St. John’s Lutheran Church in Arnold is incorporating a piece of its 175-year history into this year’s annual Christmas production.
There’s no charge to attend the show, which will be held at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 9, and Saturday, Dec. 10, and 9:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 11, at the church, 3517 Jeffco Blvd. The 9:30 a.m. performance will be broadcast on the church’s YouTube channel, which can be found on St. John’s website at sjlarnold.org.
This year’s production is titled “HIStory,” and it combines the story of the birth of Jesus and the telling of how the church’s early members built a sanctuary in 1929 at the start of the Great Depression.
“It is a story about great hardship and difficulty,” said Senior Pastor Jeremy Schultz, who helped write “HIStory,” along with church member Alvina Becker and St. John’s middle school English teach Nikki Becker, who also directs the production.
“It is a story of a great challenge our forebearers met here at St. John’s in the spirit of God’s grace and friendship,” Schultz said.
“It is a story about how God came through for his people and strengthened them during those difficult times. It becomes an encouragement of us today.”
The cast includes Gary Dees playing Joseph and Rebecca Kaye as Mary. Other cast members include Shultz, Warren Hunt, Veronica Cheney, Jacob Underwood, Ellerd Niemeyer, Mitch Linhardt, Korisa Cardone, Rick Sennewald and Brendam Wheeler.
“The two stories of Jesus’ birth and the building of the 1929 sanctuary are woven together,” Schultz said. “They are parallel stories.”
The two stories will be bolstered by musical performances by a full orchestra and a 60-plus-member choir, which will be directed by Bobby Schroeder, St. John’s director of music.
“Half our orchestra comes from the Arnold Community Band,” Schroeder said. “They are top-caliber, professional-sounding musicians. They love playing here for our production. It enables us, with our 60-plus-voice choir, to put on a production that I believe we could present at Powell Hall.”
Songs featured in the production include “Be Born in Me,” “Joy to the World,” “Little Town,” “Mary, Did You Know?” and “This is Jesus.”
“The fun thing to do is connect the scenes with music,” Schroeder said. “The first scene is Mary and Joseph and the turmoil between those characters. We follow that scene with ‘Be Born in Me.’ It is all of the thoughts Mary was feeling and the struggles she was having.”
Schroeder and Schultz said the performance of “This is Jesus,” which will be accompanied by a video of church member Kevin Le creating sand art on a table, tells the story of Jesus’ life and is a highlight of the production.
“The artistic feature coupled with the song is the can’t-miss moment,” Schultz said.
Schroeder said the production lasts about one hour and 45 minutes, and the church seats up to 500.
“We hope the community comes out,” Schultz said. “We all have things we do during Christmas that we can’t miss, and I believe it takes people one time coming to this for it to become a can’t-miss thing at Christmas. We hope they take away the message of Christ’s birth as the savior of the world.”
Robyn Hogan, St. John’s communications director, said the church received a $7,000 grant from the Arnold Tourism Commission to pay for additional orchestra members and to advertise the production.