This morning was our Christmas Pageant. Normally I am not a big fan of pageants. I think I have seen too many troops of angels with tinsel halos and shepherds wearing bathrobes and towels. But this year was different.
A couple months ago two of the children (ages 9 and 11) in the congregation announced that they would write the pageant this year. Always willing to encourage activity and excitement such as that I said "go ahead" and the rest of the adults involved agreed (I wasn't sure on that one--it might not be a traditional pageant and that might have been an issue). The parents of the children involved helped finalize the script--and add a bit of the "Christian, meaning of Christmas" part to it. And this morning was the day.
The plot was more or less a take off on "How the Grinch..." with an angel appearing to help the lead character understand what she was feeling. Many of the children we have to draw from are pre-readers so it was good that most of the speaking was done by narrators with a few bits of dialogue. Yesterday at rehearsal things were, to say the least, chaotic. But this morning went without a hitch, or at least with no major hitches. It was well-received and it was different--and that is a selling point in my opinion.
However, we seem to have forgotten the offering. Actually, there was a point in the story where the congregation was invited to bring their white gifts forward and that was meant to be the offering time as well (bring it forward at the same time). Unfortunately that isn't how the line was written (it only referred to white gifts) and of course the line was read as written. I had a number of people afterward ask why the offering-or "collection", I hate that way of referring to it-was missed.
The odd thing is that this is how offering has been done during the pageant for the last 4 years--and the people who asked were regular attenders. But those who were worried got their envelope to the counters, and really, is it a terrible thing to have a worship service without passing the plate for a change??
PS: I hoped to have a picture from the show to post but got so busy helping move/cue the players that I didn't get the camera out.
Two kids wrote your pagaent? That's awesome!
ReplyDeleteWEll I get the impression there was a fair bit of "tweaking" needed once the mothers started helping but yeah, that is what happened.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah I think it is pretty darn awesome.
While I agree that it's not so bad to have a service without passing the plate, at this moment of the year with the Treasurer preparing to close the books, it's fairly significant to miss a day, unfortunately. I hate having to think about that stuff.
ReplyDeleteI think it's very cool that the kids were so involved in making the pageant happen.
I think it is so great the program was such a hit!
ReplyDeleteI believe people would have donated on the way out if a plate wasn't passed--at least, that's what I do.