Lenten Dramas

The Top Stuff to Consider When Beginning a Lenten-Series in Your Congregation

by Daniel D. Maurer, Arches 'n Bells Founder and Editor-in-Chief

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I grew up in the United Methodist Church. Our family attended a small congregation in Champlin, Minnesota, a suburb just north of Minneapolis. Once per week, we'd make the trek from our home in Anoka to a quaint little church on the edge of a pond, just across the Mississippi River .

Our attendance was nearly perfect, mostly because my mother and father were so active in leadership roles in the congregation. Mom taught Sunday school nearly every year. (I have to say that I dreaded being in her class, not because she was strict or mean, but because I didn't want to mess up!)  My dad mostly filled a helping role for the church, like assisting with unpacking boxes or serving on the church council.

Growing up in that tradition (our church was fairly "loose" liturgically, as far as UMC churches go), I never realized that there was any other way to do church—I came to expect exactly what to sing when the doxology came, and I certainly didn't believe that anyone would really ever NEED Holy Communion more than three or four times per year. And Lent? The season wasn't even on my radar!

I didn't even know about the season leading up to Easter until later in my life when I met my future wife, Carol at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.

There must have been something special with her—and the place where I was studying, an ELCA college—because whoda thunk it . . . I switched teams! Maybe it was in the water . . . but I started worshiping within the progressive Lutheran Church.

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Something tells me this pamphlet didn't go into a second printing. Source.

What's worse than that, I had to go all out. I went to Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa for my graduate studies to become an ELCA pastor.

Needless to say, I got to know about the wonderful season of Lent.

I write wonderful, because it really is. Lent is a time to ponder mortality, think upon Jesus' sacrifice, and just how the Reign of God manifests itself through the perceived weakness of the cross.

As a pastor, Lent also gave me the freedom to venture off the path of the Revised Common Lectionary and explore other themes in a creative manner. (The Narrative Lectionary, by the way, does this as well, but through offering a completely different set of readings!)

One creative outlet for the congregations I served in western North Dakota was theater. As I pointed out in posting this video and through writing this article, theater is fun, effective, engaging, and will launch your preaching into a renewed interest in the minds and hearts of your people!

But . . . maybe you're asking: where to start? More specifically, what sort of drama resources will not only be effective, but easy-to-use and relevant to your particular, theologically grace-centered context?

Never fear—Arches 'n Bells is here!

I've compiled a list of the ways (and specific resources for you to peruse at your leisure) how best to proceed when selecting a thematic trajectory for your congregational context.

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Consider the BIG Themes of Lent

Lent, after all, is the season directly preceding and leading up to the light and wonder of Easter. Historically, Lent has been a "procession of darkness." This isn't to say that it's all glum and anti-hallejah (although I respect anyone who wants to honor that tradition). Instead, the readings in Lent lead people on Jesus' own journey to Jerusalem.

Although some theologians traditionally see that Jesus foreknew his own fate (he had to have some idea that the ruling class didn't care for him too much), I prefer to side on the progressive understanding, that as a human being, he was going into the situation blind. Where he differed, I believe, is that he was willing to die for the message of infinite love to be heard.

"Jesus matters [because he is] the decisive disclosure of God," according to Marcus Borg, Jesus Seminar scholar. Lent matters, because we need to convey the story of the passion. You can't have the passion without the events leading up to it.

Okay. Whew... So where does this all connect with the themes that you are seeking for Lent?

It's really quite simple:

The story of Jesus—and God's message through Jesus—directly intersects

what it means to be human.

Zee question is vaht are you concerned about, ulteemately . . . (Cheesy Accent gratis D. Maurer.)

What are the themes surrounding the human condition? As a professional freelance writer, I often bump up against these very themes all the time when I write. Why? Because it makes an interesting, tension-filled, and hopefully redemptive story! THE BIG STORY has these themes and asks the BIG QUESTIONS, because I believe God engages humanity through questions of ultimate concern.

Those themes of ultimate concern are things like:

• What does it mean that I'm afraid?
• Where is God when bad things happen?
• How can death not be a dark, foreboding abyss, but instead be a Lenten journey God's own self took to "fill all things up" in Jesus the Christ? (Ephesians 1:10b – a flipping amazing passage.)
• Do the bad guys (and gals) eventually win?
• How can a person harmonize the loss of a loved one not only to get through the experience, but find a sense of meaning and purpose by it?
• Why do ancient and sometimes strange stories still draw us to ponder God anew?

I bet you can think of a bunch more of these. (After all, I'm out of practice in the clergy biz.)

The point is asking the right questions and authentically listening to people's hurts, fears, joys, frustrations, hopes, and sorrows give you a theme from which to launch a series.

Still, maybe you're asking: Where to turn for resources?! I don't have enough time!

Again, never fear . . . funchurchplays.com is here. Again. (I know I just wrote that.)

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What Resources are Already Out There to Explore Additional Themes for a Lenten Series?

Here's a list of books I've found helpful in the past:

1. Eastertide: Prayers for Lent Through Easter by Phyllis Tickle 
2. 40 Days of Living the Jesus Creed by Scot McKnight 
3. Lectio Divina Bible Study: Learning to Pray in Scripture by Stephen J. Binz
4. A Place at the Table: 40 Days of Solidarity with the Poor by Chris Seay
5. One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp
6. A Book of Hours by Thomas Merton 
7. Online, I used to love the site, Textweek. Here's their Lent stuff.
8. Read works from the mystics and Church Mothers, such as: Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, and Therese of Lisieux.
9. Joseph Sittler's books are all worthwhile, in my opinion (albeit many are short and some hard to find). But this one in particular is relevant to this article.

See that guy? No, not the one who's looking silly. The guy lifting the other guy! Yeah. That one. That's Arches 'n Bells doing the heavy lifting. No slackin' off with us.

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention Arches 'n Bells.

We've taken pains to produce theologically progressive and grace-centered, inclusive-language replete, and hands-down fun and super-awesome monologues, dialogues, reader's theater, skits, plays, and theatrical resources for you!

It's our goal here to do the heavy lifting and write the best stuff . . . so you have time to focus on actually sharing the message the best way you can.

 

 

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What Current Themes Do I Need to be Addressing in my own Congregational Context?

How the heck should I know! I'm not there. You are!

The point we aim for at Arches 'n Bells is that theater resources should not be too "churchy." That is to say, it's fine once and while to create a plot where people are discussing a topic with their pastor (we offer a few of these plays, as some folks still want them), but that just isn't where most people are at in their lives! Where are people at? They're living their lives! (In REAL life.) If you want church to be relevant and for people to connect their faith lives with the quotidian, everyday stuff. . . then you had better connect in ways they understand. Theater does this, and it will continue to kick butt doing this.

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"We just LOVE the Twenty-First Century."

Believe me, I know. I used to be a pastor. I LIVED in the church. Now, I'm a person of long-term recovery and a layperson. I find it really challenging sometimes when churches fail to apply simple common sense when it comes to both designing a worship service, and also using new technologies or simply recognizing the new ways people form communities in our society! We're living in the 21st Century, folks.

That doesn't mean during Lent we need to go all hipster. No, not at all.

It means that we can use an already ancient method of telling the story of God . . . with theater and drama during Lent! Our mission at Arches 'n Bells is to make your life easier by writing high-quality resources so that you can do them the way you need to do them . . . in your own context.

Whatever you do, and however you prepare for a Lenten series, know that story matters. It will always matter. That means you—the storyteller—will always matter. Your job and mine (as a freelance writer), aren't actually all that different, in fact!

Ministry works best when you tell the story in diverse and creative ways. That's what we're about here and we hope to make your life easier . . . at least when it comes to picking out some cool resources.

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About the Author

Daniel D. Maurer is a husband, a father, a writer, an author of two books (one here & the other here), a speaker, an editor, a website designer, and is owned by two cats and one dog. He founded Arches 'n Bells out of deeply-seated belief that dramatic resources belong in church to teach and engage. His non-fiction writing brand deals with the power of change and transformation in people's lives, because he's lived through a big change in his own life in embracing long-term recovery. Daniel also curates and edits and does other schtuff for Clergy Stuff, a provider of worship resources for congregations using the Narrative Lectionary.

Church Skits and Plays—Putting the "Fun" Back Into Faith

Why skits, plays, and other theatrical endeavors are not simply worthwhile, but a MUST in today's progressive faith communities and churches.

by Daniel D. Maurer, Arches 'n Bells Founder

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When I was an ELCA pastor serving in western North Dakota, I quickly found out the power of a fun church play to put "fun" (translate: engagement and joy) back into faith. One time in particular stands out in my memory...

Something like this.

In 2001, the confirmation class I was teaching was a tough group of kids. What I mean by that is not that the kids came from tough backgrounds or were unruly. No, it was far worse—they really didn't want to be there. I consider myself a fairly hip guy, and I can relay information with the best of any pastor out there, but every. single. kid. had the look of supreme boredom embedded (carved, really) on their faces. Nothing I said or activities I encouraged them to undertake seemed to vanquish the stoicism from their expressions.

It also didn't seem to matter if I presented the material in multimedia—in fact, it seemed to make it worse. No amount of preparation I put into a Power Point slide seemed to capture the kids' attentions. Worse yet, I've since found out that this experience is common! It has to do with how the brain works. And kids' brains especially don't want to retain a fire-hose-gush of information.

But then I wrote a skit—a simple, wacky, fun, and informative skit.

Just to illustrate to you how effective it was, I'll let you know that I still remember the plot line of that church play, and I recall perfectly how both the kids, and also the adults they performed it to, responded to it.

The topic was creation. We had to spell out for the kids the basic tenets of God's continual act of creation. I used the second story of creation in Genesis. (Did you know there is more than one?)

For this skit, I chose to write it in a simple, easy-to-understand format—I just did a paraphrase of the second creation story of Adam and Eve. What I remember is that the fun (and the giggling) gushed out of the kids when the part came that both main characters "...were naked, and felt no shame." I remember the two kids—a boy and a girl—both dancing around in a circle chanting, "We're naked! We're naked! And we feel no shame!" (That part was the kids' own ad lib, by the way.)

Immediately, I saw the value of using dramatic expressions to relay the stories in scripture. The amazing thing about doing this, is that using theater to teach—and it's bullseye-hitting power—has been known for some time!

Kids and adults going all "story creature" on us.

What should have been painfully obvious to me as a leader in the congregation was that theater not only works for kids and teens, but also for adults. The fact of the matter is that human beings are storied creatures. As it happens, when I speak publicly about addiction, recovery, and the process of transformation, I make this very point: people just respond and learn better when they can act it out.

“It was noted a very long time ago that God made us in [God’s] image as storied creatures. We are, as human beings, creatures who love to tell a story and even love more to hear a story. Stories are actually essential to us to such an extent that even as in the Latin we often refer to ourselves as homo sapiens, the thinking creature. We are also homo narrates, we are the creature that cannot help telling stories.”

— From "The Briefing" — Podcast from AlbertMohler.com

Below are the THREE BIG POINTS!!! (see the exclamation marks?!) on which to ruminate whilst using dramatic resources. I've compiled these not simply to convince you about doing it (that part should be obvious), but also so that you'll be more effective in the way you present the skits, plays, or display of thespianic-awesomeness in your own context.

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1. Keep it Fun!

The big reasons why I began Arches 'n Bells were that many of the resources already existing online for congregations weren't meeting two crucial needs—people want to be entertained (and that's okay!) and people in progressive faith communities want topics that reflect what's happening in real life.

Of course, there are loads of topics in the Bible that simply aren't conducive to silliness or triviality! Well then, go ahead and get serious—but do it well. Engage us. Suck us into the story. Put us at the edges of our seats, for crying out loud! After all, the stories in the Bible already do this—we simply miss the point how dramatic, engaging, intriguing, or humorous they are!

Walt Wangerin, one of our greatest expositors of scriptural stories today, said it best in his work, Paul: A Novel (here are the character Paul's own words): “Go back to the books. They will comfort you and cheer you. If you earnestly work with them, neither sorrow nor anxiety nor distress nor suffering need trouble your mind any more, no, not evermore.”

The stories are what matter. Engage people, and they will listen. More importantly, they will learn.

2. Keep it Contextual!

This should be a proclamation from Capitan Obvious; I mention it because so many leaders forget the context in which they serve.

Remember your people! Know the stories and the history of where you serve. It's difficult to give specific advice to this point, because every context is different. One point that I stress with each of our plays we offer at FunChurchPlays.com is that after you download it, you can do what you want with it. Not every congregation or youth-group will respond to some of the über-snark that some of our playwrights inherently seem to be imbued with. But that's why we offer lots of different options—so you can adapt each play to your own setting.

Another point fitting for the context is gearing each of your presentations in line with the season or time of year you're presenting. Lent is different than Advent or Christmas. And during the summer too—people forget that a play or skit doesn't need to be overly complicated to be effective. Drama, even done with little preparation, is better than standing in a pulpit and giving a sermon. (Nothing against sermons, we need them, of course!)

3. Invite Others to Participate!

In a day and age when people expect professional clergy to be the ones who undertake and direct all-that-is-religious-or-spiritual, it's more important than ever to invite others to participate in acting out a skit or dramatic reading. And they'll like it all the more that you invite them to enjoy themselves doing it! (Theater pieces are called "plays" for a reason.)

Following Jesus is never easy, but always worthwhile. Have you ever asked yourself or others in your congregation why specifically we "do worship" every week? We "do it" because it's practice. It's rehearsing. The liturgy guides us and cements itself into our lives so that—in theory—we live out what God is calling us to be: God's own grace-centered people. Flesh on the bones.

Full disclosure: I'm Lutheran. (I know. It's so embarrassing.) I see the world through the lens of Lutheran theology. But I grew up in the Methodist Church (UMC). (I bet your heart is "strangely warmed" by the thought of this.) One of the points I've found within all grace-centered, progressive mainstream denominations is that all see the radical love of Jesus of Nazareth as something our world is still sorely lacking. 

What better way to add to practicing and rehearsing one's faith by using drama?

I found that adding in a dramatic presentation or interpretation of scripture was not only helpful for the congregation, but was a pastoral act in itself—people want to participate. All you have to do is ask, and do it right.

Skits, plays, seasonal productions . . . or whatever you want to call them . . . are not simply tools to tell a story—they are invariably a vital component of telling THE story, the love-hymn of God to God's own beloved.

Use them—you'll be glad you did!

The rest of the STORY will take care of itself.

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About Daniel D. Maurer

Daniel D. Maurer is a husband, a father, a writer, an author of two books (one here & the other here), a speaker, an editor, a website designer, and is owned by two cats and one dog. He founded Arches 'n Bells out of deeply seated belief that dramatic resources belong in church to teach and engage. His non-fiction writing brand deals with the power of change and transformation in people's lives, because he's lived through a big change in his own life in embracing long-term recovery. Daniel also curates and edits and does other schtuff for Clergy Stuff, a provider of worship resources for congregations using the Narrative Lectionary.