By Amanda Foust
The holiday season is a time where traditions are treasured and stories are shared. Local church The Gathering in Carmel is hosting an original musical called “Story of God” to celebrate the stories of the Bible through a dramatic production.
“Story of God” is written by the McCready family, who is based out of Nashville, Tenn. The family has served many places, most recently at a church in Asheville, N.C., where these stories and creative artistry were formed.
“My husband, Shannon, has a heart for discipleship and has always tried to minister to people through the whole picture of God’s story rather than parts and pieces,” writer and narrator Sherri McCready said.
“The Story of God” was inspired during a trip to east Asia in 2014 when Sherri was in a place with little to no Biblical knowledge.
“In the middle of the night I woke up with a strong compelling to share the stories of God in one sitting and to do it in live musical theater,” she said. “The challenge was to only do it with eight cast members to travel around the world: villages, coffee shops, theaters, anywhere in the world.”
After this experience, development of scripts, music, and choreography soon followed.
“All kinds of people use art to communicate a message,” Sherri said. “Art doesn’t ask permission, it just gets down in your soul before you ever knew it was there and impacts.”
When the group performs Story of God, it’s an athletic and artistic feat. The performance is 100 minutes long with 70 costume changes. The music was originally created by Isaac McCready.
“When I was asked to compose an all-original score for ‘Story of God the Musical,’ I was honored and willing to put in every effort to accomplish the task,” he said.
Story of God will be performed at 7 p.m. Dec. 17-19 at The Gathering, 624 B S. Range Line Road. Admission is free with donations accepted. For more information visit www.storyofgod.com
“Those who are skeptical about the stories of God, we would very much love you to give us 100 minutes to tell the story where you can see it all at once,” Sherri said.
