Posts Tagged ‘Gabe Reynaud Award’

Walk the Road to Bethlehem this year

Friday, November 29, 2013

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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Christmas cheer

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

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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Bula Bob

Friday, April 27, 2012

Composer honoured

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

An “enigmatic” academic, composer and writer from Fiji is the recipient of the Manifest Creative Arts Festival’s most prestigious award this year.

Gabe Reynaud Award recipient Robert Wolfgramm. Credit: Jordan Lee.

Dr Robert Wolfgramm 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.

Robert is editor-in-chief of the Fiji Daily Post and of the New Fijian Translation Bible. The former lecturer in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University wrote a “Trends” column for the magazine, Signs of the Times (2001-2007), winning an Australasian Religious Press Association award for “Item or feature that shows most originality” in 2002 for his “Letter from the future” (published in June 2001). Then editor Dr Bruce Manners describes the column as a “creative, popular and, often, challenging read” and Robert as “demonstrating a heart for social justice.”

Robert’s music, most of which he wrote, recorded and performed during the counterculture movement, also challenged. He co-wrote, mostly with Lowell Tarling, three musicals, Apocalypse Rider (1999, 2000), Persecution Games (1985) and Threedom (1971-1972), and pioneered in Melbourne what is now contemporary Christian music, co-founding Galilee Records (1977). The label’s three albums, composed mostly of songs written by Robert and Lowell, were “influential,” says Associate Professor Daniel Reynaud, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Theology at Avondale College of Higher Education. “Contemporary Christian music existed, but it was produced in other countries by other people. Bob brought it home.” And gave it depth.

“He’d grown up in a legalistic culture but discovered [partly through the influence of those he met at Avondale, where Robert studied teaching and theology] the freedom of the gospel,” says Daniel. “He used culturally relevant forms to communicate this liberating truth.”

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