Have you ever invited visitors to a church presentation? You may have noticed how they were grinding their teeth and staring at their watches in that airless auditorium while their entire evening went up in smoke. Maybe you snickered a little while fourteen-stanza hymns droned on to the monotonous thumping of a badly-played piano? Maybe no one came back. That’s because you were too selfish to plan a twenty-minute cantata.
Is there anything worse than an hours-long presentation that keeps people guessing as to whether the world will end before it does?
In today’s fast-paced world, time is a precious commodity. Church leaders must recognize the need for concise and visitor-friendly services.
Unfortunately, church leaders are the most hard-headed about this. They enjoy trapping the non-church-going public into sitting through four-hour Christmas, Easter, or Hanukah pageants. As the clergyman, you may consider this to be a deserved retribution for the no-church crowd. Maybe you felt a little God or Greta-like as you dealt out an earthly penalty, imposing your personal version of hell on earth on the semi-believing.
In an era characterized by TikTok-like attention spans, it’s crucial for even the most overbearing church organizers to respect the time of church visitors. While your regular crowd of church-nuts may actually beg for more half-day sermons, rest assured no one else will. When your holiday productions regularly end past midnight, you can write off your whole idea of monetizing Patreon.
Shorter presentations have several benefits. They allow visitors to make the most of their day. Your audience will get a warm and righteous holiday feeling when they help you pack the house. With the 20-minute cantata, you’re well on your way to making your visitors’ wallets spout forth great bounties.
Church presentations that host outside visitors for religious holidays often follow an extremely long sequence of events. To keep the service under twenty minutes, it’s essential to identify areas for potential time-saving. Make your service something special and quick that people might choose over, say, spending a long day dealing with idiots at the Motor Vehicle Department.
The Christmas Cantata is the clear winner as the event that’s famous for going on until all hours of the morning. That’s because the organizers think every kid within sight needs to portray some kind of barnyard animal. Sure, the kids are marginally cute for a few seconds, and there is always an excellent chance one of them might liven up the show by breaking out in tears in mid-sentence. But let’s face it, even their own parents minds start to engage in space travel long before the twenty-minute mark.
Cut, Cut, Cut
You have to be ruthless. Studiously avoid any pre-show blabber about how so many wonderful people have come together to produce this spectacular evening. Just think, lights, camera, action! Begin with a warm, welcoming five-second message that includes a brief introduction to set the tone. “Here we go!” is good.
Utilize only one concise scripture reading during the entire presentation. The scripture reading should be just one verse long. John 3:16 is good for Christians. Psalms 4:8 will play for either Christians or Jews. Both verses can be recited in less than ten seconds. After reading the verse, resist throwing in any of your hackneyed observations. Even the most hardened atheists and agnostics know exactly what the verses mean. They aren’t going to give you any money anyway, so why bother?
Cut the whole production back to only one scene. For example, you might only portray three very Wise Men on a journey. Let any speculations about their ultimate destination just be a fun part of the story. Show them spinning yarns and drinking wine around a desert campfire. Just make it a macho weekend camping excursion with no goal – except getting away from the wives. Throw in some ethnic dancing complete with hardened New York accents. If you play only this one scene, there’s no need to drag out the production by forcing stuttering children wearing paper-bag heads to mumble about which variety of barnyard animals they represent.
Don’t forget, tailoring the story to both Christians and Jews will ensure a bigger audience, and will certainly garner a lot more news coverage
By making the production a one-act desert scene, the scenery can be nothing but a couple of bags of sand spread on the stage. That will cost less than ten bucks, so, that’s a good bump to your bottom line right there. You will avoid those uncomfortable manger scenes that could turn off a good percentage of your potential audience.
Music
Music plays a vital role in church services, and choosing appropriate songs is crucial to keeping the service concise. Opt for shorter songs or hymns. Only force the visitors to mumble one single hymn as a group, and let them remain sitting while doing it. Some hymns have fourteen verses. No matter how many verses the selected hymn has, only sing one verse and one chorus. Of course, the musical director will feel shorted, but you’ve probably been wondering a lot about what in the heck he does all day.
Prayers
Keep the praying to one short prayer, maintaining extreme brevity. Consider ways to shorten or completely skip the sermon or homily without compromising the twenty-minute cantata. No one should speak for more than thirty seconds at a time. God never prescribed prayer length in his teachings. So you should be able to say it all and still maintain a professional bearing in ten words or less. “Thank you, God” is the prayer most appreciated and revered by audiences.
Eliminate Diversions
Streamline essential administrative processes, such as collecting offerings. Some churches waste fifteen minutes just taking up offerings. Enable PayPal or Venmo for donations. Better yet, just bill their credit cards monthly. By simplifying these technical aspects, you can make the twenty-minute cantata flow seamlessly while building a solid economic future for you and your heirs.
If you feel you actually have to pass the plate to grab some extra cash, this is an excellent opportunity to cut known long-winded speakers completely out of the action. Assign them plate-passing jobs instead of speaking jobs. Pass the plate during the main presentation, to avoid wasting time. As an added incentive, since the musical director will not have to drum up another wheezy organ interlude for the mid-cantata collection, you can probably just go ahead and cut back his hours, like you were thinking about earlier.
Creating a welcoming environment is often thought to involve active engagement with church visitors. Never, ever provide opportunities for visitors to share their experiences or testimonies. Let’s face it, most non-churchgoers are no more good at shutting up than your regular flock.
Start these holiday things early – like as soon as people get off work. About 5:30 PM is good. That gives people a chance to come straight from work after enjoying a quick stop-off at a bar. They won’t have to come home, fart off for an hour, get re-dressed, and go back out again. Man, do people hate that. And for the love of God, don’t make the date for your twenty-minute cantata on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday night.
Make Your Promises Come True
Craft brief, informative announcements, conveying essential information effectively. Some essential information might be these promises, posted clearly on a sign just outside the entrance:
1. This entire function will take twenty minutes or less.
2. The actors will not re-take the stage for congratulations at the end, saving time.
3. There will be absolutely no prayers or after-remarks once it is over. No one will come out and start gabbing just as everyone grabs their coat.
Also, the moment the curtain drops, it is polite for the announcer to quickly state “IT IS OVER” and immediately point guests to the door. People will spring out of their seats like their pants are on fire.
Time-Keeping
Effectively managing time is indispensable. Regular rehearsals are essential to practice smooth transitions and minimize delays. Keep rehearsing until you get the twenty-minute cantata well under 18 minutes. This will allow a little slack if you should happen to start running over.
Consider designating a team member responsible for timekeeping during the presentation. It’s a good idea to mount a gigantic digital countdown clock on the wall. This clock, visible to the entire congregation, should count down the seconds of the twenty-minute cantata and help keep everything running tight. It’s such a relief to visitors when they can glance at the clock and think, “Only five minutes and fourteen seconds of agony left.”
Stick To Firm Cutoffs
Finally, the printed program should encourage attendees to stand up and yell “Times Up!” if the presentation does happen to edge over the twenty-minute mark.
In a world where time is a precious commodity, churches must adapt to engage their congregation profitably. Remember, being concise doesn’t mean being less profitable. It means making every minute count as we serve, worship, and grow during each and every one of the twenty minutes we share together once a year.