April 2008 – For many growing up in the church 30-40 years ago, church drama was an annual Christmas play starring young shepherds, either swaggering or very shy, draped in their parents’ bathrobes. Little angels wore crooked wings and warped haloes, and a doll slept sweetly in the hay. Nothing wrong with that, but anything beyond that was an oddity. 

Today, drama is winning a more significant role on the ecclesiastical stage. Churches, professional ensembles and solo artists use drama in countless and diverse ways –  to illustrate the sermon, to address a moral issue, to show the power of the Passion, to begin radio teaching programs, to illustrate the truths of the Gospel.

Students of human nature have long accepted it as fact that, even as we may learn a lot through just one of the physical senses, our retention is vastly enhanced when information is conveyed via more than one of the senses. 

This new era in Christian drama is a stage filled with gifted players and unique talents. Some are professional in every sense of the word and are engaged in full-time ministry. They use drama, monologue, mime, dance and more to enhance the message of the local church. Other drama ministries are church-based. AFA Journal interviewed five ministries that use very different forms of drama to further the kingdom.

Shadow Mountain’s short takes
Paul Joiner founded Shadow Mountain Players in 1991 at Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California. Today the drama team consists of about 60 people with a core of 18 actors who are central in most productions. The team presents a 5- to 6-minute drama to introduce the theme of every Sunday sermon.

“Our dramas are sermon-based,” Joiner said, “meaning that they help introduce the theme of Dr. [David] Jeremiah’s message. I strive to not preach his message, but introduce a concept of thought that will help engage the audience’s attention and stir their curiosity to what they will learn in the sermon.”

Dale Savidge, executive director of Christians in Theatre Arts (CITA), said drama in the church is not new. “Drama as we know it in the Western world goes back to the 10th century and the Catholic Church.” The Shadow Mountain drama form reflects that era’s adaptation of tropes, short dramatic sequences, to illuminate the Scriptural text of the message.

CITA is a membership group with a mission to encourage and equip Christians to do theater. CITA helps artists network with other professionals, sponsors conferences and provides informative print and e-mail communications to its members.

For Joiner, the most critical element for any drama team is to carry out their ministry as a way to serve the Lord. “Our drama ministry is not about performing,” he said, “but about ministering.”

Rev Riding’s issue-driven drama
Joseph Parker is pastor of Campbell Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Pulaski, Tennessee, a congregation smaller than Shadow Mountain’s drama team, yet he uses drama for major impact on the culture. For decades, he was bi-vocational and never had the time he desired for pro-life ministry.

In March 2007, he resigned his position with a Nashville publishing house and soon thereafter, wrote Rev Riding in the Hood, a one-hour drama set in an inner-city Chicago church and  focusing on the issue of abortion. A touch of humor makes the serious issue palatable.

“People laugh a lot during the play,” Parker said, “but they do some heavy thinking, too. It seems to sink in after they go home and give it more thought.” He and a traveling troupe of five or six amateur players have presented the drama more than a dozen times across the South. At each venue, the host church or sponsor provides six to eight additional actors and set managers.

Ironically, Parker benefits from being an African-American pastor in the city noted as the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. He seizes every opportunity to say: “Though the Black community  rightly sees the Klan as ‘the enemy,’ Planned Parenthood is an enemy more dangerous than the KKK because Planned Parenthood kills more Black people in three days than the Klan killed in its entire history.”

Dramatic Encounter’s one-woman show
Emory Colvin has loved drama since she was a child. Colvin, founder and principal of Dramatic Encounter, now uses drama to carry the message of the love of Jesus Christ.

“Drama is such a great communicator,” said the Nashville-based performer. “Jesus only gave one recorded sermon. The rest were stories. And that’s what I exist to do – to tell the story of the Gospel.” The young dramatist is building a repertoire of one-woman shows to tell that story.

Regarding CITA, Savidge observed, “We really don’t make a lot of distinctions between Christians who do plays about Christianity and Christians who just do plays.” 

Colvin’s background includes both. From grade school on, she was in every church play and every school play possible in Lafayette, Louisiana, her hometown. Still in high school, she also landed numerous roles in productions at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. And she was a regular onstage at Mississippi College, her alma mater.

“I accepted the call to Christian ministry at age 15,” Colvin said. “I really didn’t know what that was going to look like, but at that time my gifting for the theater had definitely shown itself.” She worked on a church staff before founding Dramatic Encounter in May 2005. In addition to frequent church appearances, she leads drama workshops and appears in a number of Southern Baptist Centrifuge camps each summer. And she has toured with conference speaker Vicki Courtney in LifeWay’s women’s event “You and Your Girl.”

Bellevue’s evangelistic bridge
The Passion Play at Bellevue Baptist Church is a high-profile, professionally done stage production that the Memphis church has used as an evangelistic outreach for almost three decades.

“Bellevue was very much a pioneer [in contemporary church drama],” said Mark Blair, who joined the Bellevue staff in August 2007 as minister of music for special productions. “Christmas marked our 32nd annual Singing Christmas Tree and this will be the 28th annual Passion Play.”

Blair said preparing such a major production bears fruit for the church body as well. It is a picture of the Body of Christ in action – some people paint, some build sets, some sing, some handle sound and light, some create costumes, some act. The Passion Play began as a much simpler production, but over time evolved into a full-fledged theatrical event. 

“Including actors, singers, construction and technical crews, well over 1,000 people work on the play,” Blair said. Music, drama and message fill Bellevue’s huge auditorium in six presentations to a total of some 30,000 guests.

The church sees their seasonal dramatic productions as bridge builders to the community. “We very much see this as a step in an evangelistic process,” he explained. Last year, more than 1,100 people came to faith in Christ at the Passion Play and almost 600 at the annual Singing Christmas Tree.

Peculiar People’s focus on grace
Charlie and Ruth Jones are celebrating 21 years of being peculiar together. Over two decades of drama ministry, the husband-wife team has traveled more than 1.2 million highway miles, purchased 93,000 gallons of gasoline, performed in 20 countries, spent more than 6.5 years in hotel rooms and downed “well over” 17,250 cups of coffee.

Their quick wit and wacky sense of humor color their dramatic dialogues and endear them to audiences. And while their lively stage presence elicits plenty of laughs from their audiences, it always packs a powerful punch of truth as well, because the grace of God is the real centerpiece of their ministry. 

“I believe the dramatic arts will play a most significant role in the 21st century church,” Charlie Jones said, “more than any other art form ever has.” He sees drama as the church’s best vehicle for conveying truth to a generation reared on image. 

Jones said today’s generation spends 75% of their leisure time in front of a screen – movie, computer, TV or hand-held electronics. He cited culture analyst Gene Edward Veith, who says the story is the most effective way to communicate to a culture which claims there is no absolute truth. Charlie and Ruth Jones have written many scripts which illustrate the absolute truth of the Gospel, and many of their moving dramas are available on DVD and/or CD. 

The Joneses’ road schedule is about to decrease to some extent. They’ll still be on the road some, but they moved recently to Greensboro, North Carolina, a city of some 300,000. There, they will plant a church in the downtown theater district. Jones says it will be a “church planted by artists for artists to do art in the city.”

Dale Savidge is right – Christian drama is big time and growing bigger. “It would be impossible to describe all the things that people are doing now,” he said. And creative people are finding varied and exciting avenues to lead to the one great truth –  the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

FOR MORE INFORMATION
• Bellevue Baptist Church
www.bellevue.org
901-347-5700

• Dramatic Encounter
www.dramaticencounter.com
615-614-0033

• Christians in Theatre Arts
www.cita.org
864-679-1898

• Joseph Parker
[email protected]
615-793-0921

• Peculiar People
www.peculiarpeople.com
615-595-8782

• Shadow Mountain
www.shadowmountain.org
619-440-1802