We pull our beat-up touring van into the parking lot of an ornate vault-ceiling church.

Our simple crew?stage manager and two actors, Don Tjart and Jason Hildebrand?start to haul in lighting, props and shabby set (three coolers and a backdrop: part boat sail, part fishing net). We have entered an opulent sacred space; marble throughout, beautiful woodworking and murals line the ceiling and walls. We feel very much out of place.

Our production, Fish Eyes, is the gospel story told through the eyes of blue-collar-fishermen: Pete and Andy. Saint Peter and Saint Andrew, looming about us on painted arches, are not found in our telling. Our play is goofy, poignant and peppered with confusion and disbelief. The gospel of "I Don't Know.?
  
Lights dim, audience quiets, cue the music. Pete (Don) and Andy (Jason), tired, hungry and grumpy enter. Plaid shirts, ripped jeans and mucky rubber boots betray their occupation and social status. Out all night, they have caught nothin . . . nothin.

This is not the gospel of saints and piety.

Our play, as with most art, asks of the audience to suspend their disbelief, to leave the cares of their day and enter into the tale unfolding?a time of ?making belief' (not pretending). Jesus continually did this with parables.

With Fish Eyes, we have often experienced, together with the audience, our hearts being transformed through what is revealed on stage. We marvel at his mystery and lose ourselves in the absurdity of two average Joe's trying to track with their master.

It is a time of worship. Corporate worship?community connecting with God and neighbour?drawing near, connecting, responding.

Great theatre has the possibility of being worship. A holy, life-changing experience of truth revealed in community. Actors and audience can experience transcendent moments together. Moments where the Holy Spirit touches down in such a powerful way that hearts are changed.

There is something magical (the deeper deep magic that C.S. Lewis speaks of) about being together in a room filled with the sights, sounds and smells of a great story unfolding. Jesus understood this. The tales Jesus told were great theatre, great art.
  
Celebrated author Madeleine L'Engle writes: "Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.?

And not just random stories. Stories pregnant with truth that shock, provoke and were relevant to his audience. Stories that held up a mirror to the audience asking, "Is this you?? Stories that sparked more questions than answers. Stories that confront the comfort of our lies with the discomfort of truth.

Thankfully, we are returning back to a storytelling age; enmeshing our stories with the story of the Kingdom of Heaven. Theatre as worship is not just for professionals.

This year, our small little inner-city church Toronto Alliance performed, as it does every year, a home-grown, written in-house Christmas pageant. It was imperfect, inclusive and absolutely wonderful. Lights were dimmed, the audience suspended their disbelief, entered the story and worshipped.