Unconventional Easter Church Services :: Glow Sticks, Hip-Hop, and Egg Drops
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?
Will Said,
March 26, 2008 @ 11:20 am
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.
Kent Shaffer Said,
March 26, 2008 @ 11:43 am
Very cool, Will. I keep hearing good things about what http://oakleafchurch.com is doing.
Jermayn Parker Said,
March 26, 2008 @ 7:34 pm
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!!
Kent Shaffer Said,
March 26, 2008 @ 8:09 pm
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.
Chris Said,
March 26, 2008 @ 9:18 pm
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?
travis spencer Said,
March 26, 2008 @ 10:11 pm
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.
Mark Said,
April 1, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
>>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
Traci Tyson Said,
April 1, 2008 @ 11:08 pm
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.
Kent Shaffer Said,
April 2, 2008 @ 7:06 am
That’s a good deal, Traci!
m burke Said,
April 2, 2008 @ 12:05 pm
[sarcasm] If only Jesus had such a creative team, he could have had sooo many more converts. [/sarcasm]