My Church has been doing a large Easter production as far back as I can remember. Over the years the basic production has remained nearly the same year after year, with minor changes here and there to keep it fresh.

This year my own friend Lucas was asked to direct for the second year in a row and he decided to write an entirely new production.Lucas took a different approach than we?d ever used for an adult production before. The play was set in modern times as opposed to being a period piece, had horribly flawed characters and a more honest representation of a walk with Christ.

I?m ashamed to say that a lot of my church?s members found this distasteful. They had a lot of regular cast members walk after reading the script and even more dropped out during the practices. People were offended by having a character with a drinking problem, a married couple with a troubled relationship, an abused woman and most of all the fact that the man playing Jesus in the play claimed to be an atheist.

The characters were exaggerations of every church?s population. There were the pious, the humble, the eager, the shy, black, white, saint, sinner, young and old. The play didn?t try to sugarcoat the life of a Christian. For example there was the man whose son had been diagnosed with an unnamed illness that?d kept him from school and forced him off the baseball team. In the end, the child died and we saw the parents? anger, grief, pleas and finally acceptance.

The play didn?t try to answer the questions as to why God would take a child?s life and instead focused on the fact that even when we can?t understand God?s plan, He?ll always give us the strength to make it through.

I was speaking with my sister, the stage manager, about the complaints the church staff has been fielding about the play. The pastor?s wife said a lot of the church?s oldest members, either in age or in longevity at the church, had griped the most. She said they didn?t care if these people griped, that these people were already saved. While I see her point, I think that these people could have benefited just as much. If they?d given it a chance they would have seen themselves in one of the characters. I know I did.