FmExp July 4 Recap

This past weekend, July 4th fell on a Sunday.  Our church, Fellowship Church, holds an outdoor service the first Sunday of July for the past 7 years.  So last November, we put on the calendar to have a Family Experience as our outdoor service. Our Family Experience is a time where the kids and the adults get together for a shared worship experience, full of drama, dancing, music and comedy.  The message of the experience centers around one virtue, in which the kids will be or have already just learned for the month. This July 4th, we combined the virtue of Responsibility (done in June) and Service (to be done in July).

Months of preparation go into a FmExp.  The dance team leader, Carie Holman, gets with me about 2 1/2 months out and we hash out the theme and some song selection.  She then gets the team of dancers together (there were 13 dancers this time) and with the help of some other dance coordinators create dance moves for the 2-3 new songs (we do 4 or 5 total).  The dance team practices every week for a couple of hours for the next two months on these moves and songs.

During this time, I’ve reviewed all the available scripts (they are a part of our kids curriculum and I would recommend it to any church) and picked the best “Credible/Comic Intro Sketch,” “Main Drama Skit,” and “Main Bible Storytelling” Skits.  Then I sent out a call to some actors/actresses and hand out parts according to the needs.  I usually play the part of Credible Host and main bible storyteller.  For the next month, I’m practicing lines, coordinating schedule practices, finding props, working on sound effects and music transitions, creating visuals and video intros, etc.  Then during the week of the event, I’m getting the set put together, and making sure the visuals are ready for the production team.  We do one big dress rehearsal that week with everyone together and then it comes “show-time!”

For the 4th, we kept it shorter because of the heat and all.  Normally it is around 65 minutes, this one was 40 minutes.  Being outside of course has it own issues like sound microphone issues. Probably wouldn’t need microphones, but we were also recording the show on camera and wanted the best quality for that as well, especially as we use this for our online viewing and will use the video during our kids court booth at this years Holden Days.

All in all, the crowd tells me it was just great and we always have a great time doing it too.  And here are a few pics of the FmExp.