Alabama Baptists share season’s message through styles of their own

With the approach of the holiday season comes the excitement and anticipation of experiencing meaningful Christmas productions held each year in most Alabama Baptist churches.
   
The variations and diversity of the churches’ programs range from traditional presentations to spectacular musical dramas like Broadway. Some productions feature mass choirs, ensembles, professional lighting and full orchestras. But no matter what the manner of delivery, one constant is the message of God’s love through the birth of His Son, Jesus Christ.
   
More and more churches today are embracing computerized multimedia technology in their worship services. With the incorporation of these tools comes the opportunity of offering more sophisticated types of holiday presentations such as elaborate musical productions that may include live animals, props, choreographed dance numbers and impressive special effects such as flying angels.
   
For some churches, Christmas productions are used not only as means of blessing their own congregations but as witnessing tools for the community as well. Such is the case with Lakeside Baptist Church, Birmingham, which has taken on the task of presenting a living Christmas tree as part of its annual Christmas program.
   
Lakeside also is in its fourth year of presenting a communitywide extravaganza known as “Christmas in the Magic City.” Last year’s musical drama was a two-part segment  beginning with a secular theme that included the interaction of the singing Christmas tree along with choreographed singing and dance numbers and concluded with a biblical setting — complete with live camels — encompassing the birth, crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. 
   
Last year’s production was sold out each night and the two-plus hour presentation included a full orchestra decked out in tuxedos, a professional lighting and camera crew and more than 400 church member volunteers.
   
Other Baptist churches are adopting the same venue of presenting their Christmas productions.
   
For instance, Keith Martin, worship leader at Valleydale Baptist Church, Birmingham, explained that last year the church had a shift in philosophy and chose to switch its big production from Easter to Christmas.
   
“For the past five years we had focused on a large Easter production, and we believed it was time to change courses. We felt we needed to find a new way to share the gospel, not only with our own congregation, but with our community. We wanted to create a production that depicted a modern-day life situation with the purpose of showing how a relationship with Jesus Christ can help people cope in their daily lives.
   
“Our church has a contemporary philosophy so we decided to pattern our production after a Broadway-type play with a large cast, choreographed numbers and a full set design.”
   
Martin said the church assessed the strengths of its members and then brought in professionals in the area of set design, scriptwriting and lighting. “Our goal was to find Christian professionals who understood what message the production was to convey.”
   
Martin said they sought out a professional scriptwriter who wrote the script from scratch, a Los Angeles– based, Emmy award-winning set designer and a professional actress from Atlanta to play the lead role.
   
The culmination of their efforts resulted in a professional, modern-day original musical production called “Rosey,” which was seen by  9,500 people during eight performances.
   
Martin said they chose not to tell the traditional Christmas story because, “even nonbelievers know that story. We wanted to show how the good news still applies in our everyday lives,” he said.
   
“Our goal wasn’t to just impress the mind but the heart as well,” he said. “The results were wonderful.” Martin said about 60 professions of faith were made in addition to 400 recommitments to Christ. “We have people joining our church a year later whose first visit was to see ‘Rosey,’ ” he said.
   
And getting the word out is the focal point of Valleydale and Lakeside. They both have plans in place to follow up with people who make decisions as a result of seeing the productions. Both churches say that concluding their musical productions, an invitation to accept Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior is extended to the audience. Information cards are supplied to attendees and the week following the production, trained team members visit with the people who make personal decisions for Christ. “We send out study materials to people from other denominations who made rededications in their lives, and notify their churches,” Martin explained.
   
And just how does the church invite nonchurch members in the community to the production?
   
In addition to word-of-mouth invitations, both churches utilize print advertising as well as television, radio and direct mail pieces that are sent out in area neighborhoods.
   
Productions such as the ones presented by Lakeside and Valleydale take months of planning with members volunteering for the hundreds of positions that need to be filled. Thousands of man-hours are required to successfully complete such a massive undertaking. Volunteers are needed in areas such as sewing costumes, set construction, directing traffic, food duty for cast members on performance nights, nursery duty, choir and orchestra practice, publicity, ticket distribution, cleanup, ushers, greeters, dancers and cast members.
   
And other churches in the state  have taken a completely different approach in their Christmas programs. Crossroads Baptist in Daphne is repeating its presentation approach but is altering the theme. During last year’s holiday season, a four-week emphasis was put on “Bad Boys of the Season,” according to Pastor Scott Jernigan.
   
“We had videos, dramas, special music and PowerPoint presentations that focused on such ‘bad boys’ as Ebenezer Scrooge, The Grinch and King Herod.” Jernigan said his sermon topics tied in to each week’s character. He said the presentations were so well-received that the staff decided to repeat the approach, this year’s theme being “Rock Around the Christmas Tree,” which will focus on songs of the season and how not to lose the true meaning of Christmas. Although Jernigan would not reveal all the songs that would be used, he did mention one that he feels confident will keep everyone’s attention, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”
   
“We will have our stage decorated to look like someone’s home, with a fireplace and a radio that will play whatever song we are focusing on for the week,” Jernigan said.
   
“We have used this as an outreach to the community. Last year we had a tremendous response,” he said, adding that people have been asking for months what the theme was going to be this year.
   
For some churches, a traditional Christmas program is what the congregations look forward to year after year.
   
Such is the case with Lakeview Baptist Church in Auburn, which celebrates each holiday season with its musical production of “Christmas on the Plains.” The Sunday evening program includes traditional Christmas music presented by the adult, youth, children’s and handbell choirs accompanied by the church orchestra.