Well, it’s March 21 and in Washington State, we’re 5 days into a partial shutdown of all bars, restaurants, coffee shops, recreational facilities, massage studios and gyms. That was after the massive wave of event cancellations the week before.
It’s Saturday so my church will have its second livestream service tomorrow morning. Last Sunday the service was limited to preaching, Scripture reading, and prayer – no music. We’ll see if there’s any sort of worship leading tomorrow, but earlier this week an associate pastor sent out an email to 34 people with a sweeping cancellation of all special music plans for the next 6-8 weeks.
And while quiet Saturdays writing blocks (albeit in my room rather than a coffee shop) are nothing new to me, what is new is today’s project.
You see, while most of this blog focuses on Christmas productions, I’ve also been working on producing my church’s Good Friday cantata. I had the concept for it over a year ago, wrote much of the script last spring, polished it in the fall, and then since January I’ve been wrangling people, music and logistics (you can see my general timeline here) and actually had just gotten every one of the seven pieces of music assigned when our local world changed.
I’ll admit, I was pretty upset at first. Honestly, I hope it wasn’t a pride thing (MY program, MY ideas, MY plans all have to change) as much as the firm belief that this particular program would make some small impact, would touch someone’s heart, would be what someone in my church needed to hear.
At this point, I don’t know if we’ll even have a Good Friday service. If Washington State follows New York and California and shuts down, we won’t. Much can change in the next 3 weeks in that regard.
But there’s always hope in following through with one’s responsibility. And that is my project today. To take my 20+ pages of plans and cut them down, striking out all the effects and lighting changes, reducing to the most minimal of participant count, rewriting the tenor of the songs as spoken word, and all in all adapting the program to fit the restrictions of today.
And accepting the reality of today is so important. If I hung onto the what-ifs and maybes and I wishes, I would be stuck in dreaming of the past rather than striding confidently into the future that God has set out.
Even if I rewrite the entire script and the service gets cancelled or church leadership decides to do a sermon-based livestream, I now have two developed variations of the same program, and perhaps either of them will bless different churches in different ways in future Holy Weeks.
The impact of any special service is ultimately in God’s hands. As much as I strongly believe in crafting quality material and producing it with excellence, I also have to accept this reality, and trust that perhaps a simple scripted conversation between two narrators sitting in front of a single camera is what God has chosen to use in the hearts of my church family, rather than the beautiful music and incredible lyrics that are so painful to cut.
Perhaps He’ll choose to cancel the entire program, and He’ll still ask me to look to Him and learn the lessons of trust and dependence – in my drive for giving something of beauty to the world and the Church, do I make an idol of that gift rather than the ultimate Giver who has blessed me with those talents? Can I accept that the hidden hours and months of working on this project are perhaps to be a sacrifice of praise to Him alone for now?
So for now, we wait. And we work, so that in doing or not doing, in a produced program or a silent sacrifice, God will have His glory.
March 27 EDIT: I heard the final decision this week. Church leadership has made the wise and practical decision to pivot to something much simpler than even a pared-down version of The Curse & the Cross.
So as coordinator, my work wasn’t quite finished. I needed to tell my team who have been involved in the project since early February:
“And THANK YOU to each of you for stepping into your parts, practicing the music, collaborating with each other, giving me feedback and improvements that made the script stronger than what it would have been, and all the ways you gave of your time and talent. I’m grateful to you, and I know that time and service given in the King’s name is never wasted (1 Cor 5:58).”
Ironically (or else just another glimpse of God’s sovereignty), the entire theme of The Curse and the Cross is trusting in God through all that we encounter. One of the pieces I had included was Lauren Daigle’s “Trust in You”:
“Truth is, You know what tomorrow brings
There’s not a day ahead You have not seen
So let all things be my life and breath
I want what You want Lord and nothing less”