Dec. 11, 2017 ~ Huge Interfaith Nativity Display (Week 22)

This week we were hostesses at a huge interfaith nativity display. Nativities from all over the world were displayed throughout the church. It was really cool! There were so many displays that we didn’t even have enough time to see all of them!

We served there 3 times. We welcomed people into the various rooms and visited with them as they looked at the different nativities.

We were told that over 10,000 people came through.

Sorry we were not allowed to take pictures inside the display but LDS Living published an article with photos a couple of weeks ago. My mom will post this article...

Enormous Interfaith Nativity Display Celebrates 30 Years

and the Amazing Story Behind It

LDSLiving.com

In 1987, a ward noticed the sentiment in the community that Mormons were not Christians, and they wanted to do something about it. Drawing on a tradition a ward member had experienced in Ann Arbor, Michigan, they decided to create their own display of nativity, or crèche, scenes.

Now in its 30th year, the Christmas Crèche Exhibit has grown into an annual community holiday tradition, bringing together thousands from a variety of faith backgrounds.

(Artisans in South Africa recycled soda cans to create this nativity.)

Simple Beginnings: The five-day Christmas Crèche Exhibit continues to beckon visitors to the same chapel where it started, but over the years this stunning exhibit has been enlarged from one small room to nine. It boasts a curated rotating collection of about 350 nativity sets from 50 countries, fashioned from varying materials like bronze or beach driftwood and spanning four centuries. There’s even a nativity etched on a semiconductor chip. Organized by geography, artistic medium, color, or other themes, the rooms in the exhibit feature centerpieces, live music, special talks, marionette shows, crafts, demonstrations by local artists, and other interactive experiences that invite visitors to participate in the story of the Savior’s birth.

(A crèche from Italy with 1,000 pieces recreates an entire Bethlehem village scene.) 

“It’s really a very lovingly curated exhibit,” Marguerite Gong Hancock, one of the exhibit chairs, attests. “It now attracts over 10,000 people every year, drawing visitors from more than 50 cities in California. We estimate that well over half the people that come are from the community and members of other faiths—many entering a Mormon church building for the first time.”

A Labor of Christmas Love: Pulling off an event of this size requires many willing hands. By summer of each year, the committee has picked a new theme and chosen which collections to showcase. “We thoughtfully and prayerfully choose an overall theme for the year. It’s usually based on a scripture that helps point people to Christ,” says Hancock.

Artists at the exhibit invite guests to watch them create nativity paintings, carvings, or quilts.

(A statuesque Holy Family from Africa made from brightly painted clay.)

In 2016, for example, the theme was “Peace,” portrayed by origami doves and displays with poppies or olive branches. A majority of those who volunteer their time and talents are the members of the exhibit’s two host stakes, but they also come from the community. However, Becky Fuchs, the Los Altos co-chair of the display’s organizing committee, shares, “[We] need to recruit about 350 LDS hosts so that we have between one and three people in each room to warmly welcome people and make sure the nativities are safe. Congregations and schools make ornaments that are then featured in the rooms, and we collect food for local food banks. There are many teams that work side by side.”

(An exhibitor shares her family’s nativity, featuring figures, plants, and birds from her native El Salvador.)

The exhibit involves a village of volunteers, contributing time and talents for everything from hospitality and database management to publicity and design. As a final touch, the exhibit features seven concerts and continuous live music in the main hall, which involves another 200 volunteers.

A Uniting of Faith: As the exhibit’s fame has grown, so have the number of people and variety of churches who want to participate. “We have, for example, St. Thomas Episcopal Church and Our Lady of the Rosary that share their nativities they display in their churches,” Hancock shares. “We have people of different faiths, community members, and very talented high school groups that perform concerts here. In addition to LDS musicians, past performers have included a Seventh-day Adventist men’s choir and the San Francisco State University Handbell Choir.”

Throughout the 45 hours of the exhibit, the main hall features musicians on instruments from harps to handbells, adding to the spirit of joy and reverence.

She adds, “It’s grown so that pastors of other churches now invite their congregations to come, and they announce it over their pulpit or put it in their newsletter. We have retired nuns that come as a group in a tour bus, and we have many other leaders of other congregations and faiths that strongly encourage, ‘If you want to feel the Spirit and know about Christ, go and see that exhibit.’”

As these different faith communities unite, a feeling of peace frequently touches those involved. Hancock recalls a unique experience one woman had when she visited the exhibit. “One person, originally from Mexico, came because she was invited by her friend… it seemed like she didn’t have a place to live [or] a place to belong. She came and saw beautiful nativities that had been carved from her own country, [as well as] a painting of the Savior in Africa. She felt so moved that God could answer her prayer, that He was aware of her, and that she had a place of belonging. That was her cue to ask her friend about the Church, and she and her daughter were later baptized.”

(One-piece Polish nativities each carved from a tree stump.)

A Christmas Mission: “During the exhibit, if [the missionaries] have investigators or less-active people, they bring them as guests,” Hancock explains. “Last year . . . we designed a handout around 25 ways that you can add peace to your life . . . and we had sister missionaries available to have informal conversations. Guests took more than 3,000 pieces of printed material about Christ and the Church.”

Missionaries contribute service to help distribute publicity, set-up and clean-up, and welcome guests to the exhibit as hosts.

Local members have had many missionary experiences with friends and neighbors that they’ve invited to the exhibit. Fuchs shares an experience she had with a next-door neighbor. “I had never taken the time to invite her,” she admits. “Then one year they were redoing their landscaping, and so I asked her if we could use some of the tree branches and stones that they were removing.

She asked, ‘Well, what is all this for?’ So she and her husband went down and looked at the exhibit. They were so impressed that the next year they brought friends of their own.” Fuchs is grateful for the positive feelings and friendship the exhibit helps bring about.

Future Growth: As the Christmas Crèche Exhibit celebrates its 30th anniversary, organizers reflect on the far-reaching impact of what is now the longest-running annual community-led nativity exhibit in the United States. “Over the years, we’ve helped start or have been resources for more than 25 other exhibits around the country,” Fuchs says.






(A carved nativity from China features unique figures, animals, and trees, including a water buffalo instead of a donkey and an angel mounted on the manger with a pair of chopsticks.)

With so much stake and community involvement and so many opportunities to feel the Spirit, it’s no surprise that the missionaries are also heavily involved in volunteering for the Christmas Crèche Exhibit. This, of course, also leads to many missionary opportunities.

(Carvings from Guatemala to Peru to Native American Huichol Indians.)

Thousands of viewers have watched the exhibit’s concert series on the local cable television channel. Tens of thousands of people from around the world have engaged on the exhibit’s Facebook page. But at the heart of the exhibit is the hope for each person, regardless of background or age, to feel some measure of the wonder of the Savior’s birth and mission and a loving personal invitation to come to Him. Hancock says, “It just started very simply and has grown organically over time. There’s been such a wonderful response from members of the Church, as well as community members who say, ‘This is really at the heart of what Christmas is and what we can share together.’”

Love, Hermana Brooks