Bethlehem Santa Clara

One of our members (the angel from Bethlehem) made this video of the full Bethlehem drive-thru for you to watch if you were not able to make it. We close on December 31st, so there are a couple of days left to come view the free drive-thru with your family from 6pm to 9pm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew0zaaIQRIk

The Bethlehem drive-thru has been really popular with over 1300 cars and 4500 guests who have gone through already. It runs till New Year's Eve night. We want to let you know that the Drive-Thru is closed on Christmas Eve December 24th because we are having an outdoor Christmas service in Bethlehem from 7pm to 8pm. Park in the other lot and bring your family to enjoy Christmas carols, candle lighting, Bethlehem music, and an uplifting message, all while being immersed in the... city of Bethlehem. Bring a mask, jacket and blanket and enjoy the Christmas story outdoors under the stars in a whole new way as we socially distance everyone through the town of Bethlehem in this safe outdoor experience for the whole family. December 24th: 7pm at Santa Clara First Baptist Church 3111 Benton Street, Santa Clara Masks and Social Distancing Required [If you can't attend, watch the livestream at www.scfbc.org at 7pm]

We opened the Bethlehem Drive-Thru tonight and had many cars drive through the town of Bethlehem. It is open from 6pm to 9pm every night till the end of December, is free and does not require an RSVP. The audio tour is found at http://www.BethlehemSC.com so make sure your phone can play the audio files before coming. Try to connect your phone to your car audio system for the best experience. A couple of cars tonight had problems with their iPhones not playing any audio because the ringer silence switch on the side of the phone was disabling the audio, so check that if you have problems. We made full size cartoon rendering of our actual actors from the show and the audio tour has their actual dialogs, so this is as close to a safe Bethlehem experience as you can get during Covid times.

This is our second week building the Bethlehem sets for our new Bethlehem Drive-Thru which will be open from December 1st through 31st.

We are cancelling our normal in-person live Bethlehem event for 2020 because of Covid-19. Instead we are actively creating a new drive-thru Bethlehem experience for your family. From December 1st to 31st 6pm to 9pm you will be able to drive your car through the city of Bethlehem and listen to the scenes from Bethlehem on your smart phone as you view the sets and character cut-outs. There will be no actors or animals, but we know how important this 22 year Christmas experienc...e is to our neighbors, so we wanted to do something special for your family. The event is free and does not require an RSVP. There is more information on http://www.BethlehemSC.com [NOTE: the drive thru will be closed December 24 for an outdoor Christmas Eve service at 7pm. All are invited]

** Something new this year that we are announcing to our Facebook friends only. This is in addition to our regular Dec 12 - Dec 16: 6:30pm to 9pm shows ** We have created a new show for little kids called Little Town of Bethlehem that will take place this Saturday Only (Dec 14th) from 5pm to 6pm. This is our first year trying this and we wanted to create a young child friendly space by having the Market Place open only from 5pm to 5:30pm for the very small children to have ...an easier time visiting the booths. Plus the main drama won't start till 5:30pm so even less chaos going on. And the tall "mean" Roman Guards who patrol our city will be in a better mood or not present at all. The entire Little Town of Bethlehem show will take place in the city only with a new shepherd and angel scene next to the stable and a kid friendly message at the end of this one show. Santa Clara First Baptist Church values children and their needs and wanted to create this safe and fun space just for them. RULES FOR ENTRY: - Since we want to control the crowds and keep the city uncrowded this announcement is only showing up here on Facebook. SATURDAY ONLY: The gates to the city will open at 5pm and close at 5:15pm, so please be on time or you will need to wait outside the city for the regularly scheduled Bethlehem show at 6:30pm. - This event is targeted for kids aged 2 to 7 and their families, but kids up to 10 can come also. We will never turn away any families at Bethlehem. - After the Market Place time from 5pm to 5:30pm and the main drama event from 5:30pm to 6pm we will ask that everyone leave the city, so our cast can have a break and eat some dinner before the gates re-open at 6:30pm. You would then need to wait in line outside Bethlehem if you wanted to re-enter for our 6:30pm to 9pm shows.

We are here at the Santa Clara Parade of Champions with our Bethlehem float. Come down from 11am to 1pm and cheer us on in downtown Santa Clara.

Bethlehem 2017 is over and we had a record number of people attend and experience the Christmas story. 17,437 people attended and we served over 15,000 cups of hot chocolate. This was the church's 20th year putting on this free event for the city of Santa Clara. This Sunday (Dec 17) Santa Clara First Baptist Church is celebrating 20th year anniversary during the morning worship service at 10:30am. I heard the Roman Guards are going to be present in the service and other fun... stuff. We will also be showing some of the cool drone videos that were captured at the event. Jerry and Sharon Cintas, the couple who started it all 20 years ago will be sharing during the service along with open mic time to share your stories about Bethlehem. Come and check it out.

Welcome to the newest member of our cast, Addy. Addy the camel will be helping the wisemen follow the star to Bethlehem in Santa Clara. The free Bethlehem event opens tonight (Dec 7) from 6:30pm to 9pm and runs through monday night (Dec 11). It will become increasingly crowded as the days go on, so if you want to avoid crowds come tonight or Friday night.

Was sad to hear that the Livermore "Journey to Living Bethlehem" event decided to shut down after 2 years of putting on an excellent production in downtown Livermore. They struggled with the permission to use the downtown lot they were originally presenting on and after many years of looking for a new location have decided to call it quits. Their show was based off of our Santa Clara Bethlehem script, music, and set layout and they did a remarkable job with it. Thousands of ...people in the area visited the show and were touched by the live re-enactment of the Christmas Story. Doug Fernandez (visioneer) and Vonn Hochenberger (execution) did an amazing job of organizing hundreds of volunteers in the area to cast and build the production from scratch that rivaled our 20 year production. This is a photo of Jerry Cintas (Bethlehem Santa Clara director) with Doug and Von as they have graciously given some of their props and costumes to our Santa Clara production. It was a sad day but a little part of their work will carry on in our Santa Clara production this year, December 7-11, 2017.

Here are some of our favorite photos from the Bethlehem event at Santa Clara First Baptist Church. Most were taken on Thursday night.

Bethlehem is on tonight despite the rains today. It is wet out but we are clearing out the puddles in the sand. Bring shoes you don't mind getting dirty and maybe an umbrella. Be sure to check out our new interactive scribe booth, new metal smith building with metal stamps, and rock wall building area. The camel is being grumpy and will be staying in the trailer tonight :(

Bethlehem is starting this Thursday night - Monday night at Santa Clara First Baptist Church from 6:30pm to 9pm at 3111 Benton Street, Santa Clara. If you have been before try to come on Thursday or Friday night so we can try to keep the crowds down on the weekend and Monday night. Hope to see you there.

Another great year of sharing the Christmas Story with the people of Santa Clara. Here are some photos taken by our guests at the Bethlehem event.