Churches capitalize on Christmas for evangelism

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. (RNS) Mark Miller was frustrated. It was after 10:15 on Thursday night, his wireless earpiece was on the fritz, his stagehands couldn’t locate the Rwandan drum and none of his players seemed to understand what Section One was. “Section One, everyone,” Miller said into his microphone, as a dozen drummers milled around […]

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. (RNS) Mark Miller was frustrated. It was after 10:15 on Thursday night, his wireless earpiece was on the fritz, his stagehands couldn’t locate the Rwandan drum and none of his players seemed to understand what Section One was.

“Section One, everyone,” Miller said into his microphone, as a dozen drummers milled around the stage. Seven other drummers were in their positions in the balcony. “Does everyone know what I mean when I say Section One? Section One is the African piece. Is there something I’m not explaining right?”

Miller, a Nashville musician who has toured with Christian acts Watermark and Ginny Ownes, spends much of his year creating the most elaborate, church-based Christmas extravaganza in the St. Louis area — Grace Church’s “Drummer Boy.”


And although it’s among the largest, it’s not the only Christmas show staged with elaborate production values and enormous casts that draw thousands of audience members. It’s all designed to expose people to the gospel — and perhaps draw them back when the holidays have passed.

Some church leaders are no longer satisfied dressing children as Mary and Joseph and putting them on stage with a goat. In an age when entertainment options come hurtling at Americans at a million miles an hour from all angles, a few donkeys and a quick rendition of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” no longer cut it.

“We believe the message of the gospel deserves the same level of professionalism as anything you’d see in Hollywood,” said the Rev. Marty Haas, one of Grace Church’s pastors. “People are used to seeing quality entertainment. Why would they spend their time coming to see something embarrassing?”

For Grace’s “Drummer Boy” production, creative director Miller, 44, writes the music with collaborators, then moves to St. Louis at the beginning of November each year to begin staging and rehearsing it.

More than 1,000 volunteers — including performers, technical production crews, ushers, carpenters, children’s ministry workers, medical emergency team members and traffic directors — work on “Drummer Boy,” which borrows elements from “Stomp,” the Blue Man Group and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

This will be the sixth year Grace, a nondenominational, evangelical church with about 6,000 members, has staged “Drummer Boy.” Miller changes the show each year, writing new songs and using different drums. This year, “Drummer Boy” has an African and Brazilian flavor. Last year’s was Irish.


Over the course of nine free performances, from Dec. 18 to 23, nearly 30,000 people will see “Drummer Boy,” which includes more than 100 drums and other instruments played by nearly 40 percussionists and a Las Vegas-style light show.

The purpose of religious spectacle — from soaring cathedrals to complicated hymn arrangements — has always been evangelism. Pastors know beauty, drama and wonder are powerful draws. And for many Americans, Christmas may be the only time they visit a church all year.

A 2008 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that nearly a third of Americans “seldom or never” attend a religious service. Add those who say they attend between twice a month and a few times a year, and the number jumps to 60 percent.

If church leaders can attract that crowd at Christmas, the thinking goes, maybe the experience will resonate with some. Maybe they will come back on a regular Sunday in January and begin attending regularly.

“Any sacred concert in a church is a form of evangelization,” said John Romeri, music director of St. Louis’ Cathedral Basilica, which hosted its fifth annual Christmas concert this month. “You take all the artistic beauty of architecture and combine it with great music, and that’s more spiritual to some people than the service itself.”

The cathedral’s 1,800-seat Christmas concert sells out by September. The Archdiocese of St. Louis combined its 150-member choir with a 20-piece orchestra, a 70-member children’s choir and a hand-bell choir for the concert. Money raised from ticket sales, which ran from $22 to $47, helps offset the cost of the cathedral’s year-long concert series.


Not all big Christmas productions involve music. Harvester Christian Church in St. Charles, Mo., stages a 45-minute trail walk in the woods on the church’s property. At stations along the way, volunteers are dressed as scribes, rabbis, Roman soldiers and three Magi following the famous star.

At the end of the trail, there is a Bethlehem creche scene with live camels, donkeys, sheep, goats and chickens.

The church has been staging the free “Journey to Bethlehem” since 1992 and it has grown so popular that church leaders run two identical trails to better handle the traffic. Last year, 18,500 people took the walk over four nights, overseen by a volunteer staff of about 700.

After visitors experience Bethlehem at the trail’s end, they are invited into the church for hot chocolate. Volunteers thank them for coming and ask if they are already involved in a church.

“If not, we invite them back for Christmas Eve and we tell them we’ll minister to them,” said Harvester’s executive pastor, the Rev. Doyle Roth. “They’re coming for a Christmas experience, and our goal is to introduce them to who Jesus is, teach them what Christmas is all about and hope they come back.”

(Tim Townsend writes for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in St. Louis, Mo.)

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