It is always interesting to see what other churches are doing for Easter. One trend is evident this year - more and more churches are moving away from the traditional Easter cantata. I already highlighted what two Tulsa churches did for Easter 2008, but here are three other examples of unconventional Easter events this year.
Granger Community Church (Granger, IN)
Photo Credits: Jeff Petersen & Dustin Maust.
For a sermon illustration, Mark Beeson had the congregation play a giant game of Simon using glow sticks and music by Daft Punk.
The Rock Church (San Diego, CA)
The Rock Church had their hip-hop ministry, Rock Steady, perform.
Mariners Church (Irvine, CA)
Photo Credits: Mariners Church website.
Easter egg drops have been around for years. I don’t know who first started them, but almost two decades ago, Jim Wideman dropped 17,000 candy eggs from an airplane for his children’s ministry. In recent years, helicopter egg drops have grown in popularity. And this Easter, Mariners Church hosted quite a large Easter egg drop.
For Discussion:
- What other unconventional things are churches doing for Easter?
We followed the crowd with an egg drop for a hopeful 2000 that turned into 6000 and almost out of control. We’ve got something up our sleeves for next year that might just make the history books if we can keep it quiet.
During the service, we followed the theme of the series (Tattoo) and had someone in each service given a real tattoo during the message. Don’t know if that qualifies as unconventional or original, but that is what we did.
Very cool, Will. I keep hearing good things about what http://oakleafchurch.com is doing.
[...] Its that time of year, most churches are still recooping from a crazy Easter Week, with services on Wed, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Tenabrae, Easter Egg Hunt Saturday and Easter Sunday, this is a crazy week. See what some crazy churches did, HERE! [...]
What about preaching what the whole reason of easter is all about???
Tattoo’s??? Easter Eggs??? All nice gimicks but did anyone get saved and learn the real reason of what Easter is all about?? If no is the answer, these gimicks are silly and a waste of time!!
Jermayn,
Yes, they still had sermons. And I am sure there were plenty of salvations, too.
In fact, as I mentioned in Monday’s post, LifeChurch.tv had a total of 479 hands raised during the altar calls at their 13 campuses this weekend.
I write this blog assuming people already understand the importance of preaching and evangelism. Church Relevance is meant to be a hub of ideas.
Be careful how you judge things, particularly, if God is blessing them, and they are bearing good fruit.
One would wonder the money spent on such large events could be spent better?? Also, is their a sense of going over-board? Are we trying too hard to “sell” Jesus?
We used the song Help by the Beatles to communicate that God can help you with life problems. Live band played it.
We also used glow sticks, but it was part of our children’s musical presentation choreographed to the Hillsong Kids “Let Your Light Shine” song.
We had a great response from the unChristian crowd.
[...] Church Relevance March 26, 2008 | 10:20 pm | asides, ideas, worship | Comments RSS | Comment [...]
>>Chris said: “Are we trying too hard to “sell” Jesus?”
Don’t think it’s about “selling” Jesus at all. It’s about drawing a crowd of lost people so we can simply preach Jesus to them. As for going overboard, look no further than Jesus for using unconventional methods to draw crowds and teach the truth.
Mark
At Mariners Church we spent a whopping $500 for the helicopter egg drop and drew thousands to our campus who would never set foot on it otherwise. Many went to the services before or after, some didn’t, but it got them onto our campus and planted a seed that hopefully will grow in the future. Totally worth it.
That’s a good deal, Traci!
[sarcasm] If only Jesus had such a creative team, he could have had sooo many more converts. [/sarcasm]
[...] Granger Community Church, Rock Church and Mariners Church (Check out the glowsticks) [...]
Seems to me like too many people are here questioning what others are doing instead of spending time doing ministry. Maybe if we spent as much time being creative and reaching out to others as much as we spend time surfing online for the purpose of condemning those busy with kingdom work. Jesus was certainly creative in the way He taught and did things that certainly caused those around to question His methods. But the end result was a call to belief and to be a disciple. Whether it’s through eggs, glow-sticks, or other crow-drawing tools, may we be focused on communicating the love of Jesus.
[...] REVIEW OF 2008 - Unconventional Easter Church Services :: Glow Sticks, Hip-Hop, and Egg Drops - Tulsa Easter Church Services :: LifeChurch.tv and Church on the [...]
If your church has had less than 12 adults come into relationship with Jesus in the last year (the vast majority), learn because lives and eternities are riding on this.
We’re doing “Epic: The Man Series” now and with classic rock music, V8 engines, and motorcycles, people are coming to know Jesus. Whatever it takes for the 30 in the last two weeks who now are headed for eternity with Jesus.
Paul
I just want to thank all you churches for stepping out of the box in trying to reach your communities. I hope many more people post on this topic. Perhaps it could be expanded beyond easter to just creative events churches are doing to get people talking. To the critics….We will each have to answer to God as to how we managed the financial aspects of these events but I pray that God would grant wisdom to all of us as we push the limits of our abilities and talents to bring about the transformation of souls and glory to the name of God.
If one person receives the Lord all the work is worth it. I don’t think there is anything wrong with a church that puts all their effort into preparing for brand new people to experience something unique in church, there are so many churches that don’t care about being relevant and they miss a huge oppurtunity to reach people that would otherwise find church boring. These aren’t gimmicks, they are nets used to capture more fish.