They don't do it for their church. They do it for the kingdom of God.

From hundreds of feet of PVC pipe to heavy steel, handmade signs to the latest in computer technology, New Hope Baptist Church in Orangeburg continues to tweak its annual display, which now touches thousands of visitors each December. Beginning Friday, Dec. 7, from 6 to 9 p.m., New Hope will present its 10th annual Christmas Drive-Thru.

While Pastor Anthony Hughes says it came about from an idea he had, the drive-thru is, ultimately, a God-given charge.

"Having an idea and making it work, it required the church to agree, and that's exactly what happened," he said. "I kind of

threw out there what I saw, and they said, 'Yes, that sounds like something we can do.' They all jumped in there and started doing it."

Active membership in 1997, when Hughes presented his idea to the church, was 50 or 60. It is now up to nearly 150 individuals who eagerly look forward to the Christmas Drive-Thru each year. And the majority of those help in some way with the drive-thru, whether it's by making nightly meals for the actors, babysitting, directing traffic, portraying a character, preparing costumes and other essentials, fixing apple cide

r for visitors, constructing and repairing damages to the scenes, etc., etc., etc. Lots of work goes into preparing for the Christmas Drive-Thru, Hughes said, which is offered free of charge to the community.

"Every little detail is important, right on down to the people in the nursery," said church member and drive-thru participant Tad Bolin. "We do have fun with it. It gets cold and miserable, but it's all worth it. Just one person getting to know the Lord is all worth it."

In the beginning

Lisa Wallace, who has served as New Hope's youth minister for six years, said she has been involved in the cosmetics of the drive-thru since it began in 1998.

"It's all giving God the glory," she said. "If He didn't have His hand in it, it would collapse."

Wallace recalls those early days, struggling to make sure the PVC pipe stayed up and the scenes were aesthetically pleasing to the eye. But with just two supplies, Wallace has helped the drive-thru make it through many nights of blustery winds and bitterly cold weather.

"With spray paint and duct tape, you can fix anything," she said.

Work began in August that first year, a full four months prior to the opening of the drive-thru. The drive-thru featured six scenes depicting Jesus' birth, life and death.

"We went back in my backyard and we figured out how to build a scene," Hughes said. "I had a lady say to me, 'I can make costumes,' and I said, 'Well go at it,' ... so she started working at it, making costumes."

Kimlor Mills Inc. in Orangeburg donated linen to enclose each of the six scenes, and church members helped with every aspect of the drive-thru -- painting backdrops (including "blood" splatter in the scourging scene), building scenes, making signs and costumes. The tops were blue tarps. Signs were posted at the front of each scene.

"Our desire is for our scenes to have excellence, and we worked very hard so that it just looked really good that first year," Hughes said. "And the church drove through, and they just smiled. It really looked good."

The drive-thru was designed so that visitors could drive up and, after they read a sign with Bible verses on it, a light would come on in the scene, controlled by a manually operated light switch.

Small heaters were, and still are, the only source of heat many of the actors and workers have.

"We want it to look as real as we could possibly make it," Hughes said. Live animals are used in the Nativity scene and, sometimes, so is a real baby. The man playing Jesus in the crucifixion scene wears only a loincloth and a thorny crown. "We had almost the whole church come out, and we just used whatever we could use, whoever could come out."

Packages that include a candy cane and its story, church information and a tract are handed out to every drive-thru visitor. Shut-ins prepare the packages, as they have since the beginning. Hughes said it gives them a way to stay connected to the church and its ministry.

"They knew every time someone went out of this yard, something they had made, they put together, had as much influence in the drive-thru as anybody else," he said. "So the whole church is, literally, involved."

Relaying the message

In 1999, the Christmas Drive-Thru's second year, New Hope tried to automate its message at each scene. A dozen or so battery-operated cassette players were purchased, and tapes were made describing each scene. Drivers were handed a tape and, if needed, one of the players and asked to stop and start the tape at pauses as they proceeded through the drive-thru.

It was an advancement, but one that lead to worn-out tape players and a headache from rewinding the tapes over and over, Hughes said.

Then came boom boxes and speakers at each scene with a CD that would describe the action. That, too, turned out the be a "joke," he said, as boom boxes got so cold, the music and narration slowed down or stopped. So the boom boxes were centralized in a trailer in the middle of the yard, but the machines were wearing out too quickly due to repetition.

Another mode of delivering the message had to be developed, Hughes said. He said he asked the congregation's computer gurus if there was a way to automate the sound and some effects, and they said yes.

"Now it's all controlled by a laptop ... and they can literally control within nanoseconds of a light coming on and off," Hughes said. "In any given scene, they told me I can run 16 different things, and they can control it whenever I want it to come off and on."

"So from that," he said, referring to a photo from the first year, "to where we are today, it is incredible."

Church member and drive-thru cook Thomas Kinsey said he's heard nothing but positive things about the drive-thru.

"You know what to expect, but it still touches you," he said. "It's a labor of love. I heard it expressed just the other day -- some folks will drive by it and see it and it's more or less a 'novelty' to them, but by the time they get back to the road, a few of them have been changed. There's been some really good stories about that."

A walk through the drive-thru

A traffic director leads you to the scenes, hits a button, and on come the lights, music and narration. Actors interpret the shepherds watching their flocks by night and receiving the sign of Jesus' birth, the first moments of the Christ child's life, Jesus healing the sick, the Last Supper, Christ's scourging prior to his crucifixion, His crucifixion and death, the resurrection and empty tomb, and, finally, Jesus' ascension into heaven. In two scenes, lifts are used to hoist actors into the air.

"There are some scenes where a fogger will come on, a black light will come on, we've got thunder and lightning going on," Hughes said. "In several scenes, we've got four or five different things going on that that computer is turning on and off. ... We've come a long way."

The skeletal scene beams are now constructed out of steel, protecting the actors -- and scenes -- from the elements.

"We came out one year, and it had snowed, and our scenes had broken down, all the PVC had broken, and that was a nightmare," Hughes said. Heavy machinery is used to transport the steel versions from the back of the church yard, where they are stored among pine trees, to the front.

Apple cider is also served to visitors waiting in line on the road, just so folks visiting the Christmas Drive-Thru know they are welcome and encouraged to wait in the often long lines.

"That's been real good, people have enjoyed that," Hughes said. "It takes everybody doing everything, and it's been really cool."

Looking to the future

Hughes said his kids were too small to participate in the Christmas Drive-Thru when it began 10 years ago.

"Now that they're older, they're in the shepherd scene, and they really like that," he said. "The children just love it, because as they get old enough, they go out and they sit in the scene and they learn how to do ministry."

Thirteen-year-old Tracey Kizer said she has helped in several aspects of the drive-thru, including acting in the healing scene and helping with the nursery. This year, she will be directing traffic.

"Many of my friends don't know God, and I had the flyers, and I passed them around school," she said. "I know that's one way I can try to get them to know God. I know that I'm helping God build his kingdom."

Along with unusual tales, like the time a drive-thru worker caught fire but was uninjured and kept working, or the time a goat escaped from the Nativity scene and led church members on a massive hunt, are the stories of people turning to the Lord.

"We've had ... response cards saying 'Thanks for reminding me of the true meaning of Christmas,' people have gotten saved, a youth group came through, and three or four youth from another denomination came to know Christ," Hughes said. "It's just been phenomenal, what we've seen and how far we've come and what we've been able to do."

In the future, Hughes said he would like to create a complete city, where the scenes transpire on both sides of the drive-thru. But for now, he said visitors seem to be pleased with the authenticity and accuracy of the church's work.

"The response has been overwhelming. We have a lot of people come through," he said. "I think the most we have ever had come through is about 3,300 or 3,400 people." That's a dramatic increase from the 300 to 400 visitors they had the first year.

Hughes said the point of the drive-thru has never been to highlight New Hope or attract new members.

"We really didn't want anything out of it," he said. "Our whole vision was, whatever we can do to share the Gospel, share what Christmas is all about. And whether it benefits us or not is not of any value to us as a church. We just want to do what we know we have been commanded to do, to share the Gospel, and that's what we do. ... It has given us a place where we can share."

Bolin said the church is drawn together as a body of Christ during the drive-thru.

"I get to know people a little more at this time, when we can get together like this," he said.

Bill Dantzler, who has worked with the drive-thru since 2001, said they are just fulfilling their mission as a church body.

"The whole reason we're on this earth is to make disciples," he said. "Thousands of people come to our church to see a show. What they get is the Gospel."

Barry Dukes said this is his fourth year with the Christmas Drive-Thru. He said it's not about who you are or what you're doing individually, but the ministry as a whole.

"It's not about the community seeing us -- it's about the community seeing Jesus," he said. "I think it's something that adds to the tradition of Christmas. It gives the community something special to do. Most importantly, it's a chance to share Jesus with a lot of people who may not come to church any other time."

While the drive-thru is a lot of work, Dukes said it is worth it.

"People who come through this drive-thru are going to leave knowing the true meaning of Christmas, what Christmas is really all about," he said. "It is a tremendous amount of work, but it's worth it -- even if you only have one person come through and get the true meaning of Christmas."

Wallace said it's about giving the community the whole picture of Christ.

"It's not just about His death, it's about His life," she said. "It's a gift to the community."

The Sunday following the final performance, church members gather to share their experiences. Some say that's their favorite part of the drive-thru.

"Everybody comes to that meeting, and we're just sad that it's over ... and we put it to bed, and we think to ourselves, 'It won't be long before we're putting this back on again,'" Hughes said. "The people get excited about it, they enjoy it."

Wallace said new members' perspectives at that final gathering give the drive-thru the freshness it needs -- and the older members the will to do it -- year in and year out.

"It brings the church together as a family," she said. "Every gift that we have is used, and it all comes together for one purpose, and that purpose is to know Christ."

One of the drive-thru's construction gurus, Danny Bolin, said he's never been a man of many words, but he doesn't have to be when he's involved in the Christmas Drive-Thru.

"A picture's worth a thousand words, whereas my words don't mean anything," he said.

This is the first year the drive-thru will be held on consecutive Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights from 6 to 9. The event will conclude Sunday, Dec. 16. Hughes said churches are invited -- and encouraged -- to attend and bring busloads of individuals. In fact, letters were sent to area churches for the first time this year inviting them to do so.

"That's the point. That's what we're looking for," he said. "We just want to take this tool ... and use it for other churches to grow a member or two, to try to get the churches to use us for an evangelistic outreach tool."

Brenda Alderman said she has been a Christian for a very long time, and she always associated Christmas with Jesus' birth.

"With this, it portrays more than the birth," the drive-thru costume designer said. "In the long run, you probably never really will know how many people you touch."

T&D Features Editor Wendy Jeffcoat Crider can be reached by e-mail at wjeffcoat@timesanddemocrat.com or by telephone at 803-533-5546. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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