The folks who served in this role played a part in some of the most moving and powerful moments we experienced as a church. Before I get into more of what this was all about, allow me to return to a concept I haven't touched on lately, indigenous worship.
You may know or recall that this is a concept with great connection to missions. The basic idea, which I gave a full blog post to a few months ago, is that we create worship experiences unique to the community in which they take place. Culture. Language. Fashion. More.
When I arrived at Memorial Baptist in 2000, I was immediately aware of what a significant place drama and dance (interpretive movement) had played in the previous years of ministry at the church. There were key leaders from the local "Bluegrass Theater Guild" in the church. There were a couple of young adults who had done "interp" multiple times. The local dance studio is massive, so drama and dance were already both a part of the church and community culture. If that's not the case where you are, it may be unwise to force artistic forms like these into your worship ministry.
When it came to using drama, there were several ways this team member helped. In the creative meetings, they would be thinking about concepts, writers, directors, actors, props, and story lines. Again, because this was IN the creative process--like in the previous post about a tech coordinator--it streamlined the work that took place after our meetings. And some of what this person would do involved lining up those folks. Depending on the specific gifting of the various people who served on the team, some were writers, others creators, others actors, etc. That part didn't matter to me as much as someone who was thinking about spiritual dynamics when it came to how we could use drama to engage the hearts and minds of those gathered for worship.
And when it came to dance, the team member was primarily a coordinator. I'd bring in a choreographer. They would enlist the dancers and coordinate rehearsals. Of course the music we used was determined in our planning process. More about that in about 3 or 4 posts.
Let me share a glimpse of two times we used these tools effectively.
Our pastor wanted to preach a series about the topics we don't talk about in church, things like abortion, homosexuality, atheism, etc. These hot potatoes the church usually avoids or addresses poorly. So we decided to write a series of 6 drama sketches, one for each of the spoofed characters from Friends--the TV show. Our approach in this particular series was to have the drama sketch be fun, funny, and then really tense. After the cast would raise an issue where everyone was holding their breath to see what would happen we would stop the production and our pastor would step in. He could then say something like, "I'm so glad you have friends struggling with these things because the Bible has some amazing counsel to give. Let's dive into the ancient scriptures and see what God has to say." It was powerful. It was effective. It was engaging. People looked forward to what was coming. It was fun!
My favorite dance story involves a dear friend of mine who was battling depression. This particular friend had a daughter who was in a dance piece we did to "How Great Is Our God." They were standing in the back of the room when the dance troupe performed for a full room. And as one of the dancers was raised up like Jesus--in the form of a cross--God broke through the depression and for the first time in 6 months my friend was free to worship with an open heart and mind.
Both of these things took hours and hours and hours of work from many, many people. And it was worth everything. Every. Thing.
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