St. Stephen United Methodist Church
PRESENTS
St. Stephen
FALL PREMIERE
Fall Ministries, Missions & More!
Cast & Crew:
All the people of St. Stephen!
This Fall Premiere program is playful take on the traditional Playbill programs one traditionally receives at musicals, plays, and other theatrical performances. Playbill was first published in 1884 for a theater on 21st Street in New York City. In the many decades since, Playbill has become one of the most recognized and ubiquitous signs of Broadway and Off-Broadway theatre. Today, many local and regional productions also publish a Playbill as their program.
Here at St. Stephen, we were inspired by the use of a Playbill to guide an audience member’s journey through a play or musical, using it as a creative foundation for guiding you through the unique production that is the life, mission, and ministry of St. Stephen. Christian education, spiritual growth and formation, service, and community are at the core of St. Stephen's identity as we strive to be the hands, feet, and heart of Jesus Christ — in our neighborhood, in Charlotte, and in the world. This Fall Premiere program is your gateway to understanding the ways you can get personally involved in any of the fall ministries, programs, classes and studies, missions, and serving opportunities at the church. Each fall and back-to-school season at St. Stephen offers every member, regular guest, and newcomer an opportunity to take the first or next step in their faith journey as a disciple of Jesus. Use this Playbill to learn about these opportunities to serve, to learn, to give back, and, ultimately, to grow closer in your relationship with each other and with God.
In Shakespeare’s As You Like It, the character Jaques offers up one of the most famous lines in the history of Western theatre: “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.” The fullness of Jaques’s wry and pessimistic take on the human life has been lost on many, because the opening words of his speech resound with a powerful and universal truth: We each have a role to play, a character bubbling up from inside us, ready to take to the stage of life and make our mark on the world. As Christians, we know that the best and ultimate exemplar of character is Jesus, who taught us the kinds of roles we are expected to take in this life... roles of service and charity, of mercy and kindness, of love and forgiveness. We know, too, the director of this play, the ultimate playwright, our Creator. And, we know for whom this play has been staged and why we have been cast — so that others, all the people in the world around us, when seeing the love we have for one another, might come to call us followers of Christ and be inspired to know Him as well as we do.
There’s good news about this play, too: There is no casting call or audition! An open invitation has already been extended to you, free of charge and unconditionally offered. All you must do is take a leap of faith and claim your voice and character. Be mindful you don’t wait or delay; curtain call is coming soon!
