By Candice Carter
For The Salisbury Post
CHAOS Youth will hold their 5th annual dinner theater at 6 p.m. Saturday, March 12 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Landis.
This year’s production is titled “Out of Darkness.” Our youth have worked hard to create a message of hope and strength for the audience. Often we choose to ignore the shadows of our past as they are filled with darkness, times that were before Jesus filled our lives with the light of his love. These shadows loom in the dark recesses of our minds as a constant reminder that there were days when we rebelled against our father and chose to live outside of his glorious light. We hope to show people the wonderful blessings you receive when God begins to shine in our life! Our goal is to show people how God is calling you from the shadows of your dark past into the light of his love.
Our show will consist of six main skits, with the middle school group performing a skit set to the song “The Motions” by Matthew West. Eighth grader Austin Bell from Trinity Lutheran Church will be featured in this skit. The message is how sometimes our faith can feel a bit numb. Every now and then, Christians experience a spiritual drought where we pray yet feel disconnected, or we sing yet our song feels empty. It’s during those times that we find ourselves just simply going through the motions of being a Christian. This skit shows how we should break out of that robotic Christian life and step into a faith full of passion and truth. Our God is anything but boring, and we should live out our faith in a real and passionate way.
The middle and high school group will perform a skit titled “Everyday Shadows,” which will display a type of Christian arts called shadow ministry. Alex Lentz, Jacob Harrison and Sara Bradley have put together a high energy percussion performance as our very own CHAOS Blue Man Group. This trio enjoys using their musical talents for the Lord.
The high school youth will perform a drama set to the song “Angels Fall Down” by Skillet. This skit will show the struggles that teens experience and how God helps them overcome these difficult life circumstances. Some of the topics they touch on are teen drug abuse, peer pressure, how to deal with tragedy and the desire to share Christ with their non-Christian friends. This skit includes a dramatic display of Jesus’ crucifixion and how he can help us in our trials if we only pray and believe.
Our show’s final skit of the evening will include both middle and high school youth performing a drama to “I Will Rise” by Chris Tomlin. This finale will incorporate three different types of drama ministry: “Glowing Hands,” using white gloves and black lights to display images; “God Rods,” a form of using dowel rods in a beautiful interpretive movement; and sign language.
We pray that through our show the hearts of our audience will be flooded with the light of Christ and that people will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power in our lives. The CHAOS Youth have a love for drama ministry and perform at a number of churches and community events throughout the year.
I am very proud of the students for their desire to share Christ and their dedication to putting such a production together. Each student has a different talent and as their leader I try to utilize their strengths and point out their talents, showing them how they can be used for God’s glory.
Our meal will consist of chicken dumplings, green beans, slaw, crackers, drink and dessert. The youth will wait tables. Tickets are $8 for adults, $5 for children ages 12 and under and free for 3 and under. All proceeds will be used to fund our summer youth camp. Although tickets are sold out we are taking names for a waiting list at sryouthdirector@yahoo. com.
You can also see CHAOS perform some of our dramas at an area youth rally at 6 p.m. Sunday, March 27, at Corriher Lipe Middle School. This event will feature guest speaker Christian Chapman, the CHAOS drama team and Christian bands.
The event is free — a love offering will be accepted for the keynote speaker. All youth groups, school groups, middle and high school students are invited. Contact Candice Carter at sryouthdirector@ yahoo.com or 704-425-5405 for more information.
The South Rowan Lutheran Youth is a joint youth ministry of Lutheran Chapel, St. Marks Lutheran Church, Mt. Moriah Evangelical Lutheran Church and Trinity Lutheran Church in the South Rowan area. The ministry, called CHAOS Youth (Christians Hyped About Our Savior) combines middle and high school youth from all four churches. Candice Carter has served as the full time youth director for the group since 2004.