I often see churches trying to do Easter at Christmas. We mean well, really we do. Being Christmas we often have people’s attention so we’re tempted to go heavy on the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection. But that’s when we break rhyme. It’s off-key. Christmas is a time of joyous celebration; it’s the party season. No point plunging us all down into reflectiveness when it’s time to sing and dance.
The good news for all of us who love sharing the good news of Jesus is that Easter is soon upon us and people during this season are generally more ready to be reflective on what matters in life. Trouble is a lot of churches back off when we need to accelerate.
So I’m left wondering if people should go to church or not?
Many Christians in Australia, like the rest of the population, spend the summer holidays over January relaxing, breaking routine. We then become comatose in the summer heat and holiday mode only to be woken by our pastor in early February. We then exert incredible sweat stirring all the mothballed church structures out of their slumber only to blow it out the window as hot air when we reach Easter. You see, we all head off on another break somewhere as the Easter weekend is tied to school holiday break. Church leaderships tend to cave in and offer little vision on this competition of priorities and so there really isn’t anything for regular church goers to ‘aspire’ to or get excited about.
I wonder about all the ‘once a year’ church goers or curious folk who think maybe they’ll do the Easter thing and come to church? Will it be worth their while? I do hope they will at the very least hear a clear and engaging message that explains how Jesus died and rose to life for them, so they could be forgiven by God and have eternal life. But surely if this is THE calendar moment for Christians, shouldn’t it be BIGGER? Do we want people to stay away from church?
Christians, church leaders, I implore you: ‘Why should people come to church this Easter?’ What is the compelling thing that motivates anyone to do so? What are we offering? Even the details matter like, How does our website look? What are we doing to promote this wonderful, key season in our calendar?
Perhaps we need to put a note in our diaries to address this so that 2016 is different. We need a reminder to start planning for Easter to be a time when we use all that freshly created energy that we’ve worked so hard to regenerate after the long summer break, to good effect. Sure some of our folk will still go camping, head down south or whatever. But there will always be those who are actually looking for some vision, who want to accelerate. Pray for them, find them and set the vision together, whatever it is. Maybe it will mean starting a three day kid’s holiday club in the April break or a big outreach service on Good Friday or Easter Sunday? For a bunch of ideas to stimulate your thinking check out an earlier post I wrote called ‘Why outreach at Easter should be as big as Christmas’ here: http://www.stephenshearsby.com/blog/?p=116
But that still leaves us with this year’s Easter. What will it be? Same old?
If people wander in curious or feeling they need to be in church, at least just this once...what will they hear? Will it be a day for the ‘insiders’ filled with jargon and personal introspection? Will there be anything that speaks to kids at their level? Often the children’s programs will be absent on Easter as its holiday season, so the kids will be with mum and dad in the pews. Not that there’s anything massively wrong with that; it can be great to have all the family side by side for Easter. But it’s lovely to show that we ‘get’ kids and have thought of them; made it a little special for them.
Helping Kids enjoy and learn the true meaning of Easter
Every year for the past 5 years I’ve been publishing unique resources to tackle this problem, to make Easter special for them.
They’re called Sticker Stories and published under my live show’s brand, Anton’s Antics
[caption id="attachment_602" align="aligncenter" width="2879" caption=""Fame" Sticker Story by Anton's Antics (School Age Version pictured)"]
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With the help of Anton's Antics' wonderful sticker stories you can be sure kids will understand what Jesus has done for them. Anton now has four different stories to choose from, three of which have both before and school age versions. The whole series is beautifully illustrated and many include things like:
- Code breaker to decipher missing words in the story
- Story written in clever rhyme
- Sheet of 8 full colour stickers to place in the story
- Bonus, fun activities like mazes, join the dots and find the missing object
What can you do with Easter as a family?
It’s not all up to your local church either. As parents we can make Easter relevant and special, here’s an idea or two:
Maybe you could decide that each day from Easter Thursday – Easter Sunday, to read from children’s or adults Bible the Easter story. Here are some examples of the chapters you could read from the New Testament:
Mark 14-16
Matthew 26-28
Luke 22-24
John 18-20
Perhaps you could add something tangible to this by reading it around a meal time from Thursday night- Sunday. Each meal you could include something on the table that’s edible that reminds you of the season (e.g. lamb, bread without yeast, herbs, wine/grape juice; just Google ‘Passover meal’)
If you want some fun activities for kids to do at home that teaches them the Easter story, (ok another sales plug but it’s well worth it!) you can even get in touch with me and buy some single sticker stories and I’ll post them out free! (PS: email me direct; payments must be made via EFT)
OK, I’m not advocating not going to church at all. Good churches are always proclaiming the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection for us. So, try and find one that does that week by week; check out the website, ask a friend, see if they have an Easter service that will focus on the importance of Jesus’ death. It may not be ‘pumping’ like I reckon it could be, but it will still take you back to the cross of Calvary and help you reflect on Jesus’ eternal significance for us all.
Stephen Shearsby is a Christian writer and performer
You can find his sticker stories for kids here: www.antonsantics.com/shop
He present two unique gospel shows:
Anton’s Antics www.antonsantics.com
Barista Banter www.baristabanter.com.au
