The drama and pantomime department ‘came to life’ in our church in 2005 when we started to do skits at youth meetings and then at Sunday meetings with the entire church.
We are a group of young people filled with passion and dedication, ready to do anything for Christ. Our motto is ‘You belong to Christ, show it to others’ and we want it to have an influence both in our lives and in the lives of the people to whom we present the pantomimes and skits.
The idea of Drama and Pantomime Festival was born in 2006 when I was at a conference and this thought popped in my mind: “There are so many drama teams in Romania, so many things can be shown through pantomime, skit, choreography… Why not organize a festival only with pantomimes and skits, so we don’t just tell people the Truth and sing about it, but show the Truth as well?!” Consequently in 2006, on April 26th and 27th, the first Drama and Pantomime Festival was put together and we invited drama teams from churches in Oradea and also from Alba-Iulia. At the end of the festival we reached a conclusion: “This Festival ought to be organized yearly and spread all over the world in order to show the Truth, overcome barriers and worship freely from false perceptions.” In 2007, on May 4th and 5th, we had the second edition of the festival, having guests drama teams from churches in Oradea and Alba-Iulia. There were two evenings, each bearing two major purposes. For the first evening the purpose was evangelizing people that didn’t know Christ and had come to see the skits and choreographies, and a Christian band (called Vitamin C) lead us in praise and worship. The purpose for the second evening was challenging young people to minister in their church, and to challenge those that had been ministering for a while to a deeper level of dedication and passion for the Lord. The skits were original and they showed what it means to serve God and live for Him in this world.
I wish to tell you this, in these past two years since we’ve started organizing the festival we’ve dealt with many hardships, disappointments but we knew all along that if we believe in something, we fight for that something. We believe that pantomime is a new way of worship, a new way of evangelizing, and we believe that God has blessed us with a talent that we wish to use for His glory, because God calls every one of His children to serve Him and glorify Him by the talents He has blessed us with.
For 2008 we have decided to organize the third edition of the Drama and Pantomime Festival under the name of “Jericho – the walls have fallen”. Why Jericho? God is the One that in the past gave victory to the people of Israel under the leadership of Joshua (see Joshua chapter 6), thus fulfilling His promise that the big and indestructible city of Jericho would be conquered by them. God has not changed from then till now, and we are called to believe His promises, as did the people of Israel. The great walls of Jericho separated Israel from God’s promise, namely that the city would be theirs, that He would give it to them. Same thing goes for us, the walls that separated us from God’s promises have fallen. What are these walls anyway? Lack of faith, selfishness, meanness, envy, greed, etc. We believe that by knowing and receiving Him into our Heart as Lord and Savior, the walls that once kept us away from God have fallen, we believe that we are on this earth to fulfill God’s purposes. He has purposes for each of His children, and it is up to us that through prayer we discover them and fulfill them because we love the Lord. We wish to show people these truths by the pantomimes we present to them.
This year we want the festival to become international, to have many young people from different towns, different countries, with different backgrounds and mentality but definitely one purpose: worship God by our talent to act. We want this festival “Jericho – the walls have fallen” to be an offering that we bring to God, an offering of a pleasant scent, that for those three days the pantomimes/skits be a shout of joy and worship!
Together with the drama teams and people coming to the festival, we wish to have fellowship. We will show them that through this gift that we’ve received from God we bring glory to Him, we will learn from one another and we pray that it has an impact upon those that come to the festival. We want to challenge people to look at their lives, challenge their mind to questions such as “When was the last time I showed goodness to somebody?”, “Was I really created by God? I didn’t appear because of the Big Bang?”, “Who am I and what do I want to be?”, “Am I satisfied with the person I’ve become?”, “Do I want to be a better person for God?”, “Do I really have a talent?” Questions make the wheels of the mind turn, they challenge the brain to get out of the apathy that sadly has taken hold of our society. And this is only one of the purposes of pantomimes.
We challenge you to wake up, stand up for God, use your God-given talents. Come to the festival and let’s praise the Lord together. We belong to Christ, and we do want to show Him to others!
The walls indeed have fallen!
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