special demands for this context. Most short skits will still feel too long. Five minutes is pushing it. Ten minutes will feel like an eternity. Sunday morning drama needs to be the same length as other elements of worship.
Many churches use soloists or choirs. Rather than worship actively, the congregation will listen to one song from a soloist or the choir and sing the other four with the choir.
Give the choir a break one Sunday. Adapt a skit to the same length as a normal choir song. Or write your own. Three to five minutes long.
HillCountryWriter Category: Drama
Technorati Tags: drama scripts acting church
