My wife, Becky, wrote the play posted below. We used it in the service this morning as a readers theater which included participants ranging from high school students to preschoolers. This was the first "children's Christmas program" at Immanuel Chapel in many years. The play took the place of the sermon or better, was the sermon. About 12 young people participated. After the service we gave each participant a Christmas bag. Becky said the high school students were more excited over the chrimas bag than the younger kids.
The Promised Star
Stars each holding a small flash light are scattered around the sanctuary with Star 1 speaking from the center of the church. Younger children will sit by a tent in the front of the church and act out certain parts of the play.
Lights are turned off and stars’ flashlights are turned on!
Star 1: “My name is M13.”
Stars 2 & 3: “That means she is in the constellation Hercules.”
Star 1: “Yes, Abraham looked up one summer night and saw me.”
Stars 4 & 5: “He probably thought you were just a small, dim star.”
Star 1: “If Abraham had a good pair of binoculars, he would have seen me as a tiny cotton ball. But with a large telescope, he would have realized I was actually a glove-shaped cluster of thousands of stars.”
Stars 4 & 5: “There are thousands of globular clusters spread through the Milky Way Galaxy.”
Stars 2 & 3: “With just your eyes, you can see about 2000 stars on a clear night.”
Star 1: “Astronomers estimate that there are billions of stars just in our galaxy alone, and a billion more galaxies besides my galaxy. I can’t add up the total number of stars in the universe.”
Stars 6 & 7: “Let’s just say the number of stars is INCOMPREHENSIBLY ENORMOUS!”
Song, Page 369 Verse 1 sung by Pastor Jansen. The small children enter through the back and walk down the aisle as Pastor Jansen sings the verse: one child dressed as Abraham, one as Sarah and the others as shepherds.
(A tent is placed in the center and the children stand in front of the tent and say together the following verse.)
“God tested Abraham, Genesis Chapter 22.”
(The children sit down in front of the tent.)
Star 1: “The story begins when God calls Abram to take a trip.”
Stars 2 & 3: “ Not just a trip to the store.”
Stars 6 & 7: “More like a trip to the moon!”
Star 1: “Abram was to take his family”
Stars 4 & 5: “And Lot”
Star 1: “and Lot. God said to Abram, ‘Leave your country and your people and go to the Land I will show you.’ Of course this land was not just any land but is known today as the Fertile Crescent. At that time, the ancestors of some of you were living as stone age tribesmen in the forests of Europe. Abram and the People of the Fertile Crescent already had written language,”
Stars 2 & 3: “metalworking skills”
Stars: 6 & 7: “accounting procedures and published codes of law”
Stars 4 & 5: “Knowledge of the stars and well trained and equipped armies”
Star 1: “In fact, the city of Jericho was already thousands of years old in Abram’s day. They had it all, so to speak. And that was the problem. They had everything except the true knowledge of God and the way of salvation.”
Stars 2 & 3: “God said, “Abram leave with your family”
(The little children will now walk back down the aisle and up again to sit in front of the tent, while the choir sings verse 2.)
Star 1: “Which brings us back to Abram’s big problem. Not only did God call Abram to move from one place to another, He gave PROMISES to Abram!”
Stars 4 & 5: “ God said, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you,.” Genesis, chapter 12”
Stars 2 & 3: “God said, “A son coming from your own body will be your heir.”
Stars 6 & 7: “God said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars.”
Stars 4 & 5: “As If a man could count that many!”
Stars 6 & 7: “God said, “So shall your off springs be!”
Star 1: “Abram even had a name to match the grandeur of the promises, ‘Abram’ means ‘exalted father’. He was rich.”
Stars 2 & 3: “He was powerful!”
Stars 4 & 5: “He was respected!”
Stars 6 & 7: “He was feared!”
Star 1: “Indeed, Abram was seen as a father figure to his relatives and his servants.”
Stars 2 & 3: “Of course, it was God’s joke.”
Stars 6 & 7: “Abram was a very old man!”
Stars 4 & 5: “Married to a very old woman!”
Stars 2 & 3: “They had not one single child!”
Star 1: “Thirteen more years passed. By now Abraham was 99 years old and Sarah was 90. The only thing that changed in the thirteen years was his name Abram to Abraham. If there are degrees of impossibility, it was now even more impossible for the promises to be fulfilled.”
(Children at the tent will stand and announce:
“The impossible happened; Isaac was born!!!!” and the song will be sung”
Stars: Allelu, Allelu, Allelu, Alleluia,
Children: Will Stand and sing: “Praise Ye The Lord!” Children will sit down
Stars” Allelu, Allelu, Allelu, Alleluia
Children: Will Stand and sing: “Praise Ye The Lord!” Children stay standing.
Children: Children will continue with “Praise Ye The Lord!” Children will sit down.
Stars: Al-le-luia
Children will stand and sing, “Praise Ye The Lord!” Children sit
Stars: Al-le-luia
Children will stand and sing, “Praise Ye The Lord!” Children sit
Stars: Al-le-luia
Everyone: Praise Ye The Lord!!!!
The choir will sing the third verse as one little boy walks down to the tent, Isaac.
Star 1: “All Abraham’s hopes, indeed the hopes of the whole world for being included in God’s Blessing, now centered only in Isaac. If anything should happen to him, there would be no promised land.”
Stars 2 & 3: “no nations!”
Stars 4 & 5: “no kings”
Stars 6 & 7: “no people of God!”
Star 1: “No Savior! Oh, how absolutely essential it was for the future of all of you humans that Isaac live! Yet, it was this miracle child that God told Abraham to sacrifice.”
Stars 2 & 3: “How Unfair!”
Stars 4& 5: “How Ridiculous!”
Stars 6 & 7: “How Absurd!”
Star 1: “God said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and to the region of Moriab, Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering! What would you have done?”
Stars 2 & 3: “Change religions!”
Stars 4 & 5: “Find a kinder God!”
Stars 6 & 7: “Forget about it!”
Star 1: “But God always keeps his Promises. Everything God had done was impossible. God could bring life to a child whom Abraham sacrificed. God gave a lamb to replace Isaac. And the rest of story you know or do you?”
Stars 2 & 3: “When you have sinned and deserve death,”
Stars 4 & 5: “When you have not the slightest hope,”
Stars 6 & 7: “At the last moment!”
Star 1: “God will provide a substitute Sacrifice for you: His only Son, Jesus Christ, descendant of Abraham, to die in your place on the altar of the cross. Please join us in singing the last verse on page 369.”
After the verse:
Star 1: “Amen”
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