Frederickson Blog

As I write this, I am sitting in the Forum Deo Gloria PAC looking at an unpainted set that was lovingly built by many parents, students, and staff over the weekend. Our Production Workshop class and the cast will be painting it, bringing color and pattern to its bare, rough walls. As the week progresses, student actors will continue to rehearse and bring to life comedic characters written in the 1930s. Next week we will add lights, sound cues, microphones, and costumes. The following week, November 20–22, we will add the final element, the audience, who will experience the story for the first time and hopefully come to love its quirky characters and uplifting message as much as we have through this process.

This massive collaborative art form, theatre, brings together people from all walks of life. Among others, we need individuals skilled in construction who understand how pieces of raw material can come together to form a whole; visual artists who use their imaginations to envision another place and time and use their talent to transport audiences there; and actors who use their instruments of voice, physicality, and expression to embody another person’s experience and explore how humans interact with each other in times of conflict and moments of connection.  

This whole process recalls the letter Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus (and likely other churches) in the first century. In Ephesians 1:10 Paul explains God’s purpose is to bring all things in heaven and earth together in Christ. As the letter goes on, he explores the multifaceted wisdom of God in choosing to do this through the story of the people of Israel, which culminates in Israel’s Messiah, Jesus. Through Him, God brought the gentiles into His chosen family. Now that blessing can extend to all humanity! Paul also describes powers, both physical and unseen, that separate and divide. He contrasts these divisive powers with God’s purpose to unify all things in Christ.

The story of the Bible, and a central theme in Ephesians, is about God bringing two different families together. How interesting that this could also describe the basic plot of our play! Moreover, putting on a play is a big project that brings together people with diverse backgrounds and abilities. God’s big project to heal the cosmos in Jesus unites people from different ethnic, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds into the one eternal family of our Creator. He planned before time how we would show His wisdom to the cosmic powers as we, His followers, grow together into a dwelling fit for His Spirit. We live out His calling as we represent Jesus to this hurting world, bringing healing and unity wherever we find brokenness.  

Maybe this play appears to be just a sweet, little, old-fashioned comedy—but, in God’s wisdom, maybe the servant-hearted community that brought this project together and the unity our story points to as an ideal could really represent a tiny working model of new creation.