At The Movies 2012

Every year in July our church, LifeChurch.tv, does a special series called At The Movies.  In the series our pastor takes snippits of a movie and plays it, then he uses that to teach a lesson in some way.  Leading up to it each of our campuses decorates the lobbies as a movie set.  It's done with all the staff at that campus, a whole lot of volunteers, a lot of imagination, and a WHOLE lot of work. 

That's where I've been for the past week.  We started last Sunday afternoon at 3, and the last day of work was Friday.  My job was sewing!!! 

Here's where we started:

From 200+ yards of material...

To Sewing...tons and tons of sewing!!!

     

To Cutting...

We used 110 yards of purple velveteen and 110 yards of gold velveteen to make a medival looking tent out of a hallway that leads into the bathrooms.  The design idea was to stripe the walls and ceiling to make it look like a royal tent.  We were making the ladies and men's restrooms their "throne rooms"...all pun intended.  We started with the walls.  We hung long sheets of fabric by stapling them along the top of the wall.  Then we had to figure out how to hang LONG sheets of fabric from the middle part of the ceiling stretched to the walls to look like the top of the tent.

Covered walls...

Hanging Sheets...

and it's a tent top!!!

From there we had to cover up the ceiling that you could see along the entrance ways.  So the plan was curtains that would be pulled back with tassles on the sides (there are LOTS of people who travel these hallways every weekend) and a valance across the top.  But this is a VERY wide "window" to cover...there's no way to find a curtain rod to span this distance.  It just so happened that there were 4 aluminum pipes that fit the space...or almost fit the space on one side (another challenge)...that worked out somewhat perfectly!!! 

The valace...which was cut out by some wonderful volunteers and
NOT ME!!!

Here are the curtains with the tie backs.  They were made by braiding strips of material together...
again, by wonderful volunteers!!!

Here's the other entrance.  Notice how all the ceiling has now been successfully covered?!?
SCORE!!!

There were several other projects I had to do: a blanket for a horse, covering the ceiling in the bathroom entrance area, covering a tail of a dragon (which hasn't made it up on the wall quite yet so SHHH!!!)  Here's some of the finished product...my projects and that of tons of other volunteers.

The entry to the kingdom

The drawbridge

Punishment comes in a couple of forms...stockade

or the guillotine

and back to the stockade.

Here's where the horse will be...yes, that's inside.
It's July...in Oklahoma...even too hot for horses!!!

Prison...apparently no one gets out...

not even when your dead and decayed!!!

The armaments...this kid's favorite part!

That's one of the entrances to the auditorium...you would have never known if I didn't tell you!!!

I love the chandelier and the tall towers behind them...especially since there's food below!!!

The mountain...beware of the dragon in the cave!!!

But once you get past that it's the Throne Rooms!!!

(it came out great...but I'm prejudice!!!)

Does it look royal enough?

Fit for a Queen...

...and a King!!!

We can't forget the kiddos...for the girls we have Tangled!

Rapunzel in all her glory...and hair!!!

The kids LOVED it...especially the girls...

Psss...don't tell anyone, but there's supposed to be a theme for the boys too, but it's not up yet...more on that on another day!!!

And there you have it...all decked out Medival to entertain and draw people to our church.

And that's the whole point!!!  Drawing people to church who might not darken the door of a church.  We're not trying to trick anyone, but show them the love of Christ in a way that hits home.  As we say, we will do anything short of sin to draw people to know the love of Christ!!!  That's the greatest Treasure ever...and worth all the hours put into it!!!