Minnesota's outdoor Christmas pageants bring congregations together

The shepherd was wearing Sorels. The angel had a full-length down coat under her white gown and wings. And before Mary headed outside for a shift at the manger, a fellow volunteer in the make-shift dressing room in SouthCross Community Church made sure she was dressed properly.

"Ok, kiddo. You've got your gloves?" asked Jennifer Largen.

Largen organizes the Baptist church's drive-through living Nativity, an annual event that brings a bit of Bethlehem to Burnsville.

A slow and steady line of cars filled with parishioners dropped off food donations, then watched as church members in a "star-lit" stable portrayed the scene of Jesus' birth — Mary gently rocking the babe, the angel joyfully raising her arms, the three kings taking turns bringing gifts — as strains of "Silent Night" could be heard over the buzz of traffic on Hwy. 42.

"Every year, I wonder if we're going to have enough people to go out and stand out in the cold," said Largen. "And I don't know if people are going to come, and every year God provides."

SouthCross' living Nativity was just one of dozens of outdoor pageants staged across Minnesota this month. From Moorhead to Mankato, volunteers portray the holy family, often with an array of supporting characters and live animals, including a few camels.

Despite Minnesota's often frigid climate, outdoor living Nativities have a long history in the state. However, more churches have started hosting drive-through events to share Christmas with congregations scattered by the pandemic.

Duluth Gospel Tabernacle is one of them.

The church used to host an indoor Nativity, but last year's event was canceled because of COVID-19 restrictions. So children's pastor Rebecca Haapanen gathered a "bare bones crew" and scrambled to create a drive-through village of Bethlehem. It ended up drawing four times as many people as the indoor Nativity had.

"So many adults came by with tears in their eyes, just telling us how they just couldn't believe what they were feeling and experiencing," said Haapanen.

"It's been harder this year getting people to volunteer. I'm not going to lie," she said. "There's a part of me that is like 'OK, are we having this?' But God always surprises me, and it always comes out in this beautiful, special, almost supernatural feeling."

This year, Haapanen worked to make the event even more moving by finding a baby in the congregation to bundle up and play Jesus. (She began recruiting expectant moms in her church in February.) She also found a real donkey and added a few bonfires "to keep my people warm."

"My goal is that kids will want to go get their picture with Jesus as much as with Santa," she said. "My desire is that we become something that people want to do at Christmas. We want to be a very real presence in our community."

An ancient tradition

Live Nativities have drawn believers since the first one debuted in 1223. St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, is said to have set up a manger with hay, an ox and a donkey in a cave near the Italian village of Greccio to attract villagers to hear him preach about the baby born in Bethlehem.

Through the centuries, live Nativities have acquired characters from both the gospels of Matthew (the men from the East, often now called wise men or kings) and Luke (the shepherds) as well as any number of animals, from camels to sheep.

Church members in Minnesota have flocked to outdoor live Nativities since at least 1955, when Osseo's First Methodist set up a stable with straw, cornstalks, a sheep, a donkey and church members portraying the holy family and shepherds. First Methodist's Rev. Alquinn Loews told the Minneapolis Star it was "a way to bring the message of Christmas to all people in a more real way."

Drive-through versions, which appeared in Minnesota in the 1980s, became an increasingly popular option during the first pandemic Christmas last year. But while the pageants may have changed, their mission remains the same.

"I'm just passionate about the true meaning of Christmas. And I think it gets lost in all the hustle and bustle," said Sue Van Hal, who organizes an annual drive-through Nativity in Pillager, Minn., which boasts live camels on loan from Brainerd's Safari North Wildlife Park and a giant searchlight in the sky.

"People see it from a long ways away," Van Hal said of the searchlight. "They follow the star to Bethlehem."

This was the seventh annual outdoor Nativity sponsored by the town's Casino Assembly of God and involved more than 15 other area churches. Each year, more than 100 people volunteer over two nights at the local fairgrounds, taking turns playing different roles and taking a break from the cold inside a warming house.

The Nativity has become a draw in the northern part of the state.

"We live in a little town of 400 and have 2,400 people drive through," said Van Hal. "It's just really fun and there's just so much community support for it."

A modern interpretation

Last Christmas, Lakeview Covenant Church decided to put on a live Nativity outdoors.

Because the Duluth-area church hadn't held live Nativities before, they had no costumes. They also had no budget for the event. That didn't stop Evan Kolding, pastor of youth ministries. He picked a modern-day styling of the scene, with an air mattress in the church garage instead of a straw-filled stable and manger.

"We were all just so excited to be able to invite people to participate in an old tradition of telling the Christmas story, talking about the birth of Jesus, but in a way where we can be outside and not have to worry about [COVID-19] restrictions," Kolding said.

This year, the church brought back its unconventional drive-through Nativity, adding narrators telling parts of the story of Jesus' birth to each carload of visitors.

"One of our narrators said, 'And would you believe it? Mary said her baby is the Son of God.' There was a little boy in his car seat who looked straight at our narrator and said, 'I know,' " Kolding said.

That story gave Kolding hope that the message behind the Nativity had gotten through when it was needed most.

"Is there anything more we need right now than hope?" he said. "A hope that has history behind it, a hope that has future in front of it."