Avon Valley Churches have continued to spread the Christmas message into the new year, taking the Christmas story out into the community by putting on special performances at Fordingbridge Town Hall last weekend. The play entitled “The Greatest Gift” was part of the church’s outreach programme, encouraging people to see the Nativity and the Epiphany in a new way and showing Jesus as the way, the light and God’s greatest gift to the world.
An abridged version of the play is also being taken into two local church schools later this month.
It was written by Jeremy Houghton Brown who attends Hyde Church. He said, “I felt the church needed to come out to the people. It’s all very well if we all go into our little building and do our own thing but the church needs to be seen as being amongst the community of the people. We do carols on the common, which is popular. We have a big tea tent and service at the annual fair. So, we try to think outside the box and push the boundaries out and that’s what we’ve been doing. We hope that the performance will intrigue people and put the Christmas story into a better context. It’s not a little Nativity play but a serious story because at the end, 30 years later, Christ changed the world and this is the beginning of it. We don’t want to be seen as lecturing or preaching but if we can create something that’s interesting and enjoyable, then the audience will take it in more happily. We’re just people with a good tale to tell that actually can really affect their lives.”
The story was told with the use of film, drama, songs and carols, with elaborate costumes and was free to all the community. It began with creation, then touching on Abraham and Isaac, followed by the appearance of the Angel to Mary and Joseph and their trip to Bethlehem, the visit by the shepherds and the wise men. It finished with the threat from King Herod and the family’s escape to Egypt as refugees.
Jeremy Houghton-Brown has written several previous plays for the local community including “The Easter Story” and “Astonishing Acts”. He said, “This is my second play about the Nativity and I’ve balanced it with telling the story with the actions on the stage and with carols that people know, together with setting it in the context of creation and the prophets. We tell the back history for Mary and her thinking and that’s been fun because we’ve done that with video.
“I’ve been to the Holy Land a number of times and into Egypt where Jesus would have gone and that has helped with my writing,” he said. “I’ve also read widely about the sociology of people under military rule and they all had a very horrid time. When you see children’s nativities, it can sometimes be a bit twee but this was really tough and gritty. So, we’ve tried to include a little of the impact of what it would have been like under that type of regime and yet have fun with the play too.”
Work on the production started in the Summer with a cast made up of more than a dozen members from different churches across the Fordingbridge area. There was a choir led by Marrianne Tomkies. She said, “It’s so easy for churches to become terribly enclosed. We have our congregation, we have our people that come every Sunday, and that’s not the idea at all. The idea is that we should be open to the community, that everyone should feel the church is a place where they’re welcomed, happy and comfortable. I think doing things like this in the community helps enormously. Everybody who’s been involved, the choir and the cast, have thoroughly enjoyed doing it and I hope that comes across in the performance.”
The play ended with the narrator reminding the audience that this is just the start of the story with God’s greatest gift being Jesus who “set out the path for peace, encouraged us to live in harmony with creation, told us that God’s Holy Spirit can be within us and then at our end, we can ascend to Heaven for an eternal life of peace and harmony with God”.
A collection was taken at the end of the performance for the charity Avon Valley Community Matters, which supports local people in need. Leaflets were also available with more information about the Christmas message and the forthcoming Alpha course.
Revd Luke Wickings, Rector of the Avon Valley Group of Churches, said, “I think it’s part of our job as the church to communicate the good news of Jesus to our community and, of course, to celebrate it. By putting a play on like this, I think it’s something that anybody can come to and can understand what the message is, what the story is, and relate to it. I think everybody who’s seen the show has been impressed by it, has enjoyed it, and has found it something that strengthens and encourages their faith and I pray it will bring people to faith too.”
