SHAVERTOWN — Shavertown United Methodist Church will provide a new venue to experience the Biblical story of Jesus’ birth with a Drive-Thru Live Nativity.
The free event will be the first time the story will be told in a drive-thru format in the Back Mountain, said Pastor Judy Walker of the Shavertown United Methodist Church..
“It is a new opportunity to hear the story,” Pastor Walker said.
The church will hold the Drive-Thru Live Nativity from 6 to 8 p.m. Dec. 2 and 3, and 5 to 7 p.m. Dec. 4 at the Luzerne County Fair Grounds off Route 118 in Lehman Township.
The fairgrounds will be transformed into seven scenes telling the story of Jesus’ birth, said Sandy Michalisin, an event organizer at the Shavertown United Methodist Church.
Guests will enter the fairgrounds through Gate B, by the stables and receive a CD that tells the story of Joesph, Mary and Jesus, Michalisin said.
“We will have portable CD players,” Pastor Walker said, adding some of the newer car models do not have CD players.
The Nativity story will start with the scene where an angel tells Mary she is expecting a child, Michalisin said.
“The second scene is where Mary goes to see her cousin Elizabeth about the pregnancy,” she said.
The story will progress to a third act where an angel tells Joseph that Mary is pregnant with the Savior Jesus, Michalisin said.
Then, the newlywed couple, Joseph and Mary, who were required to travel to Bethlehem to register for a census, will arrive at a busy Bethlehem marketplace in scene four.
The fifth act will take visitors to the fields outside the marketplace as the angels came to the shepherds to announce the birth of the Son of God, who laid in a manger in a stable in Bethlehem.
The story of the three Kings from the East who followed a star that symbolized the birth of Jesus is told in scene six. The men arrived in Bethlehem and presented the infant with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
The final scene will highlight the Nativity with Joseph, Mary and their baby, as well as animals, shepherds and the three Kings at the manger.
Guests will exit the grounds at Gate A and return the CD and portable CD players.
Preparation for the Drive-thru Live Nativity started in January, involved building sets, making and receiving costumes, creating props and recording of a CD narrative telling the Nativity story, according to Pastor Walker.
The Drive-Thru Live Nativity was an idea pitched to the mission ministries team by Pastor Walker nearly four years ago.
Pastor Walker developed the concept for the Drive-Thru Live Nativity after attending a similar event in New York.
“I thought this would be a great area to hold it,” Pastor Walker said. “We have had between 70 to 80 people involved in it.”
The Walker and the Shavertown United Methodist Church hope to make the Drive-Thru Live Nativity an annual event.
