Easter Sunday Experiential Worship

This Easter Sunday I reeled from the shock of an unexpected development in our morning service.  We had a drama that was most unusual and significantly different from the average evangelical church ‘skit’.  It had no ending.  Yep, that’s right.  It had no cheesy sucker punch, no Holy Spirit dove mimed by two conjoined hands flapping away from the main character’s heart.  Nothing schmaltzy, nothing that would remotely cause you to reach for the sick bag.

In a move of total genius, the worship leader constructed a service that in the words of Leonard Sweet [The Gospel According to Starbuck's} was E.P.I.C. Experiential, Participatory, Image rich, Connective.

The drama involved three backpackers meeting on a park bench and discussing with each other the various rocks they had found along the way which now made their backpack's heavy.  The rocks were named variously after the things that we carry and burden us.

After a somewhat amusing and thoughtful drama the backpackers went on their way, without resolving anything.  The worship leader followed that up by a time of reflection about the ‘rocks' that we had chosen to pick up and store along the way.  The time of reflection was aided by a DVD she had made around the song ‘Lead me to the Cross'.  After that people were invited to come and lay at the foot of a rustic wooden cross the ‘rocks' they wanted to let go of [which had been written on a piece of paper].

Everything in the worship leader’s service led on from one element into the next, building on the theme of the bondage breaking power of Christ’s victory over sin and death. Stunning stuff.

I usually have to knock my head against a wall trying to get worship leaders raised on a diet of ‘order of service’ style worship leading to understand the notion of an E.P.I.C. worship service.  At best they usually deliver mini-devotionals as segways in between the songs.  Most of them are light on and relate to the life of the worship leader rather than reflect the hunger of the congregation.  However, on Easter Sunday it was different.

Aaron gave a an account of a similarly E.P.I.C. Easter Sunday service at his church:

My pastor had an outstanding plan that resonated with me and I am sure with many others.  He created within the confines of the Church building a “Garden of Gethsemane”, “Calvary” where nails could be hammered into wood, a cross with a load of bricks enabling one to lay one’s burden beside the cross, a trophy room with a cross central to bring life’s victories into perspective, a place to collect a “seed” to ponder that unless a seed falls to the ground and dies etc etc..  There was a palm frond area to ponder the capricious tendency in us all.

I found this scene quite confronting and most challenging.  Hearing the sound of hammer on nail in the background served to intensify the moment.

I emailed the pastor to thank him for his most creative and poignant presentation. I don’t usually like this kind of display.  Usually it is gimmicky and annoying.  This was in your face Easter stuff.  So, raised glass to those willing to try new things who also manage to find something new that manages to avoid being odd.

I’d be interested to know what others around the world did.