My project is situated within the context of a church that is connectional. To contend with the issue of inculturation, that of culture and media savvy urbanites within a postmodern context, I loosely use two resources common to the tradition of my parish setting. First, the liturgical event follows the Prayer Book structure as interpreted in the parish's weekly eucharistic worship—gathering, word, table, and sending. Secondly, the parish traditionally draws from and interprets certain medieval ceremonial and liturgical enactments in its worship.

Seeking to preserve the historic witness of the faith and yet be open to innovation, I have drawn upon some existing Anglican traditions. In so completely recasting them in a contemporary context, however, and working in media forms more akin to the North American Protestant megachurch, I believe I have ultimately worked within a third category that Ruth employs, that of being officially connectional but working in an autonomous congregational model for purposes of inculturation.

Drama in Contemporary Worship

"Worship," writes Kenda Creasy Dean, "constitutes one of the oldest forms of play known to human society. Human beings have always engaged in 'sacred games' that dramatize the values of their cultic communities."⁷ Drawing on her research on the culturally contextual worship of adolescents and their need for a playful and imaginative style of worship, Dean advocates considering such qualities in worship for all ages. Worship that is relational and interactive, she writes, "invites our participation in an expanded view of reality." Quoting Wolfhart Pannenberg, she observes, "Play points to a larger reality, a 'true order' of things intuited but not fully grasped intellectually." Finally, she notes:

The act of playing has a "back and forth" quality to it; it is always relational, always involves an "other"—an imaginative object, a playmate, a conversation partner, a community. Play's reward comes from the deep satisfaction of losing ourselves in the play, the moment of self-abandonment in which the reality we glimpse but cannot grasp somehow grasps us. In this surrender, "something happens" indeed: the self is re-created, infused with intrinsic worth and meaning as we give ourselves over to an Other—an Other that has already given itself over to us (137-38).

Drama performed by adults is indeed a kind of childlike play that seeks to be transformational. When audiences are drawn into a drama, they too can experience a form of imaginative play.

Robert Webber's observation on the arts in general can be applied to an effective implementation of drama in worship: "The arts are important not only because of the Incarnation, but also because they communicate. The arts are the language of intuition, a poetic, imaginative way of supporting and enhancing the text of worship, the Gospel."⁸

Using drama in worship can be a playful means of transformational communication. However, this notion of playfulness should not make us think that drama, in general or as used in worship, is by any means trivial. The classic definition of drama as a representation of life comes to us from Aristotle's Poetics, in which he writes that drama is "an imitation of an action that is serious and...complete in itself."⁹ It consists of a reversal, or peripeteia, which, according to Aristotle, causes the action "to veer around in the other direction," thus dramatically aiding us to experience transformation.

I designed my project to be in conversation with two dramatic forms. The first is found in the contemporary North American Protestant megachurch tradition, perhaps best known through the Seeker Services at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois; the second is medieval liturgical drama. From the dramatic liturgy of Anglo-Saxon England I chose the tenth-century Easter play, Visitatio Sepulchri, from Winchester Cathedral.

The Seeker Services. "Few topics can polarize a conversation within Christian circles the way the subject of Willow Creek Community Church can," writes Todd E. Johnson. "Regardless of how favorably one views Willow Creek, most believe it is a unique phenomenon in the Church."¹⁰ Willow Creek's mission to those outside the church surpasses most efforts in today's church. In its mission to reach its target audience, identified by Willow Creek as "unchurched Harry or Mary," drama serves as a key element.

As the paradigmatic church of the seeker movement, Willow Creek has changed the way many worship. Founded in 1975 with the express purpose of reaching those outside the church, it now attracts upwards of fifteen thousand people to its weekend Seeker Service. The church campus, which resembles a community college or corporate training center, is designed to reduce the cognitive dissonance between the religious realm and the working and shopping worlds of middle-class suburban America. Typically, no crosses or other religious symbols are on display.

I first observed a Willow Creek drama as a participant-observer at its annual Leadership Summit conference via satellite downlink at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, during the summer of 2002—this was broadcast to over twenty-five thousand church leaders around the world. The professionally produced and polished drama was acted in its forty-five-thousand-seat auditorium equipped with movie-theatre-style seats, proscenium curtained stage, and state-of-the-art technical equipment.

Other Protestant churches widely emulate the style and format of drama employed by Willow Creek, although they adapt it in some settings to reach both seeker and believer. I will limit my focus to the Willow Creek model, as it offers the greatest contrast with the historical model of sacred drama, the Visitatio Sepulchri.

At Willow Creek a need is first identified, and a short skit is developed to present the problem in a way that can be experienced emotionally by the assembly. G. A. Pritchard, in Willow Creek Seeker Service, describes the dramas as follows: "They [the skits] involve revealing common human problems, enabling Creekers to identify with unchurched Harry, providing self-understanding for Harry, and lowering Harry's defenses."¹¹ Each skit is typically five to eight minutes in duration. It illustrates a problem that will be addressed in the message spoken by a pastor. Pritchard quotes one Willow Creek staff member as saying: "Drama is the best way we know of to really portray the problem of whatever we're going to talk about. In other words, every service has a theme or a main point. And drama is the way that we can connect people with the problem, not the solution" (92).

Willow Creek's use of sketch-style drama and overall programming reflects the shift from word- to image-based communication. Creekers believe that if they are to reach "unchurched Harry" they must speak his language, the language of the media. Pritchard points out that the prevailing opinion of the staff at Willow Creek is that as a result of the communication revolution "individuals are increasingly unable to follow an argument, think critically, and process information from a single source without visual and auditory stimulation" (91).

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