Back to My First Love

If I were to write a list of the non-material blessings I received this year, going back to theater would definitely make it to the top ten. Yes, I had several opportunities to direct concerts, musicals and other events, not to mention our weekly Gospel Jam, but I haven't been directing or acting in a straight no-nonsense play for many years now. Sometime in the middle of the year, Chancel Repertory Theater asked me to direct a non-musical play by Paul McCusker called "Family Outings," and that production allowed me to collect a whole treasure chest-full of memories and character-building lessons, and I'm still collecting.

This project is also a major milestone in the history of Chancel Rep because we are celebrating our 25th anniversary this year, which led us to challenge ourselves to mount twenty-five performances of this play in various churches and schools, all free to the public. We had our premiere at the United Evangelical Church of Greenhills in August of this year, followed by more shows at the Grace Gospel Church, Grace Christian Church, Greenhills Christian Fellowship, Quezon City Evangelical Church, Jubilee Evangelical Church and Hope Christian High School, wrapping up the year 2011 neatly with ten performances up our sleeves.

I will be writing more about this play and our upcoming performances in future blogs, but what I want to emphasize in this post is that we should not stop pursuing the areas of artistic endeavors that we are most passionate about - in my case, it is theater. More often than not, our passions and interests are good indicators of our calling and purpose. But sad to say, for many of us, these "luxuries" need to be set aside as we focus on other more pressing concerns, such as "making a living."

This coming year, I challenge everyone to seriously pray about those things that you wish you had the time and the opportunity to pursue. The Lord designed our artistic sensibilities. He must have a much higher purpose why He placed these burdens in our heart, far more than we presently understand.

My fellow artists, this could be the year to rise to the challenge.