As a choir member for LifeWay's Christmas chapel presentation, I'd like to offer a little behind the scenes commentary that I'll call "Backstage at 'The Ornament,' a musical drama."

Monday, December 14 ~ noon til a little after 2pm

We've had a lot of practices since we started learning the music to our LifeWay Christmas program this year. We started in September, but this was the first complete run through with the choir, orchestra, children's choir, and the actors in the drama. It was very long, but necessary -- since we had to get the sound right, cues in the right places, etc. We prayed that it all comes together for the 3 scheduled performances! 

Tuesday, December 15 ~ choir call time is 9:15am

When we got to the Van Ness Auditorium a little after 9am, visitors were already in their seats, and lots of retirees and guest were coming in.  It amazes me still after all the years I've done this with the LifeWay choir, how many people -- in addition to our employees -- come to this Christmas chapel each year ... I've been in our LifeWay choir almost 10 years, and the Christmas program is the thing I enjoy most. 

The first performance kicked off at 10 am, and went great! The comment I've heard the most is that folks should be warned to bring a kleenex or hankie! It's one of the most emotional musicals we've done, but it has a lot of humor too.

Truly, "The Ornament" is a great Christmas message with today's problems in life -- it's all there: death, divorce, unemployment, homelessness, orphans, life's disappointments, things we all deal with.  But through it all, we can always count on our Savior, Jesus.

All the actors did an amazing job, especially Dr. Terry Terry, one of our recent LifeWay retirees.

I'm tired but excited about how well our program went. I know that the next two performances will great as well! Merry Christmas!!!!

Entry byJanet Sullivan. Janet has worked at LifeWay off and on since 1974, and is a member of the LifeWay Choir. She's serves as the corporate switchboard operator in the Communications Deptartment.

Please also enjoy the following slideshow presentation of "The Ornament" by Kent Harville, LifeWay's corporate visuals coordinator.