Please feel free to keep discussing the other questions below this post... but since this is Easter weekend I have a question for you all...
How can we TRULY celebrate Easter in church without it turning into a clichéd painfully dull religiously ceremonial hat-tip to Jesus' death and resurrection?
You can find my musings on the subject HERE. But I would love to hear how you pastoral types are celebrating Easter in your church and how you non-pastoral types WISH churches were celebrating this weekend.
4 comments:
He is Risen...(sorry Tara, couldn't resist!)
You know I feel much of what you shared in your post, especially in the past few years. In our community Good Friday has been used for several years as a reason for a "unity service" (for the record I don't believe that several churches holding a service together with less than 40% of their people present actually shows unity). I have sat with great frustration through these services with anticipation that it will eventually focus on Christ. Always dispapointed that the focus came back to looking at ourselves and our unity. I must say that I was thankful that the birth of my son last year meant I couldn't go to the service!
This year there was no "unity" service. We gathered together as a local church family for a very reflective and contemplative service. A service that engaged the senses through video, drama, and music that all pointed to Christ. Sometimes we don't always know what was done right, we just know it wasn't wrong. For myself singing the last song after communion with tears rolling down my cheeks tells me that something was right. Not right in the performance sense but right in the sense that our heads and hearts were focused on who they are supposed to be focussed on. I thank our worship pastor for the job he did in not creating a spectacle but creating an environment for 450 people to individually and corporately meet with our lord and savior.
Dave
Dave
I can't stand those "unity" services either- Doug had to attend one today in fact and didn't enjoy it. I totally skipped for like the 4th year in a row :)
Your service sounds like it was great- engaging the senses is a good thing :)
On the thought that Easter should be the biggest holiday, bigger than Christmas, I have an example to share. I'm not sure if you'll agree with it but I think its interesting.
My inlaws are Old Colony Mennonites and Easter is definitely as big as Christmas. They celebrate for three days both at Christmas and at Easter with services on the first and third holidays (as well as Good Friday). They exchange gifts at Easter although typically not as big as at Christmas (not sure if there is any theology to go with that). Because Mennonites are all about family, there is a family gathering for both holidays. At the family gathering, the kids all recite something they've memorized specificaly for the occasion in front of the family but directed to the grandparents. Its always in German and its usually scripture or a traditional hymn or part of their catecysm (sp?). Interestingly, they have traditional Easter foods but not for Christmas (Turkey is optional. My mom-in-law usually cooks a moose roast.) Also, Old Colony Mennonites don't do decorating for Christmas or really anything so the atmosphere at Easter does seem very similar to Christmas, even to this outsider.
Janine
I resonate with what Dave is saying.
I was part of organizing a "unity" service this year, and it involved multi-ethnic congregations from the area. One cool thing was that we had the passion narrative read in different languages (Chinese, French, Punjabi, Filipino, and English) with the words in English on screen. I'm not sure it was that edifying, per se, but it was kind of a neat experience. There is something I like, in principle, about the "unity" service. I also don't mind if it is a bit long and hard to sit through, like a funeral even. But at the end of the day I think I'd have liked to have had a prayer labyrinth through the stations of the cross, or something creative and interactive and all-family and contemplative like that. But then I might have longed for communion. Because you fill up the day with words and liturgies and songs and congegational gatherings and getting the kids loaded up and off to church and all that---and whether any of it sunk in at all there is still the silent profundity of bread and cup staring you in the face, begging to be drunk to the dregs.
Incidentally, I can't wait to preach tomorrow for some reason. Not sure anyone else feels that way, but I do anyway.
I like sunrise services too.
Probably my favourite Good Friday's were back in my former church when we did a walk through stations of the cross along with the Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans and Pentecostals right through town, ending in a short service at the Catholic church. The best year was when we tagged on to the beginning a small group communion time in various homes of our own congregation. Reportedly this made for a very significant day for all who took part.
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