Matthew Gee
Children & Young People’s Committee
We really hope that you will all take part in our all-age, single-meeting nativity play as part of our next all-age meeting for worship on Sunday 5 December at 10:30.
Oxford Meeting has a long practice of holding three all-age meetings for worship each year, which are an opportunity for children, teenagers, and adults to worship together rather than in our separate meetings. All-age meetings typically include some programmed or semi-programmed elements, and some singing. They currently take place within the 10:30 ‘single’ meeting on the first Sundays of March, October, and December. The December all-age meeting often – although not always – includes a nativity or Christmas-themed play.
We are having to experiment with slightly different formats for all-age meetings for worship at present due to coronavirus restrictions. We are also aware that as a result of restrictions due to coronavirus, Friends are currently worshipping in smaller groups. Therefore, we wanted this December’s all-age worship to be something where we can come together as a community and include all the different Friends in our meeting: whether young or old; worshipping on Zoom or the meeting house; part of the Sunday meeting or a mid-week meeting.
Therefore, this year we are planning that, rather than the nativity play being performed solely by the children’s meetings, we have an all-age, all-meeting blended nativity play. Our vision is that each scene will be performed by a different group of Friends in the meeting. In order for those who worship in the meeting house and on Zoom to all take part and hear, we think this will need to be recorded in advance, rather than being performed live.
Your task is to find a group of other Quakers who you can work with to produce one brief scene of a nativity play. That might be an existing group in the meeting – such as the garden volunteers, or people who attend the breakfast meeting, or Young Adult Friends – or it might be a group of Friends who just come together for this. Once you have found a group who are willing to take part, let Matthew Gee or another member of Children & Young People’s Committee know by Sunday 14 November that you want to take part and the approximate size of your group. On 14 November, we will give each group the title of a scene in the nativity story. It might be something like ‘travelling to Bethlehem on a donkey’ or ‘the angels appear to the shepherds’. Your group then has from 14 November to 28 December to come up with a way of presenting your scene. Again, you can be creative about this – it might involve acting, or music, or a painting, or a poem, or whatever appeals to you. You might want to tell the story of your scene in a traditional way, or you might want to think about its relevance to contemporary issues. The only limit is that there will be a tight time limit for each scene (probably about two minutes), and you (or we) will need to be able to film your scene (e.g. on a mobile phone, iPad, or Zoom). If your group needs technical assistance we will hopefully be able to link you up to Friends in the meeting who can help.
Children & Young People’s Committee will then weave together the different contributions of scenes, together with contributions from the children’s meetings, into something that will be shared as part of a blended all-age meeting for worship on the theme of ‘community’ on 5 December.
We really hope that Friends from across our community will feel able to take part, and hope this will give Friends a chance to reflect on an aspect of the nativity story, together with other members of our community, in a fun and creative way.
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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 511 • November 2021
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW