Faces & Places Ministries has finally found a home. For over six years, members have been shuffling around from church to church, having no home base to meet and rehearse. Not to mention the costumes, props and supplies that have been stored in any available space, including members’ attics, garages and living rooms.
Now, things are really coming together for the group and everyone involved is excited to have a building which can be used to bring Christian theater and the arts to Tyrone and the surrounding areas.
An open house is planned for early this summer.
Everyone will have the opportunity to take a look at the new facility, enjoy fellowship together and learn about the variety of programs Faces & Places is providing in the area.
Faces & Places Ministries was founded in 2003, but ideas for the organization began forming long before that under the former name of NOAHLOT Productions.
Many may associate the name Drew Baker with Faces & Places, but while he does play a major part in the organization, he’s the first to step back and say this is a group effort and he couldn’t have done it alone.
Ideas for such a theater ministry group actually began when Baker, along with five others, was a senior at Tyrone Area High School.
The friends wanted to perform a show for fun but ran into a problem when they couldn’t find a production to fit six people. The solution came when Baker began writing shows to fit the ministry. They began with a Christmas production in the fall of 2000 and followed with an Easter story in the spring of 2001.
Upon graduation, Baker left the area to work at Sight and Sound Theaters, a Christian theater company based in Lancaster County, operating the Millennium Theatre and Living Waters Theatre in Strasburg where popular productions such as “Noah”, “Miracle of Christmas” and “Abraham and Sarah” were performed.
After two years, Baker felt a call to return to Tyrone and pick up where he had left off. He also wanted to expand and take the dream of creative ministry to the next level.
In 2003, the organization was renamed Faces & Places Ministries. The group continued performing three Biblical productions a year including programs for Easter and Christmas and a special children’s’ production. Soon after the group added a fourth show as they began performing comedies. Each comedic performance was based on a Bible story.
They also started branching out from their normal productions, adding Biblical character portrayals, clowning, mime, dowel rod mime, human video and puppetry to their repertoire.
Things continued to look up for Faces & Places and in the spring of 2005, the group performed their biggest show yet, “Thy Kingdom Come”, which was written by the members.
The group was blessed to make a temporary home for themselves at Christ United Methodist Church from January through April 2005. The show opened for three weekends in February and was a huge success. Two more weekends needed to be added to the performance schedule to accommodate the number of people attending.
Looking to the future, Faces & Places Ministries hopes to bring a large professional full-time operating ministry to the area.
With a growing number of programs and an ever increasing performance schedule, Faces & Places Ministries was in need of a permanent home.
A future edition of The Daily Herald will look at the things Faces & Places Ministries is currently doing as well as future plans for its new home.
