It seems as if every congregation has its own character. To introduce theatre as a method for worship, it's important that a sensitive approach be implemented so that people will, indeed, experience something meaningful. Some congregations will have a difficult time with theatre while others, used to a variety of worship program approaches, will easily tune into the experience. Only you know the wants and needs of your congregation, so you will need to find a strategy to introduce theatre as a method of worship within your congregation.

The more traditionally-minded congregation will have a more difficult time experiencing worship through a theatre program or a theatre presentation as a supplement to the main worship program. There are many reasons for that, including hundreds of years of negative attitudes about theatre within the Christian community. There's nothing really wrong with having difficulty accepting and experiencing worship through theatre. But through strategy and sensitivity, we can try to help expand worship horizons. Once a congregation experiences worship through theatre, they'll begin to change.

To begin to work out a strategy, clarify the character of your congregation. For instance, a highly traditionally-minded congregation may hold the traditional worship program at the eleven o'clock service as sacred. Using theatre as a method for worship during the service hour would probably be upsetting for people, and when that happens the worship experience is diminished. Perhaps a better way to approach the task is to not introduce theatre during this time, but during reunion or a family night set aside for this event. Another consideration is location. If a congregation would be upset if theatre is in the sanctuary, then begin by placing it in the fellowship hall.

Another consideration is who would present the theatre program. One strategy is by targeting a trusted person in the congregation to present theatre as worship. Yet another way is to target the youth who would create and present their own program for the congregation.

Perhaps a strategic plan would include considering what time of the year to present theatre. One of the most accepted times to use theatre is during Christmas. Congregations are used to seeing the events of Christ's birth reenacted during this season. You could target other seasonal events, also, like Easter. Even holidays like Valentine's Day could be used to present theatre as worship. The focus is on the season or holiday rather than presenting theatre, and that may be a key for introducing theatre in your congregation.

When identifying a strategy, it's important that you take into consideration the subject matter. The more traditionally-minded congregation would probably appreciate stories taken from scripture than otherwise. They would probably see scripture-related theatre presentations as religious, but you would need to work on promoting spirituality. That is, religious theatre is a method which focuses on spirituality, and its subject matter can include today's situations as well as situations written in scripture. The purpose of religious theatre is to help people experience the presence of God by relating their lives with God.

One of the key strategic elements to introduce theatre as worship is discussion. Some time other than the eleven o'clock service, discuss introducing theatre as a method for worship. For a highly traditionally-minded congregation, this might be very difficult, for people may have immobile ideas about it. In this text, I have attempted to offer concepts about theatre as a method for worship for you to present as an argument. Some of those arguments are:

• By its nature, theatre creates an experience for people.
• Through experience, theatre can positively impact a person's life.
• Theatre can touch a deep, inner chord within us.
• Theatre can help us experience the presence of God.
• Theatre sprang from religion.
• Theatre focuses on spirituality.
• Theatre is another way to present our personal testimony.
• Theatre ties together our own humanity.
• Theatre focuses on relationships.

Another key element in strategy is exploring technique for introducing theatre during a worship service. Let's say that you have decided to use a theatre presentation as a supplement to the eleven o'clock worship service. Your goal in this case is to use theatre to help people experience the rest of the program. To do that, you would need to take into consideration the theme of the service and follow it. It would also be a good idea if you talk to the other people in charge of that service to discover what they plan to do or talk about concerning the theme. Perhaps a technique you could use to introduce theatre is by taking a scripture passage, write it in dialogue, and present it. Or perhaps you could read a scripture passage first and then present the same passage as a memorized scene or as a mime.

One of the most difficult aspects of presenting theatre is using humor. For the traditionally-minded congregation, humor may be very upsetting, because they may not associate it with worship. One way to avoid this is not to use humor at all. But humor can truly help people experience the presence of God because it's joyful, especially younger people tune into it as worship, it is part of our reality, and people care about the characters being presented more deeply and meaningfully than if humor was banned from the program.

In all, remember that if your motive is true and you take the effort to carefully and thoroughly prepare, your effort has the potential to help people experience the presence of God. If one person is moved by the presentation, it's worth it. And if others take offense, and you've carefully considered their needs, it is usually their problem, not yours. It takes tremendous risk to present your testimony through theatre, but no matter what, it's worth it.

Copyright 1990 Debra Bruch