In November 2024, the first seeds of Manger Throne were planted in a creative meeting at McGregor Baptist Church. Pastor of Worship, Ryan Flint, gathered a group of writers and artists to dream about the 2025 Christmas musical. Ideas flew across the room—family dynamics, biblical parallels, even echoes of the story of Job—but the team kept circling back to one central desire: a strong, faithful male lead whose struggles would intersect with timeless truths about God’s plan. The lingering question was whether such a story could unfold meaningfully within the frame of Christmas.

The breakthrough came unexpectedly for Christian Miller. While curating a Christmas playlist, he stumbled across Manger Throne, a Phil Wickham song arranged by Travis Cottrell. The lyrics, asking why Jesus came humbly in a manger instead of in glory and power, captured the very tension the writers had been circling around. That spark of inspiration quickly grew into a draft outline and scene-by-scene overview, which Miller shared with Flint. From there, the two gathered a smaller group of writers (nicknamed “The Core”) to carry the vision forward. This team, made up of Christian Miller, Ryan Flint, Kathy Goforth, Russell Howard, Nate Flood, and later Grace Prostrino, began meeting weekly to refine each scene, develop character arcs, and ensure the story remained both dramatically compelling and rooted in gospel truth.

Crucial to the process was music. Alongside two original songs written specifically for the show, the script incorporates worship music already familiar to many Sunday mornings at McGregor. These songs aren’t decoration—they’re woven into the storytelling itself. They give voice to the characters’ spiritual wrestling, highlight turning points in the narrative, and express both the emotional and theological depth of each scene. In Manger Throne, the music of the church becomes the soundtrack of real life, showing that what we sing together in worship also speaks into our struggles, our hope, and our daily walk with Christ.