Pastor Joyce Swingle preaches on Ephesians 6:14 and Matthew 4:1-11.

Benediction by Pastor Rachel Taylor.

The sermon is available for download free on iTunes, where you can also subscribe to our podcast. Search for "Westchester Chapel" on the iTunes Store.

Long-Form Improv

This year the MasterWorks Theatre production of Pope John Paul II's The Jeweler's Shop will be going to New York City for performances in an Off-Broadway theatre: RichDrama.com/MWFTheatre2012.

The opportunity to tour to NYC created such a demand and surge in applicants that we were unable to cast everyone in the touring company.  To accommodate the many excellent actors who applied, we have created an exciting new track for the drama program: Long-Form Improv.  By the end of three weeks students will be equipped to take a suggestion from the audience and create a half-hour one-act play on the spot. Actors will study the works and influence of Viola Spolin, learn how improv is used professionally, and become an expert with short and long improvisation forms. The discipline will be a real boon for actors, helping them to cultivate spontaneity on stage, accelerate the creation of characters, and sensitivity to on-stage relationships. 

The track will be run by Kaelen Carrier, a MasterWorks Theatre alum, who attended the program from 2005 to 2008. She now has an MBA on top of a BA in Theatre Management, and she has worked with Washington University School of Medicine as a professional improv actor, performing the role of a patient to teach medical students how to improve their bedside manner. She runs a professional improv troupe in St. Louis.

It will be a three-week program that will run concurrently with the cast of The Jeweler's Shop, so students will spend an hour each morning with the entire company in warm-ups, worship, and devotions. They will also benefit from our master classes.

Carol Doscher has been
helping people find their
joy through Graceworks
 since 1995.

This year we're featuring Carol Doscher, President and CEO (Chief Encouragement Officer) of Graceworks. She has been captivating audiences since she performed on Broadway with Angela Lansbury. Since founding Graceworks in 1995, she’s trained thousands of professionals globally to make that vital human connection in sales presentations, client meetings and lectures. Having been featured in The New York Times and on Bloomberg television, Carol also has published numerous articles on presentation and communication skills. She just came back from Oslo, Norway, where she worked with clients from a dozen nations.

I've been a Graceworks Freedom Finder for over a decade now, and we've been thrilled to help liberate people from their fears, connect emotionally with their material and audiences, and trust that they can share more of who they are.    

We're also bringing Phillip Telfer, who wrote, produced, and directed a recent documentary called Captivated.  He will be sharing with the whole Festival, screening his film, and meeting with our theatre students. We heard Phillip speak to the cast and crew of Indescribable, the film in which my bride, Joyce, and I played the parents of nine. The documentary wasn't complete last summer, and in fact Phillip interviewed at least one crew member on set. But his talk was so spot on for many of our goals for the theatre program I'm excited that he'll be speaking to us and sharing his documentary. Captivated, now complete, was featured at the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival, where it was runner up for Best Documentary and an Official Selection as a finalist for Best of Festival, which was won by Courageous.

Members of this track will also be able to audition for the honors recital at the MasterWorks Festival. If selected they will be coached by Patricia Mauceri, who trained at Juilliard with Kevin Kline and Patti LuPone and performed on television, film and Broadway alongside Christopher Plummer, Johnny Depp, Richard Dreyfus and James Earl Jones.

If you or someone you know is interested in the Long-Form Improv track apply (or urge them to apply) today. Instead of performing a monologue from The Jeweler's Shop, two contrasting monologues from any play will be fine, even if they're improvised.

Right to Worship Prayer March

* Please be in prayer about and attend the upcoming Right to Worship Prayer March and Concert this Sunday April 22 at 2pm starting at Cadman Plaza. Pray that the people of NY would unite together in prayer and thanksgiving and intercede for the city and the area and the nation!

^"14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." - 2 Chronicles 7:14

Breakfast with Jesus

The Westchester Chapel Players shared the Resurrection Breakfast between Jesus and his disciples with our children of all ages.  We brought the youngest to the front table where VIP signs reserved their places.

Joyce followed the drama with a sermon on the corresponding passage from John 21 and shared her testimony of how she came to make Jesus her personal Savior. The clinking you hear in the background is from the breakfast we were eating.



This sermon is available for download free on iTunes, where you can also subscribe to our podcast. Search for "Westchester Chapel" on the iTunes Store.

Here's the book Joyce mentions: