NOTES
for the
Family Service
at
St. Augustine's

April 16, 2006

These are notes and comments on some of the items which appear in the Family Service script. Links from the script point to these entries; clicking the links in the left hand column of the table takes you back to the corresponding link in the script  - or, where more than one link from the script points to the note, back to the first such link. The comments are typically related to features of the service which are specific to our church or the time of the service, or which for some other reason we think might require alteration for another setting. For references to the internal geography of the church, it might be helpful to inspect the plan.

BEFORE THE SERVICE -
Properties :	Video "Jesus" ready to run. Large die (a die about 30cm cube which someone made for us). "Tray" for stagehand to make thunder noises with. Ready to hand out at the end : "This man was Innocent" brochure published by the Bible Society, New Zealand, and small Easter eggs.
Furniture :	Calvary : Three black crosses on a hill propped against the front wall at the Hospital side of the altar. Pictures from the EASTER Bibla-vision were displayed round the walls of the church. (Bibla-vision is printed and published by NEW LIFE LITERATURE (PVT) LTD. Spur Rd 4, E P Z Katunayake, SRI LANKA (1989). ) For this service we had our lectern on the Hospital side of the church, close to the wall.
People :	Projector operator, video operator, organist, reader, and narrator in position before service begins.
ALL	Responses expected from the congregation were marked on the service sheet and also in the script shown by the video projector.
CROSSES	The crosses are on a stand against the wall and a sand-coloured sheet is draped in front of them to make it look as though they are on a hill. ( Further details. )
"Jesus" video	Videotape ( originally film ) "Jesus". We had only one video projector, which we also used to display the dialogue throughout the service. This gave us a slightly awkward changeover between dialogue and video, as, though we had the sections we required copied onto a tape so that it was necessary only to start and stop the videotape deck during the service, there was no chance to set up the videotape between the clips before it was needed; two projectors would probably make it a lot easier.
Video clips	We used the videotape because it was well known and well regarded, and could show the events more impressively than we could with our limited resources. It also had some novelty value. If you can't ( or don't want to ) use the videotape, you could insert some appropriate action sequences. Here are summaries of the events covered by the four videotape sections we showed : Video clip 1 Jesus in the garden; goes to pray; "sweat like drops of blood"; vision; returns to sleeping disciples; wakes them; soldiers and crowd come; arrest. Video clip 2 Jesus appears before Pilate; sent to Herod; returned to Pilate; condemned. Video clip 3 Taken from cross; laid in tomb; stone rolled across mouth. Video clip 4 Women find tomb empty; Peter goes; Jesus appears; Jesus appears to disciples.
... in front of centre cross ...	That's quite some way in front. The cross was against the wall of the church, while the action is taking place just behind the communion rail. It didn't matter; the important visual effect was the similarity between the shape of the three crosses in the background and the three "crucified" people in the foreground, with arms outstretched. It helped that our Jesus was significantly taller than the two criminals. To emphasise the effect, we placed a spotlight behind the crosses illuminating the wall behind. This was switched on and switched off to mark the period when attention was focused on calvary.
Thunder	We used a metal tray with a sort of handle with which it could be vigorously shaken. ( It had been a drip tray underneath a dish washer machine. ) It worked well, but was perhaps a bit tinny. Nobody complained.