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Writing a Christmas Musical: The Process

A Quick and Easy Way to Write a Good Church Christmas Musical

So it's getting into the fall, maybe even late November, and you know Christmas is coming. Your church has nothing special planned for Advent. What can you do? Why not write a Christmas musical combined with Readers Theater? I have found this works well and requires minimal rehearsing. Here's how I do it.

Pick Five to Eight Songs

The first thing I do is search for good Christmas music and select enough songs based on the length of time I have for the musical. I watch You Tube videos of Christmas songs, find out if my favorite artists have made a holiday album, look for movie soundtracks such as The Nativity Story, and check our church's CCLI SongSelect account for Christmas favorites and/or contemporary versions of Christmas songs. After I select the song list, I give them to the worship leader so he can determine if they work for the music team. I have a pretty good ear for music, but don't read music or play an instrument, so I have to collaborate right out of the gate.

The song list needs to progress through the Christmas story and progress to a high point musically before it eases back down and we provide a reflective ending. I'll say more about that a bit later.

Select Scripture Readings That Tie Songs and Themes Together to Tell the Advent Story 

After getting the approved songs into a good working sequence, I start looking for Scripture readings that relate to the themes of the songs and can take the audience through the Christmas story sequentially. So generally, I will start in the Old Testament and then progress through the retelling of the birth narrative in the New Testament. Also, for these readings, I prefer to use the Contemporary English Version or some other version that is written at a child's level since I am aiming to tell the story to everyone, not just the adults, particularly if the children suspend their activities on this particular Sunday and worship together in the main service, as we do at our church.

Add Readers Theatre with Narration to Incorporate Creativity Into the Musical

After marrying up the Scripture readings to the songs, I then create a combination of fun dialogue along with serious background to tell the Christmas story.  The narrator is the omniscient, steadying influence that provides adult supervision to the dialogue. The various readings do not necessarily have a plot besides the retelling of the Nativity story, but we are making our way through the Christmas story in a way that people can enjoy and ultimately reflect upon. To help with that, I like to  conclude each musical with a reading of "One Solitary Life," the poem that has been around for 50 years and used to be part of every Radio City Christmas Spectacular. In recent years, Radio City no longer reads it as part of the Christmas Spectacular, so I have revived this tradition by bringing it into our church.

Conduct the Rehearsal 

After the script comes together, it is time to recruit and rehearse. We usually need about 8-10 readers for the musical. We also use a small choir for a couple of the songs. I schedule one rehearsal the night before the presentation. This is possible because in readers theatre, the readers read directly from the script. The one night allows us to work out the kinks and tighten up the readings in one sitting. We then run through the entire musical and make sure staging and logistics are in place.

All of this assumes the music is tight the week of the program. If the musicians are ready, you will have a good production, and it is not extremely difficult to pull off. It is one thing I have found that will provide a lot of benefit without extraordinary effort on the part of the participants.

The Day of the Program


On the day of the program, print and have a few copies of the script, and have someone be familiar with all of the parts in case one of your readers is a no-show or gets the flu on Saturday night. (The substitute may even have to be you!) And there you have it: this is my process. You may find better ways to put together a Christmas musical, but this has worked for me over the past few years and does not require weeks of practice or memorization of extensive dialogue. Those might be a little better in the long run, but with good music, Scripture readings, and fun dialogue, your Christmas musical will shine!


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