SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another episode, the place where we talk about kids ministry and take a peek behind the scenes. We try to share a little bit of what we've learned that works for us and some of our failures so you can avoid them. We release a new episode every Friday, and this is your backstage pass to see the magic or disaster that happens behind the scenes of our kids ministry. I'm your host, Gabe Baker. And today I'm joined by brother Brent Wilson. How's it going, Brent? It's going very well. Thank you. All right.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Today's topic, we're going to be talking about interactive theater.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Interactive theater. This is, oh, I love this one. So if you've ever been to a Broadway production or a play or even a concert, there's a certain kind of anticipation and expectation in the air. It's kind of exciting. Maybe you try to get snacks before going to your seats, et cetera. But if it's about to begin, you hurry because you don't want to miss the opening. If you're any day Like me, you hate exiting for the restroom or anything because during the production, I don't want to miss out on anything. So at our Sunday school, we try to create a little bit of that experience. We don't always get it right, but our goal is to engage kids in a way that they won't forget. As adults, we like to sit through production and most of us are probably pretty satisfied with sitting there for two hours. Kids, on the other hand, are not quite as happy about sitting still for two hours. But imagine you're a kid going to a play you sit down and then they call you on stage every child's dream well not every but close so this is what we try to do pretty much every Sunday and so that's what we mean by interactive theater is every kid's dream right yeah you know us as adults we go to if we're going to a Broadway that's enough for us that's like oh that's huge we get to sit back and watch and see everything

SPEAKER_01 1:53

yes

SPEAKER_00 1:54

exactly yeah and if like we go there's a popular play around here that we go to every year that's put on by another church, what I would consider a secular church. And they always do the, the salvation repeat after me or whatever, the engagement thing. Well, and part of the reason we hate it is because we know it's not the truth. Right. But the other part is we were adults and we were like, I don't want to engage. I just want to enjoy this.

UNKNOWN 2:19

Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Yeah. But kids are not like that. Like if they invited kids up to do a snowball fight, man, they're in. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so that's kind of what, what we were talking about and what we try to do. And I think for the most part, our kids, our kids that come regularly, they love it.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Yes, absolutely. I mean, there's many times where you, you're the, the villain or the bad guy in the, in the, in the storyline. And, uh, Oh, you know, when they don't like you, cause they're either booing you or it's him. It was him. It's like, Oh, you feel almost as an actor. You feel, wow. I'm being persecuted here by these children but that's how they get involved and I mean you know there's never a lack at least that I've seen a lack of anybody wanting to get involved of course there's always the kids that are maybe shy younger ones that are still new to it and maybe a little timid things like that but as far as like the visiting kids go not our regular Sunday school kids but the ones coming on the bus or first timers they still seem to get involved

SPEAKER_02 3:21

yeah

SPEAKER_01 3:22

they do majority of the time maybe not every time but majority you the time and then yeah it's uh that's that's a key i think a big key is is seeing that and then how it affects us as the

SPEAKER_00 3:34

sunday school department the the actors things of that nature all this stuff yeah definitely yeah yeah and i think one thing um we do have a few bullets written down and i just i think maybe we could explain and we've talked about it in some of the other podcasts but if we explain what do we mean and i'll break down a couple of them so theater and interactive so what do we mean by theater first of all i mean this is way Is this a Sunday School podcast or what? Well, it is, but theater, right? I mean, when kids come into our Sunday School, it's not air quotes here, but classroom. Right. It looks much more like a theater than it does a classroom. Yes, absolutely. And so we have a pirate ship right now or Navy ship. Navy ship, depending on

SPEAKER_01 4:18

which week

SPEAKER_00 4:19

it is. I was switching it over right before we started this podcast. I'm in the process of switching over to Navy for tomorrow. We perform basically a full drama, like for all of our Bible stories. I rarely, sometimes we tell it, but rarely. So pretty much always we're performing a full on drama.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Right. From basically what we call our dynamic opening most times, as soon as the kids are walking through the door and currently aboard the ship, is we have some sort of action or action, something going on. A preview. Yeah, almost a preview. Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. A preview of what maybe the lessons is going to be about or what's to come. Like maybe, okay, where we left off maybe a little bit last week is now the dynamic opening of this week's lesson or this week's Sunday School. And then right from there, we roll into our regular segments. Our opening, kind of our rules, offering, you know, plan of salvation. And again, we try at least to have each character or a theme that goes along with that. So you're not just reading the rules. We're kind of going over

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Yeah, we kind of do a recap or something. Like, oh, remember last week when William got kidnapped or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Yeah, and in character. So we're not just taking up the offering as regular Sunday school staff. We're in a costume, whether it's just a goofy hat or glasses and kind of making, not light of it, but. Making it fun. Yeah, making it fun. Making it so the kids aren't just like, oh, it's offering. Yeah. We don't have to pay as much attention as much here. But yeah, just doing that, I think definitely helps. Yeah, and

SPEAKER_00 5:54

our themes have a story. in them. And so the characters are major because it's like, oh, there's Captain Patch. I know who that is. Or, you know, we did the Survival Quest thing. Oh, there's Radigan. He's our hero. You know, whatever. Those Festus,

SPEAKER_01 6:10

evil Festus. Yeah, and those, you know, again, I've only been now about three years, I think. 2020, the fall of 2020. So yeah, right in this time frame of starting helping with the Sunday School. But, you know, I hear about all the former characters And then you hear about the people like my sister-in-law, former sister or former sister-in-law that, I guess she's still current for sister-in-law, being a different character. Oh, because she got married. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's still your sister-in-law? She's still my sister-in-law, yeah. You know, I'm like, wait, she is? No, yeah. So, yeah, being a character, a main character. Oh, yeah. And I mean, we still call her by that name sometimes, you know, in the family of And it's just, it's, I mean, that's been years as far as I know, years ago.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

And everyone in Sunday school at that time probably remembers all these, these key characters, these key, key people in Sunday school. So it's, it's, I want to bring some of them back. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to see that be a lot of fun. And I know there's been, we've talked briefly at points in the last few years about the Narnia series. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Yes. That was fun. That would be fun. Yeah. Yeah. We should do that again for sure. I, you know, I do have plans to do that again. That's such a good, good story to do. It's fun. So, yeah, I mean, kind of like what you said, our entire script, you know, there's some exceptions, altar call or prayer requests or different things, but basically our entire script is full of characters and drama and skits. And like, even we do a lot of teams of three, a team of three might come in to do memory verse, but they often will be doing the, like, a full little skit right and and we only have you know our Sunday school runs about an hour plus a few minutes on average you know and so it's during you know simultaneous with the preaching in in the regular church and so we um we only have like I think memory verse has four minutes or three minutes something like that but we try to maximize those minutes as much as possible where those characters are doing something

SPEAKER_01 8:24

right right take can take in our lesson and then we try and incorporate a little skit or a little for the offering you know oh I don't want to give my money to God I want to go spend it somewhere or a character saying that and the other two are trying to no trying to convince lay up treasures in hand you know this is what you want to do I mean God bless you you give your money God's going to bless you maybe in different ways you know we work it into a little short little mini lesson lesson yeah and I mean again okay

SPEAKER_00 8:55

so yeah and then What do we mean by interactive? The interactive part,

SPEAKER_01 8:59

yeah. So kids love to do things. Yeah, they love to be involved. If we're up there and it's, again, just a typical good versus evil, and maybe we got a couple guys sword fighting, and so then we bring in a herd of kids, some to our army of God, and so then you have three or four or even half the group of kids up there going against the bad guys. Of course they're going to love that. They're up in arms already. Even if they're the bad guys, I'd love it. There's times where it can be a little rough. Like, okay, we're acting. Remember, we're acting here. But getting involved. Just that simple portion of... We

SPEAKER_00 9:42

call that controlled chaos. The controlled is all lowercase and the chaos is all capitals. Controlled chaos. They love doing that and the thing is too we help the kids they get to be a part of the Bible story often and so sometimes it's kind of more spur of the moment but other times even in practice we'll be like we'll call out a kid's name like oh that would be a

SPEAKER_01 10:11

good one for that right yeah so what was a couple weeks ago when we had two young boys that were probably our youngest youngest two and they're probably

SPEAKER_00 10:21

I don't know

SPEAKER_01 10:21

how tall they are they're not tall

SPEAKER_00 10:22

they're small my son was one of them yes

SPEAKER_01 10:24

they are they were two of the smallest children in our Sunday school and then that

SPEAKER_00 10:29

was so I forget

SPEAKER_01 10:30

who was up there with me but okay I'm six six feet tall yeah and here's this kid that's barely up to my hip uh being being the soldier and and taking me and the helmet they couldn't see through yeah they couldn't see through the helmet so the helmet's falling over their face that's what it was it was uh uh they were going to be throwing we were uh oh weren't you the uh

SPEAKER_00 10:48

the the ones that got Daniel thrown

SPEAKER_01 10:50

the advisors yeah the king's advisors yes that's right now it was their turn yeah and then the for us and threw us in there. It was pretty comical because, yeah, like I said, there was these little kids dressed up, can't see over the helmet, so their heads are kind of tilting back to

SPEAKER_00 11:04

see the visor. Yeah, they got the red cape things on that normally go to our actors' waist or below, and it's going to their dragging the floor. So, getting them involved. You know they love that. You know they're probably talking about that. I asked my son that Sunday. I was like, hey, so did you tell mom about it? He's like, oh, yeah. Yeah, so that's So again, yeah, that's a... So that's the interactive part. It's just kind of get them, throw them in there. And then I guess here's a few ways, like, I don't know how practical any of this might be in the word of practical, but some practical tips on ways that we can engage kids. So there's a couple of things like with just small engagement. And because I know that there's people that listen to this that maybe have a smaller situation than what we do. So they might have a smaller classroom. And so we can only explain what we do and hopefully it can be useful and pared down or whatever or or if if you're bigger there's there's many many churches bigger than us maybe they can get value out of this as well absolutely and so there's some smaller ways is i mean one thing we do every week pretty much is we do action songs yeah so uh either to a track or live and they have motions and so yeah those

SPEAKER_01 12:19

are a staple in our house now that oh yeah i always have to we always have to do the actions it's

SPEAKER_00 12:25

uh

SPEAKER_01 12:25

You know, even when my youngest or not my youngest, but my oldest wasn't in Sunday school, she was still wanting to know the songs we were singing and what the actions were. And so she came into Sunday school already knowing some of them. She had a leg up. She was a leg up on everybody. But yeah. And, you know, I see her every time she's at the front, you know, she's always going to the front. She wants to be part of that. And it's awesome to see that just as a parent, you know, but also I'd say a majority of our kids are all, you know, we put that in them to be one. That's part of one of our rules is be involved. Yeah. Like anything, it's a lot easier to enjoy when you're involved in something than it is to just be sitting back going, what are these

SPEAKER_00 13:03

people doing? What is that motion? Here's one that I do a lot. I have a note here, grabbing kids off the front row. Not just the front row, but grabbing kids. If we're doing a Bible series, for example, and I'm trying to catch people up, like doing a quick recap, we've got actors that are going to come in and do the, the story for today, but I'll do a recap and fast forward through it. So I'll grab some kids. I'm like, okay, you're Joseph and you're, you know, you're the jailer and you're this or whatever. And so remember how two weeks ago this happened and I'm just fast forwarding through it, but the kids are up there on stage.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

They're up there. They get to be involved. Yeah. They're a part of it. Yeah. And you, again, it's something, you know, that they're, they're remembering hopefully. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Well, I think, yeah, I think so. And I think that, you know, obviously they don't, depending on the age, we have a wide range. We have ages five through 11. And so obviously the five-year-olds are not getting quite as much, but by the time they're 11, you know, I mean, this is kind of, it's, they're sponges.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yeah. And again, it goes, I think of it as his mommy daughter. She's been at now, she'll be in, have been in Sunday school for a year coming up. And when I first started and she knew I was in Sunday school after each Sunday morning, she asked me, who was I today? Oh, Was I a good guy? Was I a bad guy? What did you do? And so, you know, I go through my roles of what I was doing in the Sunday school. So, she loved that. Now she gets to obviously see what's going on and be part of that. But I also like to, talking on that, grabbing a kid is maybe there's a kid being disruptive. And it's like they're not paying attention. They're probably in the back or maybe not in the back. But you grab them, bring them up there and be like, okay, hey. Yeah, and you get

SPEAKER_00 14:55

them involved. You get them involved. you're really good at that I try to because our next note is on talking to kids from the stage kind of breaking that fourth wall and that's something you do really

SPEAKER_01 15:02

well yeah try not to obviously

SPEAKER_00 15:04

scolding them or

SPEAKER_01 15:06

yelling at them but like hey so and so you know get their attention and be like look what's happening yeah come up here and I need a helper all of a sudden I need a helper you know whether I do or not now I can incorporate them into something there was a handful probably of times we've done that where we'll just bring somebody up and they weren't even part of our original plan or anything. And we just bring them up there and all of a sudden it turns into a good bit. It's good that way.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Yeah. And some of the more major ways that we engage kids, and that's kind of a little bit, maybe a little bit more about what this episode is about, the interactivity. We go all out on our set. And so we have a playground basically for our set. We have the pirate ship and then there's a playground. And we actually, we have a Christian school and I leave that playground up it's open and available for the kids when they're on break they they use that that's kind of a new we've done that last three years or something where we leave the playground up yeah but so what we'll do is we'll have you know quote-unquote training there's our training section yeah we got to do some training in that sometimes that's like some kind of captain comes i'm coming in doing exercises and they're usually silly exercises

SPEAKER_01 16:20

silly exercises but to get again get them involved to get them yeah i'll move and move and not just been sitting there for maybe 10 minutes or something. Kids, they don't sit. They don't sit still. Most, some do, most don't.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

And so we'll get up and we'll go train and they got to basically navigate the playground. And so we have like a circuit.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Our controlled chaos. Yes. It gets exciting at times.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yeah. And then, of course, you kind of mentioned earlier about the battles. We will often do big battles And we use like a Nerf golf balls

SPEAKER_02 16:59

or

SPEAKER_00 17:00

the little tiny, the little, I don't know, they're like three inch plastic balls, like a playground ball pin. We use those. And so they get to battle it out against the bad guys or something. Yeah, that's been violent at times. Yeah. And we'll do like going on missions or rescues. Yeah, the rescue missions. We haven't done that in a while. We haven't done that. But we have right now, William is kidnapped. Yeah, I guess that's coming. So there's going to be some.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

There's going to be some training for that. And

SPEAKER_00 17:27

then there'll be the actual mission. But yeah. And we usually have a climactic battle of some kind. And of course, in Bible stories, there's battles and things that happen maybe more often. One of the ways that we can just to offer this as maybe a tip or an idea. One of the ways that we do often when we do a quote unquote mission is we'll have four groups or three groups or something. And we'll have, okay, you're the scout team. Yep, the scouts. And they get to go. ahead of everybody and maybe they have a map and they're riding on it the staff is with them and they're pointing out the guards that are maybe sleeping or something whatever and they go out and they set up and then they motion for the next group and the next group is like the distraction team

SPEAKER_01 18:12

distraction team yes

SPEAKER_00 18:13

and so then create a distraction yeah and then we have the the ambush team and the rescue team so we got four groups and so on signal the distraction team yells and you know get the big bumbling guards to chase them. Yep,

SPEAKER_01 18:28

turn around and chase them in the opposite direction and then our rescue team sweeps in and saves the day. And

SPEAKER_00 18:34

then they see it and ambush team attacks or

SPEAKER_01 18:37

whatever, something or traps them. Different ways, we've done it different times or different ways, different times. Generally, I play the bumbling guard that's easily distracted. And you know what? Sometimes we turn the table on them and be like, oh, you're not tricking us this time. What's

SPEAKER_00 18:53

funny, what happened with the, where the bumbling guard came from is a long time I was talking to Brennan about this a long time ago down in the fellowship hall in the smaller room when we were setting up every each week we had to set up and take down we did pilgrims progress okay and we were going through a rash or a season of kids getting so scared so like now we have that once in a while a little bit yeah but it was like just it seemed to be every week kids were getting so scared and I don't know what it was but Maybe it was a spirit. I don't know. But anyway, so what we did is we took our bad guys and we just made them into bumbling idiots

SPEAKER_01 19:33

to try

SPEAKER_00 19:33

to

SPEAKER_01 19:34

make it less scary. Yeah, I can see that, especially with the young ones. Like you said, we've had a few that, well, even my daughter at times, if there's something where like the good character, whomever is losing or getting beat up, she gets upset. I know that. You see it. She'll say it after. And then there's others too that just absolutely get terrified of certain things And it's like, okay, got to remember they're just little kids. And then we got turned into, I'd say majority of the time we turned it into a fun kind of spoofy, goofy type scenario. And then at times we obviously like to make it serious.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Well, and I will say like with our set and everything and our music and the dynamic opening. So dynamic opening is when kids are being seated. That's when something's happening. It can be a lot. It can be overwhelming. Yes. There are times when kids that are coming on the bus and they're younger, we've actually had to send them downstairs to the other classroom. And that's really unfortunate. But I feel like it's – I was talking to Brother Phillip Booker about something like this is we have to balance it. We can't sacrifice the good of everybody, all these other kids that really love that for the few that are going to be scared. Because, I mean, when you walk in, if we're doing – The dynamic openings are different. Sometimes it's just a couple people on stage

SPEAKER_01 20:59

talking. Yeah, they could be something really simple and then it could be half the staff is out there

SPEAKER_00 21:03

sword fighting amongst the kids. And the music is playing and sound effects, fog machine.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Yeah, I was going to bring that up earlier. It's just how more or less how epic some of our scenes are, some of our acting is. Because sometimes, yeah, it's a simple one, two people up there doing their bit. And then at times it's like we're walking over the benches in between the kids having sword fights or chasing people all all around the room, through everything. We do chases a lot. The chases are fun because, again, you can have the bumbling guards out there and kind of be like, ha-ha, you can't get me. And you're on the other side of the room and then they come charging over and you're on the other back side of the room or front corner. So that's where, again, and yeah, like, so again, that's kind of, the kids' attention is just one side of the room to the other back and forth and up and down and it's all over the place, which. Yeah, you can't just sit forward facing. No, you wouldn't get it if you were just, if everything was in one spot Our

SPEAKER_00 21:55

staff basically gets to be a bunch of kids is what happens. More or less. We

SPEAKER_01 21:59

generally have that times more fun than the kids, I believe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Accidentally on purpose, maybe. So here's the other thing about engagement is we're always talking about getting kids attention because if you have two options and you have a talking head on stage or just up front, whatever, you have a talking head and they are, I'm going to try to be really negative. They're just droning the plan of salvation.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

Well, okay, some of the kids are going to get it, hopefully, and there is value in that. I know it sounds like I'm knocking it, but there is value in it. But if you have two choices, you have that or you have the other extreme. You have a sword fight happening and everything, and then the plan of salvation is told in that format. Right. Then you have the kids' attention, or you even stop for a second, or you do an object lesson. Something's exploding. And the kids are like, oh, wow. And you're like,

SPEAKER_01 23:01

this is just like the Holy Ghost when, you know, fill in the blank. and so most times we come out in a character that's like lost or we work it in some way and it's not the same character every time the one I like to do is kind of like an adventure got like a venture vest on with a kind of like a adventure hat and going out there and going over the plan of salvation and we pull out our map and yeah and the kids know it by now the kids know it's pointing like it's over there it's pretty obvious so but you know we got we'll work on coming up with a twist on that yeah there you go and again that's just uh, that's one thing. That's a simple, what is the plan? How do, how do we do this? And does anybody know? And yeah, so that, and again, that's something I think that we do pretty good at is incorporating, asking them like, okay, what is step one in the plan of salvation? What's our first step in the plan of salvation? Hands will go up. Most times there's more just blurting stuff out, but to shoot up. I know, I know. Yeah, exactly. And so, and again, once again, you're incorporating the kids interacting with you, not just going over this, Like you said, not to be negative, but this drone on about here's what you need to do to be saved. Yeah. It's like, no, we're calling out. Do you know how to be saved? What's the first step? Yeah. And yeah. So that simple, I guess in a sense, but maybe if you're, you're new or you haven't maybe not thought about it in a way of how can we make this more interactive while here, like you said, obviously that's why we're doing this and talking about it. And here, here's an idea. It's just

SPEAKER_00 24:51

coming up with fun, fun ways, way of doing it. And, One of the things about attention is when you get kids, like as soon as you put kids on stage, everybody, well, not, you know, there's exceptions, but everybody's locked in. All the other kids are like their peer. Yeah, that's their friend, their best friend or

SPEAKER_01 25:10

whoever was just sitting next to them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

You know, it's exciting. And so that's why, that's another reason why it's not just, I guess there's kind of a couple of different phases or facets getting the kids out of their seats because they don't want to sit still and have Be a part of the story. Helps them remember it. Right. And then keeping it interesting. But then also when you get kids on stage, it's also for the kids that are still in the audience. Yes. Because they see kids on stage and they're engaged. Yeah. It's not just

SPEAKER_01 25:40

the main actors now. It's not the Sunday school. It's the actual kids. Yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

And a few ways that we do that is like we'll often like just, you know, throw a hat on a kid and come on, let's go. Right. You know, and we've even done it where – So, Anisha, my daughter, runs the costumes, but she'll come out there with like a couple costumes because we know. Yeah. And she'll throw them on out there in the audience. Here, put this on, go. Go, yeah. You're up. Yeah. And so, they get to be on stage for a few minutes doing whatever. It might even be a song or it might be a little skit or something for the segment.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

The other thing is, too, like we will select actors ahead of time sometimes. We haven't done this part in a while, but we'll even – Sometimes select them as, as far in advance as check-in. Right. You know, they're getting, they're doing the check-in or welcome outside and we'll, we'll go grab five kids and like, Hey, we need you guys to be soldiers or something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Again. Yeah. You get to, you know, the kids you get to pick. So if we're, maybe we need someone who, one of the older kids, I mean, we've used some of the older ones in the past that we know are going to, they're not just going to be go off on their own little thing somewhere. They're going to do their little part. Hey, here's what we need you to do. Can you do it? And well, not, can you do it? You're going to do it. Yeah. And we send them out there. And

SPEAKER_00 27:02

they love it. They absolutely love it. And especially when they get to put on a costume and stuff. I mean, it's funny to see some of the kids that we bring them backstage and their eyes go big. You know, they see the costume room with all the costumes hanging up and they're just like, oh. Yeah. What do I get to be now? Ooh, do I get to wear that? Yeah. Oh, I want a sword. No. Yeah. And then another thing we – like what we've done here is we have a special singing group. And so they stay – most Sundays, they stay after Sunday school and practice with my daughter. And so they're like kind of a choir or whatever. And the only place they sing right now is in Sunday school. Right. Now, we have a conference that we do every year in August. And we have kind of a bigger children's church that happens on the preaching nights. And so they get to sing on stage in front of everybody for that. Yeah. But for the most part, they just sing in our Sunday school, but they, and not every Sunday, but they get to come up on stage and there's no staff on stage or sometimes there's one and they get to be up

SPEAKER_01 28:09

there. And it's funny. We were talking about that and it's been, it's not every week that we do have that group come up. Right. No, but you know, I don't think it's been two weeks since I've been in Sunday school. Last week I worked to run out of here, but it's, funny because some of the kids that we bring up there that are part of that are so into doing the actions and the songs and it's funny because a lot of the other stuff would be like hey were you watching so and so yeah and it's like yeah i mean they're i mean they're just they're so focused and you know if you were to flip that and they were down in the in the with the rest of the sunday school kids most times they're not that into it they're still following along with still doing it yeah still doing the actions but when they're up there there's a couple of them that are just like Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 28:56

they're locked in. Yeah, they're locked in. And they're full of energy. This is their time. Well, and I get onto them sometimes. So, Anisha runs that group. But I'm always up here doing cleanup or whatever. And so, they're practicing. And sometimes I'll do my own little spiel. And so, they know now when I say, what's the one key word? And they all are like, energy. Energy, yeah. And I'm like, if you're going to be on stage, you've got to be full of energy. You can't just hum the drum up there. Yeah. We don't want to

SPEAKER_01 29:25

just be going through the motions.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Yeah. Well, we're coming up against our time. So let's do just a kind of a quick recap on, on some of this. When we're talking about interactive theater, basically we're just, we're talking about that Sunday school can be more than just a classroom. If, if you have the means, and I would say, if you, if you think you don't have the means, just take a second look because you might. Right. And obviously be within your, your pastor's vision. I mean, when, We had the fellowship hall, and we switched to one-room Sunday school, we called it. It was much smaller than what we have now, and it was a set-up and take-down every week. We had a set-up Saturday night, late, and we'd take it down right after Sunday school. I remember doing

SPEAKER_01 30:10

that.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

That was within the first three years. You were part of a crew, a set-up crew.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Yeah, we'd be down here at 10, 11 o'clock at night, hauling stuff in and setting it up. I mean, there was probably a group of 10 people at maybe more or less different times.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

And those were amazing sets. They

SPEAKER_01 30:23

were. They were. They were, again, I didn't really get, you know, it's funny. I set up, but I didn't see stuff go on. I wasn't even really part of Sunday school at that time or even thought about it. And then after church was done, I'd go back there and we'd just tear everything down. It was like, I wonder what they did today. I never thought about it necessarily. But,

SPEAKER_02 30:45

you

SPEAKER_01 30:46

know, the other thing we, you know, we've been talking about the engagement part and I'm sure it's our pastors talked about it, but I can't remember when we had Brother Booker here that He brought it to attention, but we're competing with the world. And so, you know, my days in Sunday school were a felt board with, you know, you'd stick on and tell the story and stuff. It's like, can you imagine? Kids would be like, what is this?

SPEAKER_00 31:08

It just doesn't seem like it would engage. And I mean, it might, I don't know. It might be interesting. It'd be fun to try it one time.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Just to bring it out and just do this and see the reaction.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

The first time they would probably be like, okay, that was kind of cool. Yeah. Like, okay, wait, we're doing this again. We're doing the same

SPEAKER_01 31:26

thing

SPEAKER_00 31:26

again. So that's the same character. Yeah. And that's one thing with drama. I don't feel like we ever get like, oh, we're doing this again.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Right. I

SPEAKER_00 31:34

don't feel like we ever get

SPEAKER_01 31:35

that. Oh, no. No, it's, you know, even if we do a similar lesson or Bible story that we've done recently, when I say recently, the six months, a year, different actors bring out different characters. Different flavor. Yeah, exactly. Like Samson, when I was doing Samson, totally opposite of what someone else. We probably do like totally, but I'm sure there's some clips and video that somewhere, but, uh, but

SPEAKER_00 32:02

yeah, we just did the Samson series. Yes, that's right. Yeah. If kids can do, and I got that note written down and I have it all caps do something when they're in Sunday school, they'll come back. Right. When they get to do something, uh, most likely they're going to, they're going to come back because it was just, it was cool.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Yeah. And most, and again, we're not necessarily even talking about like a by do like a arts and craft type thing we do that we do occasionally occasionally not very often but do as in get involved we have like you said we've got our our obstacle course where they get to do something and we'll have times where we don't get to do that because service was short or or our lessons were right whatever the case may be right and then there's times like oh kids are asking when do we get to go up there and go down the slide or when do we get to do this portion or

SPEAKER_00 32:51

yeah if we go a couple weeks without going on the slide I get kids start Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then so ways to engage kids. I'm just going to hit the bullet points really quick for a recap so people can maybe take this home. But so from the stage with small engagement, just action songs, grabbing kids from the front row for a quick example or something, talking to kids from the stage, you know, like kind of breaking that fourth wall and engaging with them. And then the interactive engagement. Engagement is like the training. We just talked about going up on the slide.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Hands-on.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Yeah, and then the missions, the battles, that kind of thing. Those are some of the ways that we use. And then, I guess, finally, kids love to see other kids on stage. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

I think that's a big one. Like you said, it's seeing your friend, whether it's your best friend. I mean, we have siblings, we have cousins, all sorts, you name it. So when they see their big sister get up there or their best friend get up there, It's like, I'm paying attention a little bit more now, or I want to be up there too. If nothing else, they're going to make fun of

SPEAKER_00 34:00

them. Yes, exactly. They're going to be like, ha ha. All right. Well, I think that's pretty good. We're, yeah, we're over time. So I think. Perfect. Call that a wrap.