The Gospel Project Presents
Stories of Courage & Home
An evening of theatre, dance, music, preaching, and community exploring immigration, identity, family, belonging, and the courage it takes to build a life across borders.
The Question
This September, The Gospel Project brings together theatre, dance, music, and preaching for a powerful evening exploring immigration, identity, family, and the courage it takes to build a life across borders.
Stories cross borders.
So does courage.
So does hope.
An evening centered on the human stories behind immigration, displacement, family, identity, dignity, and home.
When the Stranger Calls
Through professional theatre, contemporary dance, musical theatre, and preaching, this gathering invites us beyond headlines and policy debates and into stories of people searching for safety, dignity, belonging, and home.
Staged Reading
By J.D. Rodriguez
The evening will feature a staged reading of J.D. Rodriguez’s Zero Tolerancia, the story of an immigrant family confronting the terrifying possibility of separation while caring for their 14-year-old son, Danny.
The play brings the human realities behind immigration policy into the intimacy of one family’s home.
Dance
Choreographed by Gabriel Mata in collaboration with the dancers
Created on an all-Latino cast, Brown Baby draws upon family rituals, social gatherings, cultural memory, and everyday movement.
It is a celebration of ownership, identity, and pride — an embodied assertion of what it means to move through the world in a brown body.
Solo Dance Work
Founding Artistic Director, Fuse Dance Company
Joshua David Estrada Romero will contribute an original solo dance work created for the evening, adding another movement-based perspective to the gathering’s exploration of identity, courage, and belonging.
Musical Selections
Music of Community, Heritage & Belonging
The evening will also feature musical selections from In the Heights, bringing its celebration of community, heritage, family, identity, and belonging into the worship experience.
Faith & Reflection
When We Encounter the Stranger
Rev. Dr. Sarah Halverson-Cano will offer a powerful homily inviting us to consider what our faith asks of us when we encounter the stranger, the immigrant, and the neighbor searching for home.
Come Hungry. Stay for the Story.
Free Community Meal
Come early and share a free meal with neighbors, artists, families, and friends before the worship experience begins.
Worship Experience
Theatre, dance, music, reflection, and preaching come together in a worship experience centered on courage, migration, identity, and home.
The community meal and worship experience are both free. You are welcome to attend either or both.
About the Series
The Gospel Project is where faith meets the arts, and where the stories of our world become part of our worship.
Rooted in progressive theology and creative expression, The Gospel Project brings together professional theatre, dance, music, storytelling, reflection, and community to explore scripture, justice, identity, hope, and the human experience.
Each gathering creates space to listen — to artists, to one another, to the stories shaping our world, and to the sacred questions those stories ask us to confront.
The Gospel Project 2026
The Gospel Project continues throughout the year with new gatherings exploring faith, culture, community, and the stories that shape us.
Theatre, dance, music, and preaching come together for a powerful exploration of immigration, identity, family, belonging, and the courage it takes to build a life across borders.
Inspired by Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, this gathering explores how courage, hope, and community can lead us on the journey toward spiritual maturity.
Adults and youth present a delightfully chaotic Christmas pageant reminding us that God shows up in joyful imperfection. Laugh, reflect, and celebrate together.
September 26, 2026
Come experience an evening that moves beyond abstraction and into the deeply human questions of family, migration, identity, separation, faith, courage, and home.
RSVP for September 26Join Us
4915 Alton Parkway
Irvine, CA 92604
The Gospel Project
Stories of Courage & Home
Free admission. Free community meal. All are welcome.
