What's New!
Wild Grace is now the home of the InterGenerational Arts as Worship Exchange. We are currently snail mailing a new quarterly newsletter to subscribers, for the at-cost introductory price of $12.00.
The InterGenerational Arts as Worship Exchange is a user friendly exchange of ideas and projects using participatory worship arts that mixes the generations. Every issues features an article giving an example of a real life project that worked, a Q&A with a didactic "Old Guy" who has "Been There Done That" a "How-To" universal craft or theater arts project; a poem or clip art to pass on for newsletter fillers, and a 2 to 5 minute "drama moment." This is a very short playlett, for use in setting up the scripture, or adding an art piece like a choir anthem to worship. Its purpose is to add to the texture of the art of worship rather than a sermon, a "you should" or a punch line skit. It is a little play or a story retold.
Why be intergenerational? The mixing of ages offers a wonderful dynamic artistically. But also, it is a chance to value the gifts of other generations, and that is important in churches and families. We live in a time which has a strange propensity for sorting people according to birth year. Maybe it is an educator's dream of having all things "age appropriate" or it is a simple convenience of the youth culture. But with agism, like racism, or sexism, groups who are strangers to one another impose fears and negative expectations onto one another.
"Those kids damage the floors of the church parlor." (So what's a "parlor?")
"Those old people sing off-key and ruin the hymns and besides that they smell bad."
We can't solve these issues by having children take off their shoes in church, or by muffling the voices of elder choir members, or distributing perfume. The problem is not really oldness or youngness, it is the ignorance born of age grouping. The church and the family may be the only places where generations are expected to work together, so it is the churches and the families who have the responsibility to value the generations for one another to appreciate, and to thus, exemplify the significance and value of being young or of being old.
Check out two intergenerational Christmas Pageants:
"O Come and Adore, Baa, Sing and Roar"
"When Peace was a Baby Prince"
Jake the Handyman
Introducing a new package for Holy Week -- "Jake the Handyman" by Roger Gifford. This four part drama for the special worship events of Holy Week can be done as Reader's Theater.
A New Format in 2006
Our production packages in 2006 will now include a CD with free clipart in standard formats and sample bulletins for easy download. And as always we include hard copy playbooks for each cast member, as well as a certificate of permission for your performances.
Arts in the Works
A new series called "...of the Arts" offers intergenerational experiences with the arts as worship. Each will include a culminating event -- a V.B.S. play, or a Christmas pageant for example. But the meat of the material is spiritual nurture and celebration of gifts during the preparation period, which is designed to reach out to a wide part of the congregation. This is a step-by-step project with all the tools that a few people, or a small arts or drama group may use to spread the arts throughout the whole congregation.
