Local church has annual live nativity scene drive-through

John and Marcella Deckard were in charge of organizing eight Jesuses, six Marys, four Josephs, six wise men, four shepherds, 24 disciples, two camels and a donkey, among other things.

It’s not a circus, it’s a Christmas tradition.

The Deckards drove around the Sherwood Oaks Christian Church, 2700 E. Rogers Road, parking lot in a golf cart with a clipboard and checklist. They stopped by various scenes featuring live animals and church members dressed as various biblical figures.

They stopped at one, featuring a donkey and a girl in a baby blue robe and headscarf.

“Where’s your Joseph at?” Marcella asked.

“I don’t even know who my Joseph is,” the girl replied.

“He’s J.T. Clark,” Marcella said.

“Oh, well I don’t know where he is,” the Mary replied.

“OK, we’ll try to find him then,” John said. And with that he sped off to check other scenes for the missing Joseph.

It was all part of the annual “Moments in the Master’s Life Live Nativity,” a biblical scene drive-through at the Sherwood Oaks Christian Church.

The nativity features 13 scenes from the Bible, including the Nativity, the Sermon on the Mount, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and the Ascension. John estimated that the church has been putting it on for about 14 years, and he’s been involved for 10 years.

“I just love it. It’s great for the church, it’s great for the community,” he said. “I think it’s just great for people to come out, you get a lot of great people involved with it.”

In the church’s Fellowship Hall, which served as a staging area for the event, men and women were filed in robes and scarves, Roman armor, angels in wings, beards, wigs, crowns, shepherd crooks and other props.

Announcements told actors where to go to make sure they were in the right place at the right time.

“If you’re in the Crucifixion, the Tomb or the Ascension, you’re going to go out door 13,” volunteer Nan Morrow said over the loudspeaker. “Everyone else is going to go out right over here.”

The actors took half-hour shifts, one half coming inside for food and to warm up while the other half stayed outside in the scenes.

Steve Mosca has been volunteering for many years. This year he was a disciple in the Last Supper scene.

“I’ve jumped around from shepherd, Last Supper, then back, three kings, then back to the Supper. I guess they think I’m always hungry,” he said.

At the 10-minute warning, Mosca and the other disciples started to get ready. He put on his fake beard, robe and headscarf over his warmer clothes and got ready to go out into the cold winter evening.

“Barring the weather, it’s great when the people are going by, especially when you can see the kids relating it to the Bible stories. It’s really joyful,” he said. “It’s the spirit, the fact that the community comes out to see us brings out the flavor of the season, which is Christ and his life.”

The Lyle family drove to church Sunday to see the show.

After being waved in by police directing traffic, parents Rob and Jill Lyle and their kids Clancy, Jack and Mitchell Lyle picked up a CD from a volunteer and put it in their Suburban’s CD player. They shut off a Christian music radio station to listen to the Bible passages and Christmas carols on the CD.

“This is neat, it’s kinda become a tradition to come down here,” Rob said. “We’ve had a lot of fun going to this nativity over the years.”

He said they have been coming for many years and usually bring another family to show them the nativity scenes.

This year, however, it was just the five of them.

“Do you know what this is?” Jill asked as they passed a pen of sheep guarded by a young boy in a robe leaning on a crook.

“That’s the shepherd!” Mitchell shouted.

Later, they drove by the scenes depicting the end of Jesus’s life.

“This is the Lord’s Supper, yeah, the goblets and stuff,” Jack said. “I like to look at the guards’ armor and stuff, and I think that these scenes are cool with all the stuff they have on.”

The event was free and open to the public and is an annual Christmas tradition at the church. Senior minister Tom Ellsworth said the main goal of the event was to share with the community the reason for the season.

“I hope this is just a reminder to everybody of the joy of the season and all that it means in the sense of what God gave to us,” Ellsworth said. “It’s a time of sharing and joy, of family and of love. So I think Christmas is a great season if you remember what it is all about instead of getting caught up in the hurry and rush of everything just to celebrate the joy of what God has done for us through Christ.”