Being in a small congregation means that most of teh Christmas pageants that one finds are essentially useless. Many of them are written with the "find speaking parts for the most kids" mindset, but when your regular Sunday School is 5 children in Grades 3 and under with a couple of youth you may be able to get to help that mindset just doesn't fit.
ANd so each year I toy with writing something. But thus far I have always been fortunate enough to find something that will work. ANd that is good since often I don't start thinking about it until NOvember. But this year I have started thinking early and am tempted to try to write a whole service/pageant for White Gift Sunday.
So far I have an idea to have 4 speakers:
- A narrator/liturgist
- Scripture Reader
- An older woman remembering fondly what Christmas in the church used to be
- A young man/woman who is struggling (possibly homeless???) economically and wondering what CHristmas will bring this year.
The service would intersperse carols and spoken bits and prayers as we talk about the Christmas story and lead into the sharing of gifts for the Food Bank or Christmas Cheer. NOt sure what to do about the "traditional pageant" piece. THe kids we have could be granchildren or children of the speaking parts or some sort of pageant tableau could be worked in. Do we have to have a stable scene for it to be "proper"?
My tentative Advent theme as a whole is looking at what is being born. Writing our homegrown pageant could allow it to fit that theme????
Suggestion: let the actors have their scripts in hand. Believe it or not, script-in-hand theatre works just as well as "memorized" lines, and has the advantage that people won't feel intimidated by having to do memorization.
ReplyDeleteALways do it that way Peter. I have learned from experience as a Sunday School teacher....
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