Willow Creek Arts Conference 2007 - Pt. 2

The nominal draw of the Arts Conferences are the "breakout sessions" with subject matter experts drawn mostly from Willow Creek's own ministry teams. These are either lectures or demonstrations of practical areas of expertise or concern for those involved in artistic endeavors in the church.

The four sessions I signed up for had varying degrees of impact on me. The first, on script editing, was helpful for me as a drama leader but was all too brief. Led by one of my favorite Willow script writers (and actors), Mark Demel, it went step by step through the draft and edited versions of an actual script done by a Willow staff writer. Especially handy was the appearance of some of their volunteer actors to read each version of the script as it evolved. Mark engaged the class for opinions as things progressed and it was a fairly involved group. One thing it really blessed us with? A sense that we actually knew what we were doing. We made some pretty good calls about the script.

The first thing that Mark pointed out when the class began was that drama often gets a great deal of praise but usually not as many resources as other ministries in the average church. Unlike Willow Creek, only a miniscule number of churches have paid drama staff. He asked for a show of hands in our class and only two out of about 60 or so were paid - and they were part time. He said in the worship leader classes that number was usually reversed. This means that drama ministry has to run almost completely on passion. But that can be a good thing!

I stuck around for a few minutes after class to speak to Mark. But as the line grew, I just sat down in the front row a few feet away and listened as he addressed others' questions. Most were about practical things like lead times and rehearsal schedules. Some were about creative ideas and others were along the lines of "Master Yoda, teach me the ways of the Force." It was helpful. As the line ended, I joined Mark on his way out the door and told him about the success we'd had with their scripts and how much I appreciated the inspiration they'd given for tackling tough subjects and in addressing mundane ones in risk-taking (and fun) ways. He was glad to hear that Willow's stuff was playing well to our audience.

Here's one of my favorite Demel scenes we've performed, "The Next Step." It's edgy and as funny as I've ever seen. Mark is the guy in the plaid flannel shirt and the other fellow (whose part I played) is the director, Rod Armentrout. They are priceless together.