The KIT 'n' Kaboodle Blog

 Come close and listen,
    all you who honor God;
    I will tell you what God has done for me:
Psalm 66:15 (Common English Bible)
Kingdom Impact Theater Ministries
  • Welcome
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Our Ensemble
    • Our Dream
    • A.C.T. Intl
    • Photo Gallery
    • Video Highlights
  • Theater
    • Online
    • Historical
    • Holidays
    • Outreach
    • Unshackled
  • Worship
    • Spoken
    • Music
    • Vikki J. Myers
    • Chos3n
    • Instrumentalists
  • Training
    • Performance
    • Leadership
    • Communications
  • Give
    • Partnering
    • Booking
    • Testimonials
  • Connect
    • Networking
  • Resources
    • Music & Audiobooks
    • KIT-n-Kaboodle Blog
    • Prayer
    • Postcards

The Resurrection in Christmas Songs

3/30/2018

0 Comments

 
Woman singing with pianist.
Garlan Garner and Vikki J. Myers sing of the Resurrection's message often overlooked in Christmas songs.
Undoubtedly Christmas and Easter are two of the most popular and celebrated holidays of our culture, even among people who do not understand or believe in the central focus of their praise: That God, the Creator of Life, offers a permanent relationship with humans through the life work of His emissary Jesus The Christ.

 Beneath the catchy or reflective melodies often heard during holiday galas are provocative, inspiring poems whose depth is often missed, even by the most passionate Christ-follower. 

We explored those  poems,  revisited the Scriptures that inspired them and discovered the depth of their lyrical message:  What Jesus endured to save humans — who by nature rebel (or “sin”) against God — from eternal separation from God (eternal death, or “hell”).    The result is a new production based on a previous premise:  Singing the music of Christmas as Easter carols.
Picture
As a result, we adapted the lyrics of 61 Christmas and Easter songs, converted them to dialogue, did the same  related Scriptures and created two reader's theater presentations, "Carol Story" and "Carol Story: The Easter Edition."   The scripts were written independently, a decade apart.   Each "Story" is a powerful gospel reflection on its holiday season, and can be presented to supplement a planned program. Yet something stunning occurred when viewing them together.
​
After a Christmas-season tour of the 10-minute Carol Story," conversations with our  guest pianist, clergy and audience members, sparked conversations about a "sequel" for Easter with the same concept, and only a few of the same songs.  There are four Christmas songs used in both.  We also added scriptures as transitional dialogue, because of the nature of the Resurrection narrative.


LEARN MORE: 
The "Carol Story"  and "Carol Story  Easter Edition" Playlists

A community organization requested our services for a special Holy Week program, and so to complete the allotted time, the one acts were connected as a 55-minute outreach that yielded impact we had not anticipated.

Hearing back from audiences has been educational.  "I did not know there were so many hymns about the life of Christ," a viewer told us.  We understood the awkwardness in her phrase -- that though we sing hymns of praise and worship, sometimes the story of Jesus is missed.  By jove, she got it!

​For cast, embodying the characters relying solely on the words and without extraneous set pieces has intensified our relation to the Scriptures and God's creativity.  Moreover, responding to spontaneous audience responses during performance make discoveries unavailable in rehearsal, thus creating enthusiasm for reviewing the meaning of passages we may have misunderstood in first performance.

​We also discovered that although these are "Christmas" and "Easter" songs, neither piece is restricted to those holiday seasons, for their throughline is the life of Christ -- a message that transcends seasonal containment.  An element we found help with the community performance is this:  recognizing that not all in the audience believed the story of Christ, we felt it helpful to create program notes to put some phrases in context.  Those notes became the basis for this missive.


Jesus says only belief in Him and following His instructions saves those who want to be with God from eternal death and leads them to eternal life.  Jesus says that eternal life occurs only when a person’s spirit is reborn from rebellion against God, to embracing Him as ruler and guide of human life as outlined by Christ.

Those who wrote the lyrics we present understood these principles.  Some sitting among us tonight do as well. Whether you choose to believe is an individual choice which we respect. However, we admit we do have an agenda, so to speak, with this presentation.  Simply, whatever you think about Jesus now, that you leave with a greater understanding of the life of Christ, so that when you hear these songs in a mall or on radio you’ll hear the voice of God speaking to you more deeply.  Believe it, or not.

The Easter Sequel Genesis: A Gift from Marrs

The development of "Carol Story: The Easter Edition" was the outgrowth of a long-standing relationship with Friendship Village, a seniors living community in Schaumburg, IL, near the Kingdom Impact Theater Ministries home. 

Several members of the congregation of our home church resided at Friendship Village, including John Marrs, a fellow enthusiast of using theater arts in evangelism.  As a missionary in Brazil in the 1970s with his wife, Joyce, John used ventriloquism to share the gospel among young people and their parents.  When KIT Ministries began investigating touring, John was our unofficial "agent" among churches throughout the Baptist General Conference, now known as Converge.

Open bible.
Three crosses between stage curtains.
Programs of the "I Love to Tell The Story Trilogy"

After Joyce's passing, John moved intro Friendship Village and continued being our agent.  He introduced us to Donna Brown, the organization's event planner, who invited us to audition a program for the Easter season.  We created "I Love to Tell the Story," a reader's theater piece adapting Holy Week accounts of the gospel, along with  music for audience participation. The audience participated with minimal prompting during the program, but especially afterwards.  Their feedback led to requests to return,  even though not all residents are Christ-followers.  This provided opportunities to build on introducing the gospel and led to the development of "The 'I Love to Tell the Story' Trilogy," in many ways a prequel to "Carol Story: The Easter Edition."

Our partnership with Friendship Village, through John and Joyce Marrs, is evidence of establishing relationships and the power of performing arts as a community outreach. 

After
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    The KIT 'n' Kaboodle Blog

    The essays here are culled from our travels, conversations, worship experiences and discoveries.  

    ​Many are reprints from our newsletter, The KIT 'n' Kaboodle, or Facebook notes over time.

    ​They're written by our ensemble, Garlan Garner, Michael Edgar Myers or Vikki J. Myers -- solo, or collectively.


    Tweets by KitMinistries


    Archives

    November 2024
    June 2024
    February 2024
    December 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    November 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    July 2021
    December 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    March 2018
    December 2017
    July 2017
    March 2016

    Categories

    All
    55 For 55
    A.C.T. Intl
    Andrea Bocelli
    An Evening With Kingdom Impact Theater
    Bausch Visuales
    Biblical Counseling
    Black History Month
    Broadway
    Cabaret
    Cami Myers
    Chicago Marathon
    Christ Centered Worship
    Christ-Centered Worship
    Christianity
    Christmas
    Christmas Carols
    College Stress
    Communion
    Connection Church
    Converge MidAmerica
    Corona Virus
    Counseling
    Divorce
    Dr. Tony Evans
    Easter
    Eddie James
    Elk Grove Village
    Faith Hope And Love
    FBC Glendarden
    Fear
    Freedom Song
    Friendship Village
    Gary Rohrmayer
    Gethesemane
    Ghost Stories
    Gospel
    Gratitude
    Halloween
    Harvard Schools Of Public Health
    I'm Every Woman
    James Dean
    Jesus Christ
    Julius Caesar
    Kingdom Impact Theater
    Leadership
    Lord's Supper
    Mahalia Jackson
    Marriage
    Mental Health
    Migrants
    Ministry Stress
    Missions
    New Testament
    Old Testament
    Pastor Darryl Jenkins
    Pastors
    Pop Music
    Prayer
    Proverbs
    Psalm 51
    Quarantine
    Racial Reconciliation
    Rebel Without A Cause
    Relationships
    Ron Kenoly
    Running
    Sandy Cove Women's Conference
    Santa
    Scripture
    Shakespeare
    Sharon Jaynes
    Southern Baptist Convention
    Spirituality
    Spirituals
    St. Jude Children's Hospital
    Stress
    Teens
    Thanksgiving
    Theapy
    The Barn
    The Five Love Languages
    Ukraine
    Vikki J Myers
    Waukegan Community Church
    Whitney Houston
    Women
    Women's History Month
    Workshops
    Worship
    Worship Music
    Yeshua

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Welcome
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Our Ensemble
    • Our Dream
    • A.C.T. Intl
    • Photo Gallery
    • Video Highlights
  • Theater
    • Online
    • Historical
    • Holidays
    • Outreach
    • Unshackled
  • Worship
    • Spoken
    • Music
    • Vikki J. Myers
    • Chos3n
    • Instrumentalists
  • Training
    • Performance
    • Leadership
    • Communications
  • Give
    • Partnering
    • Booking
    • Testimonials
  • Connect
    • Networking
  • Resources
    • Music & Audiobooks
    • KIT-n-Kaboodle Blog
    • Prayer
    • Postcards