drama ministry

Ward Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church is in the process of instituting a drama ministry. This ministry will serve as an outreach program for the church and the community.
A Drama Ministry involves more people in the work of the church. Involving people, after all, is something that churches should strive for. It needs not just singers and actors, but writers, technicians, directors, designers, builders, the list goes on and on.
Our world is geared toward visual and emotional presentations. Drama blends emotion and thought, idea and action like no other medium. With a drama ministry we can have a greater impact not only on our church but on our community as well.
A Drama Ministry is a wonderful discipleship tool. Theatre companies and drama ministries serve as great opportunities to make friends and disciples!

The advent of drama as ministry is one very important venue of worship happening today. The characters in the Bible are an endless store of ideas for plays, sketches, monologues, etc. Drama serves as an excellent tool to bring the bible to life. If Cecil B. DeMille can do it, why can’t we?

INTRODUCING DRAMA AS WORSHIP

When identifying a strategy for introducing drama as worship, 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 drama presentations as religious, but you would need to work on promoting spirituality. That is, religious drama 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 drama is to help people experience the presence of God by relating their lives with God.

One of the key strategic elements to introduce drama as worship is discussion. Some time other than the eleven o'clock service, discuss. For a highly traditionally-minded congregation, introducing theatre as a method for worship might be very difficult. Some people may have immobile ideas about it. Some arguments for it might be:

By its nature, drama creates an experience for people.

Through experience, theatre can positively impact a person's life.

Drama can touch a deep, inner chord within us.

Drama can help us experience the presence of God.

Drama focuses on spirituality.

Drama is another way to present our personal testimony.

Drama ties together our own humanity.

Drama focuses on relationships.

Another key element in strategy is exploring technique for introducing drama during a worship service. Let's say that you have decided to use a drama presentation as a supplement to the eleven o'clock worship service. Your goal in this case is to use drama 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 drama 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.

It takes tremendous risk to present your testimony through drama in some churches, but no matter what, it's worth it.