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Visual Arts & Drama - Saturday, 25 December 2021 – Christmas Day
Christmas is a wonderful time of celebration, and there are many ways to add to Christmas services using the visual arts. A guide to Visual Arts for Christmas includes advice on symbols, flowers, candles, manger scenes and Christmas trees.
Altar Colour: White
Images for This Week's Readings and Sermons
You can access excellent examples of church art relevant to each season of the Church year on the Visual Arts website.PPT Slides (Widescreen): / Set 1 / Set 2 / Set 3 / Set 4 / Set 5
PPT Slides (Standard): / Set 1 / Set 2 / Set 3 / Set 4 / Set 5
Simply download your preferred slides and copy the liturgy and songs into each slide.
Recommended Sources for Images
Drama
Drama is especially popular and effective at Christmas. You will find a number of play scripts below which may suit your congregations’ needs. There are a number of other ideas for adding drama and meaning to your Christmas services in our guide Drama Ideas at Christmas, which includes advice on using bells,
The following Christmas Eve orders and Christmas plays have been prepared for congregational use. The first five were originally prepared by the Board for Congregational Life of the LCA in the 1980s. In 2016 and 2018, we requested congregations to send in copies of Children’s Christmas Presentations they had written and were willing to share with the wider church. Thank you to all those who contributed! We present here an edited selection which would be suitable for a variety of situations, with thanks to the original authors.They’ve been reformatted into Word documents. Feel free to edit them to suit your congregation’s needs. Change or omit the carols/hymns/songs; double up on the reader parts and involve youth and adults. Be creative!
NEW! The Elf-angelist Evangelist – a simple play for a small group of children with limited opportunities to practice.
Worship the King – focuses on Jesus the King
Three Questions for Christmas – travel back to Bethlehem for the census with Mary and Joseph!
Hands Up for Jesus! – See also this PPT file which can be used to provide visuals during the service or as ideas for making banners.
Good News From Heaven – based on Martin Luther’s famous carol ‘From Heaven above’.
Happy Birthday Jesus – cast in the form of a Birthday Party. Children will participate as they do in a birthday party.
And You Will See – Rather than a retelling of the Christmas story, this deals with the theme of darkness and light and God’s rescue of his people. These PowerPoint slides accompany the script: And You Will See PPT
Christmas A to Z – This idea would be best suited for a Sunday School with limited resources or mostly very young children. It would work well with the involvement of youth or parents.
Someone’s Coming – Quite a few parts in this play, so it’s suitable for a reasonable number of children of different ages. Songs are suggestions only.
Surprise, Surprise – There are 10 characters who would have to be slightly older children. Young children could act some of the scenes or be angels or animals. Songs are suggestions only.
This Baby Changed My Life – Here is a program suitable for whole congregation involvement, or perhaps youth and children of all ages, when numbers of children are limited. Songs are suggestions only.
The Colours of Christmas – Written by Rob Handreck and first performed by the kids of St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Box Hill. This is very suitable for a group of young children, but can be adapted to include older children too.
News – People Saved By Baby – Imagine how things might have been if today’s technology was available in 40AD and someone just turned on the radio to hear the news…
King of Kings – Written by Rob Handreck and first performed by the kids of St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Box Hill. This play traces the Old Testament story of God’s interaction with His people through a selection of kings (these can be varied), finishing with the King of kings.
A Studio Christmas – The Director of a photo shoot is organizing a publicity shot for Christmas, and begins by getting the nativity scene set up with the usual cast of Mary, Joseph, Animals, Shepherds, Wisemen, Angels and of course, the Baby.
Dramatising the Readings
The readings can be read by more than one person to make the dramatic meaning of the text clearer.
For instance, the gospel could be read by various readers: narrator, angel, group of angels (children could be angels), shepherd.
Alternatively, consider using a gospel procession for the reading of the gospel.
