Drama teams bring biblical stories to life in state’s Baptist churches

Lights! Camera! Action! Quiet on the set!” These words are no longer used only at the theater, but now in Alabama Baptist churches as well.
   
Once used a couple of times a year for Christmas and Easter productions, drama teams are now meeting year-round.
   
The teams use their skills to reach people in Sunday morning services, at children’s events and in Sunday School classes. Like choirs and ensembles, these teams are committed to practicing and honing their skills at weekly team meetings and spending additional hours rehearsing for special events.
   
Mark Sims, director of student music and the arts at Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Vestavia Hills, has led the Crown Players eight years. According to Sims, you will find members of the 16-person group active almost every week somewhere at Shades Mountain, where Danny Wood is pastor. They may be kicking off the third-graders’ study of the Old Testament in Sunday School, telling a story in the preschool department or acting in a sketch to illustrate the pastor’s sermon.
   
The Crown Players work with every ministry and every age group in the church.
   
Drama teams are also committed to training and improving their talents. They attend workshops and use their weekly meeting to play theater games and do improvisational exercises. Many actors write sketches as well.
   
Still, many members do not have a deep theater background. Shades Mountain’s Tracy Johnson discovered a passion for acting after trying it, but it’s not necessarily a love for the stage that keeps her involved.
   
“I started this because it sounded like fun, but the biggest thing for me now is the camaraderie,” Johnson said. “We are extremely close-knit. We share each other’s ups and downs.”
   
While drama teams come in different shapes and sizes, they share a commitment to excellence. Most require an audition to join.
   
Auditions for Valleydale Baptist Church’s Impact drama ministry in Birmingham are held twice a year, according to director Margie Eubanks.
   
Visions, the drama ministry at Heritage Baptist Church in Montgomery, is led by church member Carol Heier.
   
She started Visions in September of 1994 at the request of then-pastor Hayden Center. To keep themselves on track and accountable, the team wrote a detailed mission and purpose statement in 1997. “Early on we realized that it takes three hours of rehearsal time for every five minutes on stage,” she said. “It takes that for excellence.”
   
Visions has about 35 members, but some are considered part time.
   
“One of the things that draws people to this ministry is that they can commit at the level they’re comfortable with,” explained Heier.
   
A core group is committed to full-time participation and meets weekly, not to rehearse, but to train and hone their craft.
   
Others, including youth, children and senior adults, are called for special events.
   
They also do dinner theaters and several annual events in conjunction with the music ministry.
   
Pastors have also discovered how effective drama can be in reinforcing their messages and capturing their congregations’ attention.
   
Valleydale Baptist’s Eubanks works closely with Pastor Calvin Kelly. She described Kelly as “very supportive” of Impact, and said, “Drama is a good way to express a Bible thought in a new context.”
   
Bill Wilks, senior pastor of NorthPark Baptist Church in Trussville, was instrumental in building the church’s drama team.
   
He began by forming a Creative Arts Ministry Team of church members and staff members that meets weekly to discuss ways to illustrate upcoming sermons. Many times the team chooses a video clip or live drama.
   
“We live in a visual society,” Wilks said. “We watch TVs; we look at computer screens and music videos. A visual representation of a sermon point sticks in people’s minds. As you preach, they have a picture in their minds.”
   
Wilks has found that, as one might expect, the surprising images make the most lasting impact.
   
The NorthPark congregation was startled once when a professional rappeller descended on a rope from the ceiling to the floor of the worship room on a “search-and-rescue” mission. This event was the climax of Wilks’ Homeland Security sermon series.
   
“Incorporating drama in our services gets more people involved in ministry,” he said. “It’s an awesome way to capitalize on more of our members’ God-given talents.”
   
Even churches that only use drama around holidays may get a taste of the visual message during sermons.
   
Pastor Allan Murphy describes the worship services at North Shelby Baptist Church in Shelby Association as “traditional.”
   
However, inspired by national evangelist Jim McNiel, who recites passages from the King James Version Bible in character word for word, Murphy has preached Sunday night sermons in biblical dress.
   
He preached the Gospel of John as John, Acts as Luke, James as James and portions of Genesis as Moses. Murphy doesn’t have a dramatic background, but rather, he said, “I tried it and found I could do it.”
   
He added, “Drama gets your attention and keeps it. It literally makes stories come alive.”
   
Donald Sandley, chair of the theater department of Samford University, Birmingham, explained that the rise of drama use is not such a new thing historically.
  
“The theater and church have a relationship going back to ancient Greece,” he said. “During the medieval age, the church was responsible for reviving the theater in Europe.”
   
Further, Sandley said, theater can be traced back to Jesus Christ: “There is a theatricality in the way Jesus taught. He took a few fishes and loaves and fed a crowd. That was dramatic and very, very visual.”
   
As a professor, Sandley said the surge in church drama does not change what he does in the classroom. But he is encouraged by the new opportunities provided for graduating students.
   
“We’ve had a lot of our graduates go to student life ministries,” Sandley said. “Now, we’re also seeing many of them called by churches as drama ministers.”
   
In today’s visual society, most drama leaders agree that the church and theater have a great future together.