The Jesus Theater ministry was birthed outside of me, before me, and has existed in some form for centuries. Preaching the Gospel Creatively is not new. There are many ways to do it, and effectively. I first saw a version of this art form produced by a friend and mentor, Becki Phillips, who brought the Gospel to life at a summer camp with camp staff. She used an art form we now call “choreodrama.” Carol Jaudes, a Salvation Army leader, encouraged me for many years to write and lead in this artistic lane. Years later, after a personal tragedy, Major Jason Knaggs invited me to start writing Jesus Theater for his camp ministry. That invitation was the re-birthing of creative ministry for me, and the birthing of a movement in my life.

For over fifteen years, I’ve been partnering with The Salvation Army, various Territories and Departments, to bring The Gospel to life using this art form for summer camps, mission teams, and outreaches. The Director’s resources below were produced in partnership with these groups and leaders, credited in the manuals themselves. In recent years, this partnership was primarily with Erin Morgan. Together, we learned a lot about how to write, direct, and prepare materials for multiplication. Together, we witnessed thousands of children coming to Christ. Every time a group of us dives into the Gospel story, we come out transformed. My Jesus Theater casts remain some of the most precious people to me in the world, we have lived a lot of life in rehearsals together.

In the midst of this journey, I developed a method of writing and directing for Jesus Theater based on best practices learned over a decade. This is the SPR Method of Writing a Jesus Theater. SPR stands for Simple, Powerful, and Replicable. It is not a one size fits all method, but it does provide a pathway of mentoring for writers who feel called to take the torch of this particular expression of Jesus Theater ministry, and run it forward in the coming decades. Resources and events for writers will be dropped here as they get developed. We are launching the first Jesus Theater Writers Workshop in Fall 2023.

Beyond any particular art form or method, I hope that my ongoing work in this field will inspire artists to find ways to preach the Gospel creatively through their own medium of art, marked by a supernatural wisdom that enables it to spread as fire does and should. Multiplication happens when we are brave to generously give away what we have, keep it simple, and bring real people into it.

Writers, come. Without you, we have no true legacy.