We are 10 days away from our biggest production event in the history of this church. We have really stepped out into new territory with this project and I am so grateful for all of the countless hours of volunteer work, my incredible staff and the grace of God throughout this process. Thank you, Willow Creek, for such amazing material that got us started on our journey to Imagine Christmas.
Several months ago, we were brainstorming in a creative meeting about what we wanted to do for Christmas. Every year for the past 4 years or so we have continued to “step it up a notch” in the level of artistic excellence that we presented to the community and we knew that the step this year was going to be a big one. Instead of starting from scratch and coming up with a completely new concept, we searched and dug around until we found the Willow Creek Christmas show that they did last year. I knew immediately that this was the one. It had all the elements I was looking for – creative ingenuity, artistic excellence, visual beauty, biblical integrity and the utilization of all of the senses. Now our challenge was to adapt this production from a church of thousands to one of 500. This was quite the challenge. There will be more posts later outlining the process a bit more – but for now I don’t want to spoil the surprise!
But my team has been best – and I’m not surprised. Carolyn, my assistant and our media director, has been absolutely indispensable and has organized every facet of anything technical as well as helping me with the artistic elements of the show and every bit of advertising. I love her – and I never want to do anything like this without her! Melanie Haulman, my artistic director over at Glory Academy of Fine Arts has spent countless hours volunteering her time to choreograph and rehearse every piece of dance in this show – and that is a lot of dancing! Whew! Mel, you are an incredible woman of God who is completely selfless and willing to give your best to the Lord as worship – I love you! Valerie Bowden – my Lord….I have lost count of how many hours she has spent designing and constructing our set. She is superwoman… You are all going to be blown away by what her team has done…
Every singer, musician and actor has given over and above what is required – thank you so much, team, for sacrificing your time and your gifts so we might reach this city with the life-changing message of our Savior.
As we near the end of our preparation time and move toward performance and ministry time, let’s all remember why we are here. It’s not to be recognized for our individual talent or contribution to this endeavor or to receive any glory for ourselves. This is for the glory and honor of our Lord and to spread His message of hope to the over 100,000 people in our city who do not know Him. This is what we are called to do, people! All around us, people are searching for something and we have the answer – this is why we are busting our butts to present something that is excellent and mind-blowing. This city has never seen a church present something like this – so we need to bring it…whatever it takes…let’s give it all – lay it all out there and see a city changed.
Still want to volunteer to help next weekend? There are still places to serve…leave me a comment or call the office and we’ll get you working.
Abs of Steel 
Amazing. I hope everything goes great.