As everyone and their mother knows, everything’s bigger in Texas, up to and including their evangelical megachurches and their Christmas performances. To that end, Lawson Martin, a Dallas-based TikToker, recently shared a video from a megachurch’s Christmas pageant that left people in awe.
@lawsonmaee They say everything is bigger in Texas. #megachurch #texas #christmasshow ♬ original sound - Lawson Martin | Dallas girl
In the video, performers are singing and dancing along to “The Greatest Show” from The Greatest Showman soundtrack as confetti falls, smoke cannons go off and someone propels themselves through the air toward the stage. In a second clip, several people suspended from wires play the drums as people onstage dance and perform backflips to the sounds of an electric guitar. It’s not clear how either of these performances scream “Christmas” or convey the story of Jesus’ birth, but maybe they’re deliberately abstract.
The production was put together by Plano-based Prestonwood Baptist Church, which previously went viral last year for its over-the-top production that featured three live camels and almost 1,000 human performers and ran for an hour and 40 minutes.
Commenters were impressed but also amused, with several people making comparisons to The Righteous Gemstones and agreeing that the show is obviously not fictional but simply an accurate documentary.
Another commented, “I can no longer tell what’s sarcasm and what’s an actual mega church.” Someone else shared a realization they had: “As a kid that grew up in a mega church like this I thought I felt the holy spirit but I just really love live music,” which is fair enough, tbh.
Others found the choice of music incredibly apt, with one person commenting, “Something about a mega church using a song from a musical about P.T. Barnum is so apt” — Barnum, of course, was famous for being something of a scammer in his time. Someone else, concerned that the video would lead people to check out megachurches near them, commented, “Guys no matter how cool this is DON’T GO TO A MEGACHURCH,” which is solid advice; just go for the insane Christmas show, don’t give them any of your personal information, and bounce before they can try and convince you to come to a decidedly less flashy Sunday service.
Other commenters were struck by how un-Christmassy the show seemed, with one writing, “They’re like ‘remember the reason for the season’ and then give you sensory overload.” It’s what Jesus would have wanted. Meanwhile, another commenter joked, “Nothing says the birth of Jesus quite like The Greatest Showman.”
In fairness, though, what was Jesus, if not the Greatest Showman in history? Nobody turns water into wine unless they’re a performer at heart.
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