A Thrill to Pass On Some Things I've Learned

Had another chance to explore physical worship with the pastoral staff of New Song Church (San Dimas, CA) this week. Eight of us worked through some very basic ideas of how to use our bodies in improvised movement (Diamond Ensemble) and improvised prayer (Enacted Prayer). A brief description follows, but if you want to read more about both of these forms, click the links or search this blog or my other one for course outlines and handouts (http://spicetolife2.blogspot.com)

Here's what one of the pastors wrote following our time together:

Thank you for yesterday. We had a wonderfully worshipful experience. I hope you felt we participated enough. Although we are a VERY creative group, we aren't necessarily a group that acts regularly. We still enjoyed ourselves immensely. In fact, we were all impacted deeply from the experience and would like to learn more. We are thinking about experimenting with enacted prayer during our Christmas Eve service.

HERE'S A QUICK DESCRIPTION: Enacted Prayer is a style of improvised physical prayer developed in the 90's by the Theatre Department at Northwestern College in Iowa (under the direction of Jeff Barker).
I was first exposed to it at the Christians in Theatre conference in Irvine, (CITA, 2003), and subsequently had one of the Northwestern teach a workshop with some of the Christians I work with from Singapore churches. I've since had a chance to teach Enacted Prayer with Senior Theatre Majors at the Wesley Institute for Minsitry & Creative Arts (Sydney, Australia), at the CRM Worldwide conference (June 2006), and the new course I teach: Performing Arts and Ministry Applications at TCA College in Singapore (Theological Centre for Asia, Certificate in Creative Arts Ministry). I've had the chance try it out once with Americans, at Yorba Linda Friends Church in 2006.

Enacted Prayer came out of a form of improvised and highly ritualistic theatre called Playback Theatre. Playback is used in community settings to improvise plays from stories told by the audience. It was originally developed in the 70's by Jonathan Fox in New York State (they have numerous annual residential training sessions at Syracuse University). Though I haven't had a chance to study in New York, I am a member of the International Playback Theatre Network and spent a year training and performing with Tapestry Playback Theatre in Singapore. I've had a chance to explore it as a means of expressing Christian faith and our Christian experience in an orphanage in Cambodia, with children in an International Christian School, and in the college classroom. I've found a link to one video online that gives & shows a decent description of it, while expressing the heart of what playback practitioners are hoping to accomplish.