Do Not Be Afraid: A Christmas Pageant has been designed to meet Christmas pageant needs, whether you're doing an in-person or virtual pageant. Centered on the narratives surrounding Jesus’ birth from the gospels of Matthew and Luke, this can be used as a traditional Christmas pageant, ready to be performed in person at your church or school. But it is also designed to be an expandable, shrinkable, pre-recordable, Zoom-able, intergenerational pageant that can be adapted to your setting, no matter what is happening in the world. Interested in seeing a few pages of the script? You can download a sample here! What comes with Do Not Be Afraid: A Christmas Pageant? A How-To Guide: This guide will help you figure out how to use and direct your Christmas pageant in a way that fits the needs of your congregation and community. It asks you questions about how you plan on making your pageant happen and offers suggestions to help you tailor it to your community. Pageant Planning Guide: This planning guide lists Scene Cards, Characters, Image Backgrounds, and Music Suggestions in one place. We have also provided extra space to write notes, thoughts, casting ideas, visual and sound effects, and anything else you dream up, so your pageant goes smoothly. Script: This screenplay contains elements and suggestions to help your pageant succeed, whether it is performed in-person or virtually, and is written to provide various roles for all ages and reading levels. It is also broken down into distinct scenes, so it is simple to cast and organize by families and locations if need be. Scene Cards: You can use the twelve scene cards to announce transitions and set new locations as each scene begins. You might also use them during video editing if you’re creating a movie version of this pageant. Additionally, there are two transition scene cards that will be needed in the middle of two scenes. Image Backgrounds: These five illustrations have been created to help enhance your pageant and fill in some places that you might want some added scenery. You can use them as a Zoom background or with a green screen. Media Pack: We have included graphics to help you advertise your pageant on social media, in emails, and on your website and newsletter. There are different sets of graphics, depending on whether you're putting together an in-person pageant or a virtual one. How can I learn more? We created a Pop-Up Facebook Group for our Christmas Pageant, and we hope it will be a supportive space for people to share ideas, brainstorm together, and learn from one another. The group will only be active during certain parts of the year. You can request to join the group here. You might also consider picking up our Illustrated Nativity Figures to add additional possibilities and creativity to your pageant. Purchase details: After completing your purchase, you’ll instantly receive a link to download a ZIP file. Once you unzip the file, you’ll find the PDF with your planning guide and script, another PDF with just the script, and then folders for the Media Pack, Scene Cards, and Image Backgrounds. Looking for other "Do Not Be Afraid" resources? Check these out! Do Not Be Afraid: An Illustrated Devotional An Illustrated Advent for Families: Do Not Be Afraid FAQ If you haven't had a chance to download the sample yet, please do so! It will answer most of your questions! You can download a sample here! Here are a few frequently asked questions that we wanted to give you some quick responses to: How long is the script? A group of us did a table reading and it took about 20 minutes to read through the script. So it's safe to estimate your pageant would be about 20-30 minutes long. How many people do I need for the pageant? You can put on this pageant with as few or as many people as you want! If you are doing this pageant virtually, there is no minimum cast for this pageant. One person could conceivably perform all the parts. The ideal cast would include about 20-30 people in about 10-12 different homes. Can I put my finished product online (Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)? YES! You can definitely put your finished product online (just be sure to credit Illustrated Ministry). More detailed copyright and license information can be found in the product, and we ask that you not make any of the copyrighted material (image backgrounds, script, etc) available for people to download. But we hope that you will share your finished pageant online!
