Nancy Beach - An Hour on Sunday: Creating Moments of Transformation and Wonder

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Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

ePub Edition September 2016: ISBN 978-0-310-53543-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Beach, Nancy.

An hour on Sunday: creating moments of transformation and wonder / Nancy Beach ; illustrated by Travis King and Kathee Biaggne; photography by Steve Sonheim and Kathee Biaggne.

p. cm.

Willow Creek Resources.

ISBN-13: 978-0-310-51594-4

1. Public worship. 2. Church. I. Title.

BV15.B42 2004

264dc22

2003018785

This edition printed on acid-free paper.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: Todays New International Version ( TNIV ). Copyright by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ( NIV ) are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ( NLT ) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Interior and cover design by Kathee Biaggne.

Illustrations by Travis King and Kathee Biaggne.

Photography by Steve Sonheim and Kathee Biaggne.

Picture a twenty-two-year-old guy, his wounds still raw from leaving a promising family business. He nervously paces with some scribbled message notes and a Bible in a church sanctuary that, in thirty minutes, will be packed with high school students. He has given a grand total of five talks in his life.

In walks an energetic, high school sophomore with a friend. She asks me what I am going to teach that night. I stumble through the gist of it and notice her creative gears beginning to turn. What if we put a little drama together before you give your talk?

Drama? I think to myself. Wouldnt that require a script? Wouldnt the script need actors? And wouldnt the actors need rehearsals? The doors open in twenty-eight minutes! But the leader in me could tell this was not your average high school sophomore. The drama idea wasnt motivated by a self-seeking need to be in the spotlight. The motivation came from a genuine desire for her peers to experience Gods love and power in more ways than just the spoken word. Her proposal was not made on a whim. On the contrary, she knew what was at stake and how focused she and others would have to be to pull it off. How could I say no?

When I am long gone and forgotten, those who reflect on church history will still be writing about unleashing the arts in the local church in the latter part of the twentieth century. How did it ever become normal to use contemporary Christian music, drama, dance, and electronic media in the local church? How did bench-sitting artists wind up as key players in the redemptive drama of the church? How did programming departments get created in thousands of churches all over the world? And how did it become normal for women and men to sit together on senior leadership teams and partner with pastors to make church services come alive?

Honest historians will have to give a lot of ink to Nancy Beach. For over thirty years she has relentlessly sought to communicate the message of the Christian faith through art forms that cause seekers and believers alike to stop dead in their tracks and say, Whoa! That was a God moment! Now what must I do?

Nancys amazing accomplishments flow out of an unshakable conviction that the local church is the hope of the world and that, unless and until all artists in the church get into the game, the church will never reach its redemptive potential. Her ministry at Willow Creek Community Church has resulted in hundreds of artists using their gifts for God. Her ministry through the Willow Creek Association has touched tens of thousands of artists all around the world.