It’s been 19 years since MBU’s drama ministry group, InCharactre was founded, and the group continues to thrive while maintaining its overall purpose, to share the gospel.
Photo by Christian Robinson
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Kasey Cox, director of InCharactre, said she strives to maintain gospel soundness throughout all of the dramas the group performs. “I try very hard to make sure that we always have a religion major in the group because I’m in the word daily and I’m studying the word but I’m not studying it in the same way that our religion majors are that they’re just in it day in and day out,” Cox said. “They’re not afraid to tell me if I pick something they think maybe let’s rewrite this or let’s tweak this.” Dramatic scripture readings have become a core subject for the group. “We do a lot of scripture readings where we’ll kind of delve into the word and look at what it says about a particular theme and then we create a scene based off of that,” said Cox, MBU communications and theatre instructor. The group’s goal of having gospel-centered dramas has helped add to the overall community of the group. “The community is really good. I love the people that are in it. I also love going out and performing because we have a single goal that we’re working towards and that is to share the gospel with the people that we perform (for). So it’s really neat to have a unified goal and to have fun while we do it,” said Rebekah Side, who has been a member since fall 2015. “There’s a real sense of family in the group. It’s a place where you can just come and connect with people and also share things that are going on in your life but also have an opportunity to go out and do drama for other people at the same time,” said Wallace. When looking for dramas to perform Cox said she has a favorite type that she usually leans toward. “I think that the best scenes end with a question so they don’t wrap it up neatly into a bow. They will present an issue that’s difficult and complex and then you end kind of on a cliff hanger so that people start talking about it,” said Cox. “If you wrap it up for them some people will think, ‘Oh yes, that applies to me,’ and other people will think, ‘Oh, that was great up until that moment but now that’s not my life at all, I can’t just do what they did.’ So if you end with a question then you start the conversation within the church about how do we fix these problems and how do we minister to certain people.” The InCharactre members have written some of their own dramas and scenes. “I will come to them with a theme and say bring in some ideas, I will usually find one central passage that is several verses long or a chapter,” said Cox. “We’ll come back together and everyone will say, ‘I thought about this verse’ and ‘I thought about this verse and this verse’ and we put it together so we can do it in as little as a class period if everybody comes in prepared.” The group will be performing at different churches and schools as well as performing service projects throughout the school year.
Alexa Tippett 
Jack Gienke 
Emma Tihen