St John the Evangelist

Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2RN

In the Diocese of Ely

Sunday School scripts

The Sunday School has now accumulated a number of scripts for Christmas Nativity plays. Our Nativity plays are actually performed on Christmas morning, in the main family service. Although not many churches run their Nativity plays on Christmas, probably because it sounds like a huge effort just when people least need the stress, in practice we find that it works really well, and is not too intrusive on family Christmas time.

These plays were all written by St Johns Sunday School staff, and are we are pleased to offer them to any church group that wants to use them with no cost and no conditions. These were designed to fit the following

Typically we are aiming at a group of around 15 children who will want speaking parts, with a number of other children who don't want to speak (eg as shepherds or angels) or who only want 1–2 lines. However, we have designed the scripts so that the number of parts can easily be adjusted (eg the numbers of speaking kings or shepherds can easily be modified).
We take the view that children are always very busy at school around Christmas, so we have always tried to produce something that was easy for the children without being trivial. So we aim for stage movements that basically allow us to push children onto the stage and pull them off without them having to remember difficult movements.
We also try hard to avoid children needing to learn lines by writing scripts that could be read but hidden. For example, we hide the words for the kings in open-topped gifts, or we use scrolls where we can.
We try to mix a light-hearted feel, with some jokes, with a serious take-home message. Christmas is fun and profound at the same time.
The whole service typically lasts for around 50 minutes, including carols and songs.
We like to mix modern songs with traditional carols, but that really is up to any church what music they use and the scripts are not tied to any particular selection. A lot of modern songs capture the spirit of Christmas remarkably well, even when they are not specifically Christmas-oriented. A large part of the Christmas spirit is worship.
We quickly learned that rehearsals can be a disaster, but children are capable of rising to the occasion on the day. In our view, it is best to be relaxed and not get too stressed. After 10 years it has always worked on the day, but you would not guess so from the dress rehearsal!
We typically practice during Sunday morning Sunday School sessions in December. Typically we have three Sundays in which to practice, two of which are spent going over scenes in small groups, and one used for a full rehearsal. Each session is only one hour. Then we have a half an hour in that final Sunday after the church service to get a feel for any practical issues. We then have a good final rehearsal on Christmas Eve, which is actually good for families because it occupies the children on a day that is usually somewhat full of unspent energy!
For our plays, we use a small stage (with a carpet to avoid too much noise).
We use a couple of distance microphones, lapel microphones for main speakers, and lecturn/pulpit microphones. Be warned; children are understandably hopeless at understanding that they need to stand close to a microphone before they speak.
Our recent innovation is to use a digital projector (which someone borrows from work), and project scenery and images onto a sheet held on a wooden frame from behind. Looks okay!

The Christmas story is incredibly rich. There are so many facets to the story, and so many messages. In just one play it is impossible to touch on many of the details, and by the same token it is not so difficult to have a lot of variety from one year to the next. We tended to focus on one perspective each year, such as the angles or the kings, or the sense of giving or discovery.

Our aim has been to present the central truth of Christmas, namely that God loves us and gave us His Son to be our saviour. The Christmas story is incredibly exciting. At long last, after years of seeing His people struggle with the consequences of sin, God has started his great plan of redemption. Each year this thought takes away our breath!

We are pleased to make our scripts available for any church groups to use. We are providing pdf and word versions of the scripts. You may like to get in touch before you use one of our scripts to get additional information, and we can provide the original Word files for you to edit. We will always give permission to use these scripts, with no charges and no conditions. Please contact the main author, Martin Dove (contact details are availed on his web site) to let him know; he will be very pleased to hear from people who want to make use of these.

It might be worth noting that the 1997 script is my personal favourite, and we revisited it in 2006, but experience has shown that all scripts have met with a more-or-less equally positive reaction.

Scripts for download in either pdf (nice for browsing) or MS word (for editing) formats:

From the perspective of the angels (my favourite, reworked in 2006) – pdf or word formats
From the perspective of the kings – pdf or word formats
Christmas through the ages – pdf or word formats
From the perspective of the inn – pdf or word formats
From the perspective of a Roman soldier – pdf or word formats
From the perspective of Mary, with a focus on the Magnificat – pdf or word formats
Based on Chapter 1 of John's gospel – pdf or word formats
The theme of the gift – pdf or word formats
The theme of discovery, from the perspective of a pair of spies – pdf or word formats
A reworking of the 1997 version from the perspective of the angels – pdf or word formats
Not yet available, but is being written from the perspective of Joseph, with a hint of "Tool Time" for those familiar with the ABC show "Home Improvement".

We retain copyright of these plays, "just in case". If you do want to use any of these plays, please drop Martin a line (contact link) because he is interested in what people can do with them.