Each year, downtown Andalusia hosts Christmas in Candyland — a holiday celebration with Christmas lights and decorations, train and carriage rides, kid-sized cottages, music and snow shows.
This year, First Baptist Church, Andalusia, added another element to the annual tradition — a drive-thru nativity presentation.
“Our city does a great job with this huge Christmas production, but we really wanted to bring the focus of Christmas to celebrating the birth of Jesus,” said Kevin Wilburn, pastor of First, Andalusia.
A cast and crew of 200 helped design sets, create scenes and act out the nativity story. Camels, llamas, sheep, goats, horses and other animal actors played their roles too.
Gospel opening
Around 4,000 people drove through during the three nightly shows held Dec. 4–6, and as they did, they could tune their radios to a narration of the scenes and a gospel presentation.
Visitors also received a copy of “The Life Book” as a gift from the church and The Gideons International, Wilburn said.
The church is praying for gospel conversations over the next few weeks, he said.
Wilburn also said the project was good for the community and for the church in a year when many annual traditions have had to be canceled or adapted.
“Throughout this COVID year, we have worked to maintain our vision to ‘Love God, Love Others, Make Disciples and Make a Difference,’” he said. “We focused on what we could do instead of what we couldn’t do and decided we would do a drive-thru Christmas story.
“We have made adjustments for worship online and on campus, and we have enlarged our television coverage,” Wilburn said. “This weekend was another adjustment in our journey.”
A video of the drive-thru nativity is available on the church’s website and Facebook page. Go to fbcandalusia.org to watch.
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