Easter West
Given our experience with Christmas West, reclaiming Christmas for Jesus Christ, and the realisation that Christian living applies to the whole year, it is only natural that the Church in a city should look at how the Easter festival may be rescued from the Easter Bunny and commercial interests.
The church already does many things around Easter time, including Good Friday prayer vigils, Stations of the Cross, midnight services and masses, Easter Sunday dawn services, and shared breakfasts with lovely hot cross buns on Friday and chocolate eggs on Sunday. Once Christmas is past many people turn their thoughts towards Easter and how it may be celebrated more meaningfully and with a more authentic witness to the community. Awakening West plans to resource the church in its celebration of Easter, and to facilitate wider cooperation and enjoyment of the activities of the whole church.
Innovative new ideas are needed which will capture the imagination of those not yet part of the church, especially young people. Much is done at Christmas to get Christians working together. Why not plan now to draw on those resources and efforts to present the wonder and joy of the Easter message next year?
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Much is already being done. For example, in Hobsons Bay the Uniting Church in Williamstown has long sponsored an Easter Sunday dawn service at the Timeball Tower. It has always been open to all, but not widely advertised. This year, knowing the UCA folk were glad to have others involved, Intercessors for Hobsons Bay decided to let this event be more widely known, as there wasn't a similar event in Altona. This resulted in more people from other denominations and parts of the city being present than ever before, and a larger number of pastors took part in leading the celebration.
This celebration had already been preceded by the first ever Good Friday midnight prayer vigil on the top of the new, as yet unamed hill which has been constructed over the old Altona Tip. The long, very cold walk to the top of the 100 Steps to Federation seemed somehow appropriately bleak for such a sombre memorial occasion. The pastors and intercessors who met sensed Father God's heart as they cried out for their city.
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Many similar events happen all over Melbourne's West, but they are too often small and unnoticed by most of the community. Let's begin planning now to do these things together in 2003. Why not find out now where one can borrow or hire a donkey for a day, or where a Good Friday march or Easter pageant might be performed for the community to see. What about giving the public an Easter Morning breakfast?
Check out the resources at the Aussie Awakening website. Their website is currently being redeveloped, but they have available manuals full of ideas for just such activities. For example, their you will find the:
EASTER & FAMILY FESTIVALS MANUAL
Over 90 pages jam-packed with everything you need to set up and run
an outreach festival. Many have found festivals to be the most effective broad contact outreach
they have ever used. This is the tool to begin immediately to have impact on a whole region.
The manual includes practical ways to share your faith on the day. Full of tested ideas from
people who are running festivals across Australia $8. There's also a how-to video available
for $15.
Manual F14 Video PO POV
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Pool your ideas and dreams by discussing them in our forums. Pass them on to the Awakening West Webservant for including here on this page or in our Directory, Library or Calendar pages.
Now have a look at what's offered in Kidz West ....
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