How I failed pilgrimage is a long and somewhat interesting story. When I first spoke those words I was walking along a gravel road up toward the lona Abbey in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland.
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On the improv stage, yes can transform two chairs and an empty stage into an imaginative scene of relationship and impossibility. With one audience suggestion, soon comes an encounter of a famous baby doing a book-signing, a law student in relationship with a cursed sorting hat, a couple arguing about giving birth to an avocado.
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I really should call this one: Interruption: An Experiment. We talk a lot about experiments at Missional Wisdom Foundation. One thing I know about myself is that I would much rather be experimenting and exploring new ideas than rehashing or managing old ones. It’s one of the certainties and signs to how I knew serving as the pastor of a local church was not the right path for me. Now, even when I’m doing something I’ve done before, it’s generally new to this group. “We’ve never done it this way before” to me is all the more reason to do it: it’s exciting even if it’s uncomfortable. I like comfort as much as the next person for my personal life, but in my work if I’m not a least a little bit terrified, I’m not trying hard enough.
We all stand in different areas of the room, with our faces to the wall. The topic is five major feelings: joy/happiness, passion/desire, anger, sadness, and fear. With one emotion at a time, we are asked to express our feeling, in hand gestures, words and their content, tone and volume of voice, expressive body language, facial expressions.
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Todd Porter’s “Can’t Love You More”
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In the container of improv, anything can happen. Such are the very bones and basis of improvised comedy: it is made up entirely on the spot. Never before has this show been performed, never again shall it be revisited. The epitome of you-had-to-be-there experience, even the performers are unaware of what is about to occur between them when they step out on stage.
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I must admit, when I got the invitation to join a millennial think tank and roundtable discussion over lunch at Cafe Momentum, I chuckled to myself, “This should be interesting.” I had some preconceived ideas of my own about the “Gen Y” folks.
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Sometimes, I dislike people.
I am not defending or proud of this fact; I am simply confessing. Some people have a quality or affect, a sense of humor, a way of being that can grate on my nerves, ruffles my feathers, even makes me feel uncomfortable or annoyed.
A foundry is a workshop for casting metal. My only reference for this is a clip from the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers—but there are no orcs or dwarves in this story. This is about The Foundry House, a new intentional living community in Winston-Salem, NC, of which I am Prioress.
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Improv classes are a constant stream of new discovery and activity. A new warm up is taught to the group, we learn it and try it, we practice and stumble. Someone messes up in the warm-up exercise, a rhythm gets off, someone whooshes instead of pows, laughter ensues. After all, we are standing in a circle ready with playful, silly energy.
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On July 8, 2018, a group of 22 people from different faith traditions gathered at FUMC Colleyville for a Peace Together theatrical improvisation workshop hosted by Wendi Bernau of the Missional Wisdom Foundation and facilitated by Kyle Austin of the Dallas Comedy House.
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Listening is a key component to effective communication in improv, to the work of collaboratively making scenes up on the spot.
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Come see what is happening at Haw Creek Commons.
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It scares me to go out on stage.
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I first went to The Dietrich Bonhoeffer House, an intentional Christian community of the Missional Wisdom Foundation's Epworth Project located in Old East Dallas, in December of 2016.
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You already belong. Be who you are.
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Last week, I had the privilege of traveling with my wife and our friend, Ryan Klinck, to just outside of Philadelphia to participate in the opening worship service of the Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference.
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Improvised comedy begins with “Yes, and.”
Yes.
I agree to the name you just gave me, the relationship you clarified, and to the situation you established.
And.
UMC LEAD is excited to announce that registration and the speaker application for the 8th annual LEAD Conference are now open. This year’s conference will be held in New Orleans, Louisiana from January 13th-16th, 2019. The host hotel will be The Troubadour and the host church will be St. Mark's UMC.
As a personal spiritual discipline of late, I have been taking improv comedy classes at the Dallas Comedy House. In improv class we begin with a few warm-ups. They move the body and get the blood flowing, they help lower our defenses and embrace the playfulness of the environment, they get us engaged. They help us practice saying yes, being present, and supporting one another.
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