Walk the Road to Bethlehem this year

November 29, 2013 by Brenton Stacey

Georgina Hobson
Assistant convenor
Manifest Creative Arts Festival

The nativity scene, complete with real baby, ends your walk on the Road to Bethlehem. Credit: Ormond Howard.

The nativity scene, complete with real baby, ends your walk on the Road to Bethlehem.
Credit: Ormond Howard.

In March this year, Road to Bethlehem was the recipient of the Gabe Reynaud Award at the Manifest Creative Arts Festival, which recognises excellence in using the creative arts for ministry. This month, as the Christmas season comes alive in our communities, we again highlight this series of events by inviting you to engage with Road to Bethlehem.

Now in its 19th year, Road to Bethlehem began in 1995 as a ministry of Nunawading Seventh-day Adventist Church in Victoria. Twenty people volunteered to stage the event, which attracted a crowd of 700 over two nights. As a testimony to its powerful ministry and inspiration to share the true Christmas story from the Bible, there are now six sites across Australia and New Zealand conducting the theatrical presentations. This includes; Livingstone, Western Australia, Nunawading, Victoria, Erina, New South Wales, Dakabin, Queensland and Tauranga and Christchurch in New Zealand. Admission to each performance is free, making it a yearly gift to the community in which it operates.

This season, we ask you to consider how you might actively support this powerful and creative ministry through several avenues available to you.

Attend
If there is a site close to you, then go along and experience the event and connect with the Christmas story in a dynamic way. Due to the popularity of many sites, you may need to pre-book your tickets (either online or by phone).

Volunteer
Some sites are still calling for assistance with staging the event through volunteering of time and skills. Contact the organisers to see how you could help contribute.

Donate
While attendance is free, donations are gratefully accepted to assist in the cost of staging the events.

Spread the word
Share and invite neighbours, friends and family; Like your local event on Facebook; promote the events through your local church.

Pray
Submit to God the logistics, the hardworking volunteers and the people who attend so that the Good News of Christmas may spread further out into our communities, impacting lives for eternity.

For more information and details of tickets, volunteers and finding your local site, visit www.roadtobethlehem.org

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Shorts show more than stories

November 8, 2013 by Brenton Stacey

Manifest Short Film Showcase
Young Adult Tent, South Queensland Conference camp meeting, September 21

Georgina Hobson
Assistant convenor
Manifest Creative Arts Festival
Dakabin, Queensland, Australia

In a first for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in southern Queensland, the young adult tent at its camp meeting hosted a short film showcase this year.

Nathan Dalton’s Faith: Loss featured as part of the Manifest Short Film Showcase at this year’s South Queensland Conference camp meeting.

Nathan Dalton’s Faith: Loss featured as part of the Manifest Short Film Showcase at this year’s South Queensland Conference camp meeting.

Presented by Manifest, the showcase featured 13 award-winning local and international films by Christian filmmakers, including one from the creative arts festival’s assistant convenor Nathan Dalton and several from the church in North America’s SONscreen Film Festival. The finale: a screening of The Butterfly Circus, a poignant story of value and hope starring Nic Vujicic of Life Without Limbs fame.

While each film is unique in theme and execution, the content is consistently inspiring—viewing shorts gives you a strong sense the filmmakers embrace the limited time to excel in the art of blending technical skill and powerful stories. But the appeal of this showcase went beyond clever storytelling to challenge our views and interaction with the world and, more significantly, how our Christian faith impacts our daily existence. And films such as Nathan’s Hope Channel Prize winning Faith: Loss open us to such reflection.

What is promising about an event of this kind is its potential to connect a gathering of young adults to positive messages through the powerful medium of film—and it’s the young adults peers who are creating the films. The potential of the showcase may go even further: where one inspired audience member quietly decides to try their hand at storytelling, sharing their faith and hope through faithful creativity. And that’s what the community of Manifest is about.

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Manifest winner wins again

September 27, 2013 by Brenton Stacey

Proves humour has its place

Some history: Scott Wegener won the then Signs Publishing Company Award at the inaugural Manifest Creative Arts Festival in 2011 for an entry entitled “Know misunderstandings.”

Scott Wegener

Scott Wegener received a silver award at the Australasian Religious Press Association Awards Night.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific’s lifestyle magazine Signs of the Times published the entry as “How to understand the truth” in June 2012.

Still reading? Good.

Now the Australasian Religious Press Association has recognised Scott’s work, judging it worthy of a silver award in the “Best Humourous Item” category at its annual awards night.

“Scott . . . takes a trip to his barber and discovers how we can easily misunderstand what people actually mean,” reads the judges’ comments. “He gently and skillfully moves the first-person perspective to a discussion of theological misunderstandings. This piece has a great conversational tone and style that, through its humour, allows us to appreciate our differences while having a chuckle.”

Scott says he is pleased the article has again reached beyond its Adventist audience. “I’m praying it will reach someone who will take to heart the message and reassess the beliefs they hold from simply being told. It’s a jungle, but the truth is out there—and it is good. Pick up thy (eco-friendly) machete and search!”

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Kingdom Karen on freedom, democracy and power

September 27, 2013 by Brenton Stacey

She’s an active author.

Karen Collum

Karen Collum has written her fourth picture book, which will be commercially published next year.

Karen Collum presented a speech during the Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka’s M.A.D.E for Kids panel discussion as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival on August 25. The topic: how writing for children intersects with freedom, democracy and power.

“Although I write for almost the youngest audience imaginable, these concepts are very present in what I do,” says the Manifest Creative Arts Festival alumna, author of Samuel’s Kisses, Fish Don’t Need Snorkels and When I Look At You. “My vision is to share hope, to tell the truth and to empower children who live in a world where ‘no’ is a common word and where they’re told they’re too little. But in good picture books, the adults are in the background and the children are the agents of change in their own lives.”

Since the appointment, Karen’s also presented workshops at Sunbury Primary School during Book Week and spoken at the Seventh-day Adventist Church in northern New South Wales’s Adventurer and Family Camporee.

Kingdom Karen, as she called herself at the camp, has written a fourth picture book, Small And Big, which Windy Hollow Books will publish in August next year.

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Award-winner’s “ambitious” album

July 11, 2013 by Brenton Stacey

Send Me

Amy Cherry

Nathan Brown

On the eve of the release of Send Me (Psalter Music), Amy Cherry won the Psalter Music Prize at the Manifest Creative Arts Festival for her song “Your All.” It proved to be a worthy introduction to this collection of original, piano-based songs.

The nine songs on Send Me—“A Gift From Above” is an instrumental—each have something important to say. Often directly referencing Bible passages or stories, Send Me is reminiscent of classic contemporary Christian music such as early Amy Grant or Sandi Patty albums. Lesser songwriting might sink beneath the weight of the message but the songs on Send Me have a dramatic sensibility and atmosphere that is ready for the mission.

While Amy plays piano and carries the vocals with strong voice, additional instrumentation comes from what seems to be the usual Psalter crew, with a vocal cameo from the Mt Druitt Youth Choir. These musicians offer a healthy palette of sounds and textures to Amy’s songs, from the upbeat “Be Strong” to the more meditative but standout track “The Great I Am.”

Send Me is an ambitious and strong album. The music is memorable and the lyrics will leave you with something about which to think.

Nathan Brown is book editor at Signs Publishing Company and co-convenor of the Manifest Creative Arts Festival.

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Christmas cheer

March 13, 2013 by Brenton Stacey

Interactive, outdoor drama honoured

Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

The nativity scene, complete with real baby, ends your walk on the Road to Bethlehem.
Credit: Ormond Howard.

Not a person but an event is the recipient of the Manifest Creative Arts Festival’s most prestigious award this year.

The interactive, outdoor drama Road to Bethlehem will receive the Gabe Reynaud Award during a ceremony also named in honour of the pioneering Seventh-day Adventist filmmaker. The award recognises excellence in using the creative arts for ministry.

“It recognises a collective creativity,” says Manifest co-convenor Nathan Brown. Road to Bethlehem encompasses many aspects of creativity, from acting, costuming and staging, to scriptwriting, sound and lighting. “And it shows Adventists creatives can make an impact in the community.”

Road to Bethlehem is now in its 19th year. It began in 1995 as a ministry of Nunawading Seventh-day Adventist Church in Victoria. Twenty people volunteered to stage the event, which attracted a crowd of 700 over two nights. Now, with the support of Seventh-day Adventist Church in Victoria, 400 people volunteer to stage the event, which attracts a crowd of 15,000 over four nights.

“If you mention Seventh-day Adventists, so many people know about Road to Bethlehem,” says Carolyn Dunne, a member of the steering committee since 1996. The goodwill costs about $70,000 each year, but Road to Bethlehem does not charge for entry—the event is a gift to the community.

The City of Whitehorse recognised Road to Bethlehem’s role in building community by nominating it for an Australia Day Community Achievement Award in 2003. And Fairfax Media’s theage.com.au featured the event on its website in December last year. Despite this extra attention, Carolyn and the other members of the committee have resisted turning the event into a “carnival.” “We’ve always maintained it has to be spiritual. So, no Santa Claus. Everything about Road to Bethlehem is biblical.”

Road to Bethlehem has spawned four other Road to Bethlehems—in Dakabin Park, Queensland; in Erina, New South Wales; in Livingston, Western Australia; and in Tauranga, New Zealand.

Gabe Reynaud Awards, Chan Shun Auditorium, Saturday, March 23, 7.30 PM. Drinks in foyer from 6.30 PM.

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Creativity and Christianity

February 27, 2013 by Brenton Stacey

Manifest award winners on how the arts influences their faith

Anna Beaden (young achiever), Josh Bolst (filmmaking), Nathan Dalton (filmmaking), Shelley Poole (fine arts) and Sara Thompson (writing) were among the winners of the Manifest Creative Arts Festival competitions in 2012. The festival returns this year—entries in each of the six competitions close March 8, 2013. Looking for inspiration? The five explain the relationship between their craft and their faith.

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Creative Christmas celebrations

December 28, 2012 by Brenton Stacey

All the co-conveners of the Manifest Creative Arts Festival have contributed creatively to their local church’s Christmas services.

The live nativity scene at Lakeside Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Christmas service. Credit: Sylvio Michel.

Nathan Brown wrote a short story that featured as part of the service at Warburton Seventh-day Adventist Church in Victoria.

Joanna Darby created this painting for the Wallsend Seventh-day Adventist Church in New South Wales.

And Brenton Stacey helped plan a service at Lakeside Seventh-day Adventist Church in New South Wales that saw members of the congregation join a live nativity scene and light candles to signify their commitment to worship the King.

 

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