Advent 2008

In Advent 2008 we decided to do something different than the traditional Macy's fake Christmas tree look that we do every year.  Instead our series was about the prophets foretelling the coming of Christ, so we set up a Bethlehem scene in the background cutout of 4X8 sheets of foam board and painted.  The  palm trees were made out of plywood, chicken wire, and fabric (technically more historically accurate than pine trees...).  The palm branches (luckily were removable from some fake plants in our building) and stuck into little foam bricks in the top of the tree trunks.  The star reappeared this year (a spandex 3D shape stretched over a wire frame).  The hill underneath Bethlehem we had to build 2X4 construction with chicken wire fence coming out from it.  Then we just pinned a bunch of brown fabric over it.  Hopefully it looks like a city on a hill (we used it to bury the drums too :)

On the columns of the wall were these artistic figures cut out of foam board and painted.  Some of them still exist in our closet today.  Then fabric was draped down from behind them and lit from the floor.

All this was a tremendous amount of work. We had a crew of 4 people working weeks ahead of time cutting, painting, and prepping.  then the Saturday before Advent, about 20 people came and put it all together on stage.  The Bethlehem backdrop (about 10 to 14 feet wide), tree trunks for the palm trees, and some of the prophet faces are still in storage in our church.