Stories and Songs with the Awana and Youth Groups

December 7, 2022

We gathered the Awana boys and girls in the Depot to give instructions about our Stories and Songs program. Part of our Christmas tradition has been to do such a program with the Youth group of the church as a celebration of the birth of Christ.

Pastor Doug Thompson welcomed the audience to this celebration and gave a preview of the Christmas events of the next weeks. Becky Ridgway welcomed the series of readers from the Youth group which would celebrate the events of the nativity. Marina Thompson opened the program with a dramatic Christmas monologue. Timothy Thomas was at the piano to accompany the actors and the congregation in singing the appropriate Christmas carols for different stages of the story.

Becky explained that this would be unlike any previous Christmas program that we had done. This was partly because there was no assigned cast of characters for the different figures in this nativity dramatization. It was the task of members of the Youth department to select persons from the audience, particularly the Awana boys and girls to take the parts of this nativity scene. First they selected an Awana boy and girl to play the part of Joseph and Mary and stand with the baby Jesus. Then they started selecting persons to play the roles of the animals around the stable. Appropriate masks or costume elements were provided to those playing the roles: sheep, donkeys, etc.

While strongly encouraged to make use of all the Awana boys and girls, the youth were given freedom to choose anyone for the roles. So they chose Jonatan Coronado, their Youth Director , to play the role of a pig, and the Pastor was chosen to play a donkey. Johnny Huffman, an Awana leader appears to be playing a donkey, and Elder and youth leader Matthew Smith played a sheep.

At appropriate places in the story, Becky would call one of the youth to do the reading appropriate. Then the entire congregation would sing a related Christmas carol with Timothy accompanying at the piano.

Next it was time to bring in the angels. With the youth given free hand to choose, this was a unique collection of angels.

Now it is time for the arrival of the shepherds. They are shown on the extreme right. Our version of shepherd staffs was canes with candy cane stripes.

An occasion for a few chuckles from those close enough to hear was the baaa! baaa! sounds coming from the girls playing the role of sheep!

The last role players to be chosen were the three wisemen. They are on the right with the crowns.

With a final story and final song, this brings us to the end of this unique version of the Christmas story.