Each year Word of Peace Lutheran Church offers up lenten worship services on Wednesday nights. They include music from the Holden Evening Prayer Service as well as a drama and short reflection. The services are around 45 minutes in length and include a soup supper.
We originally had only one service until we began bringing our confirmation classes to worship. We have around 330 students in confirmation so we needed to move to two services to accommodate for people from the general congregation to attend. A wonderful problem to have.
To be perfectly honest, I have had my issues with the dramas in years past. The quality has slowly dropped over the years and they became less of a priority and more of a burden and afterthought. This was mostly because of a lack of good resources for Lenten worship and drama. We used all the good ones and didn't want to start recycling old plays because we are in a different place now as a congregation than we were 5 years ago.
So I found my big mouth opening and volunteering to be in charge of the Lenten Dramas and write them this year. I am very surprised how stressfully rewarding it has become.
Writing Lenten Dramas
I have learned a lot over the past months when trying to write our own Lenten Dramas.
1. It is not impossible. Keeping it simple is the best way to keep the scripts in the realm of possibility. It is very easy to start with big dreams and aspirations and then have them squashed. If you keep focused on your type of congregation, who the dramas are for and the type of volunteers you will have, then the script should remain very "do-able".
2. Where do you find inspiration? Last summer a youth at our church was in Godspell Jr. and performed it with a community group at a nearby high school. It stuck in my mind as something we could do as a lenten Drama. Now, the final product was NOT Godspell Jr, but the style and parables of Jesus used were similar to those used in the play. Keep your eyes and ears open for inspiration for dramas, it can come from the most unlikely of places.
3. Volunteers. I have a great relationship with many of the youth and families of the congregation here. I have worked with them for 10 years and we have built a trust and open dialogue where I feel like I can ask them to volunteer and they would say yes. Youth are also a great place for the domino effect to take place. By this I mean, if one brave person says yes, then they can ask their friend and that friend will only do it if their friend will do it and so on. In a matter of a week I had my core group. Knowing who to ask first is also key. Asking the right person and then empowering them to invite others makes your job easier.
4. Scripts, don't be afraid to try something new. This year is a large departure from years past. We have jokingly labeled this season as a "Light-hearted Lent". The scripts have depth to it, but not until the ice has been broken by involving the congregation with a little laughter or even a part in the play. I have written a part into the script where the congregation oooos, ahhhhs and & gasps during the play. It doesn't hurt to look in the Bible for your lines either. The majority of the lines said come straight from the Parables of Jesus.
The last thing that is very different this year is an experiential element within the service. We have never done anything like this on a large scale. The best part about experiential elements is it gets the congregation out of their seats and physically involved in the worship. It is different than singing or corporate confession and prayer. There is a vulnerability about it that helps people express their faith in new way.
Next week I will start talking about our Lenten Chalkboard. I was unsure about how well it would be received by the congregation...I was blown out of the water by what happened last week.
Till then, God Bless
Dain
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