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June 2005 Table of Contents
Special Feature
Excerpts from The Ultimate Idea Book II
By Phil Barfoot
Phil Barfoot's The Ultimate Idea Book for Music Ministy, Vol. 2 is now available from J&J Music. If you're at all familiar with the first volume, you know what an exhaustive compendium of information is included... and this one is twice the size of the first. In addition, both volumes of the book are now available both in printed form and convenient pdfs on CD-ROM. For more information about both volumes, contact your J&J music sales consultant.
In future issues of The Communicator, you'll find a quick sampling of the over 1100 ideas that are in Volume 2. In this article, to go along with the Christmas issue, we've selected some of the ideas straight out of the Christmas section of the book. Whether your church's Christmas celebration is large, small or in between, you'll find tons of great ideas in this enormous 800+ page book!
975. Show Your Plan!
I always prepare a rehearsal schedule in August that will show every rehearsal for every song/ scene in our production. I offer child care, meals and whatever else necessary to help maximize rehearsal effectiveness.
-Jon Graham/Bethlehem First Baptist Church/Bethlehem, GA
976. Put 'Em All Together
Having a strong Youth Choir gives us the opportunity to combine with adults and do exciting multi-generational projects. For our Living Christmas Tree, we use our Youth Choir on the tree with the Adult Choir surrounding them on stage. The Children's Choir also has a prominent part. We begin combined rehearsals six weeks out. In the three recordings we have done with Christian Copyright Alliance, we have used the Adult Choir and High School Choir - 150 singers - to achieve a wonderful youthful vitality.
-O. D. Hall, Jr./Magnolia Avenue Baptist Church/Riverside, CA
977. Three Parts
Our Christmas production is in three parts: fun/secular Christmas music, then a formal "concert" section, then the Biblical section. Each year the choir enters from the back during the overture coming through the crowd. We have cards printed with the year's Christmas logo. Each choir member writes a personal note of greeting and hands out cards to 3 or 4 people on the way to the platform, giving the person a verbal welcome as well. It makes the beginning very warm and it seems to relax the crowd.
-Glenn Crosthwait/Johns Creek Baptist Church/Alpharetta, GA
979. Walk The Aisles
We do a strong, confrontational evangelistic presentation. We ask people to walk the aisles during the invitation. Each year, several hundred people respond to the invitation to receive Christ and then become active in our church. Don't just entertain people (they can see that on television). Confront them with biblical truths! The Word of God changes lives!
-Ken Hartley/Central Baptist Church/Hixson, TN
981. Friends And Family Carol-Sing
Every Christmas season, we schedule a Sunday evening for the "Friends and Family CarolSing." We help families and groups of friends select and prepare carols to sing for the congregation. Some of our members say it is the most meaningful service of the year. Our church staff sang one Christmas. The most moving presentation was given by our Special Education Class.
-Terry D. Taylor/First Baptist Church/Dothan, AL
982. Maximize Set Design
To maximize set design, consider a rotating stage. Figure the largest diameter, build up to make a flat surface, use dollies, casters or whatever and divide the turntable in half with a downstage and upstage side. The downstage side holds the current scene while the upstage side is getting set up for the next scene. Properly masked, on the first rotation the crowd is extremely impressed.
-Jon Graham/Bethlehem First Baptist Church/Bethlehem, GA
986. "Takin' It To The Streets"
The town in which I minister has several churches with long traditions of putting on extravagant Christmas musicals that are attended by thousands. In our struggle to find our own niche, four years ago, we began "taking it to the streets." Another local ministry has a semi-truck converted to a stage with sound and lights. We rent that and put on a 30-minute Christmas show in neighborhoods, school parking lots, apartment complexes, and Wal-Mart. We purchased a huge star-shaped balloon that is filled with helium, spot-lighted and attached to the truck. A prayer station is set up off to the side. Another station passes out refreshments. Before the show, we hand out little flashlights with the church logo imprinted, candy canes and a program. Inside the program are the words to all the songs we're singing as well as other well-known carols. The last five pages contain the salvation message in easy to understand terms. After the show, we hand out free CD's that contain the songs we sang and invite everyone to attend one of our Christmas Eve services. Try it!
-Michael McGrew/Palma Sola Bay Baptist Church/Bradenton, FL
987. A Powerful Pageant
We present the life of Christ each Christmas season for our community. We love to run a contemporary family alongside the Biblical story. Somehow, it seems to reach modern man a little more effectively. Last year we got access to a commercial jet-liner and pre-shot several scenes of a soldier returning home from Iraq. He was a non-believer and seated beside him was a Christian who told him the story of Jesus, which we brought to life on stage. After the resurrection, he asked, "What do I need to do?" and our Pastor stepped right out to give the invitation. It was one of the most powerful pageants with incredible response.
-Robert H. Flint/McGregor Baptist Church/Ft. Myers, FL
988. Christmas Lane
More and more we have realized how important it is to appeal to unchurched people to come to our annual Christmas Musicals. In discussing this with our Creative Team at First Assembly, we decided to go a little further with our annual event and add some really extra, wacky stuff to bring in the outsider.
We came up with a very usable and familiar name, Christmas Lane. It caught on right away around our church and everyone wanted to be a part. We found ourselves creating a special space along the side of our church where we could have a whole area dedicated to just Christmas rides, food and activities. Everyone was invited to Christmas Lane. It was free, but you still had to have a ticket to the musical (three nights) that followed the experience of Christmas Lane.
The Lane opened a couple hours before the musical (it closed during the musical and then opened up for a couple of hours after the musical). We brought rides in from outside the church and even created some of our own. The following are descriptions of the rides: We had a train ride that went all around the church. This was probably the most popular as you could tell by the long lines always at the station with people and their children waiting to take the ride. We had a white horse-drawn carriage that went through another area of our parking lot. We had a beautiful old "souped" up vintage car that was the pride of one of our members. He took people for a ride in this super bike-car. Of course, many wanted their picture taken by this car. Out in front of Christmas Lane we had a pony ride. All the little kids flocked to this ride. We had a tiny Ferris wheel, and little merry-go-round, and a few other smaller rides for all ages. Right between Christmas Lane and the street is a pretty grassy area where we have eight 30' pear trees lining the area. All of these trees were decorated with white lights. We also brought in around 40 huge Christmas Trees that we stood up along side of the church and put all white lights on them. This gave the great "Christ-massy" feel along with the sounds, smells of all the food, and the beautiful decorated little houses that lined the lane for about 300 feet.
Another highlight was Santa Claus. He was sitting in a sleigh and passing out candy canes. The line was long here too, as the kids waited to get their free picture with Santa. Probably the highlight of the night was after the musical when everyone walked out of the church back to Christmas Lane, and it was snowing over the area. Men of the church concocted a snow machine on top of the church. It wasn't the best because our temperatures never got under 32 degrees, but the idea and the scene was beautiful. Right in front of the church we had rented a huge searchlight that you could see for many miles away.
The idea was to attract people from everywhere, and it did just that. You could have all of the food you wanted: Hot dogs, kettle corn, all kinds of candy, soft drinks, hot chocolate, and much, much more. Family pictures were taken inside the church and given to everyone free. This experience was a little costly since everything was free, but we felt it was well worth it just to see thousands of people come through our church, enjoy Christmas Lane, laugh at the puppet show right before the musical, watch and listen to a quality musical and hear a great non-threatening invitation by our Pastor.
-David E. Richards/First Assembly of God/North Little Rock, AR
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