This time of year offers no respite for the worship designer. Just when we get Lent rolling, Holy Week looms and then Easter! And for those of us that understand Easter as not just the end of Holy Week but the beginning of the “Great 50 Days,” we really are looking at planning a 7 week series right on the heels of all this ritual richness!

In fact, I think that too often we think of Sundays after Easter as “low Sundays.” And we think we don’t have to give it as much effort as what we’ve just been through. Perhaps we think we’ll just cruise until Pentecost and then have another “creative” moment. However, we may be missing one of our best opportunities to rev it up, keep the ball rolling and create new worship habits for new people.

Last year in the Worship Design Studio I focused my Easter Season series on this idea: Easter is usually one of the most packed days of the church year. Why not offer a follow-up journey that is provocative and relevant and invites the folks to keep coming back? That series was called “A Place to Call Home” and was an invitation to try, just for the next 50 days, what it would be like to have a church home. And the messages each week, such as “All Are Welcome,” “Room for One More,” and “You’re Family,” drew out the Good News that this can be a place to feel at home, to be home, to find home. I think so many of us need to feel like we belong somewhere, that we have a place.

This year I think the message that might need to be heard in many places is that even what feels like death can turn around… can turn into “resurrection.” And so I’ve planned a series that includes testimonials from people who have turned their lives around. “Resurrection Stories” is an invitation to be inspired to our own rising up from what feels like death in our lives… to break the chains that bind and move toward the freedom that is embodied in the story of Christ’s resurrection. I’m excited about the ideas we’ve gathered thus far… anchor images of broken chains, broken fences, visual art ideas like keys unlocking and weavings, video production ideas (see what this church did: http://www.onechapel.com/video), liturgy and poetry.

Two friends of mine were recently involved in a project that embodies the Resurrection Stories idea. I hope you’ll be inspired by this expression of “breaking the chain” of domestic violence and sexual oppression: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS_EUSCEcwM&feature=youtu.be

I hope you’ll join us in the Worship Design Studio. I’ve got many more series ideas there for Easter as well. Check out my recorded webinar “Here It Comes Again: Prep for the Easter Season” in two versions:

Shorter excerpt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Rex8GwFa4
The whole tamale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_qK62_Rnd0

Peace & Passion,
Dr. Marcia
www.worshipdesignstudio.com

Photo credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73491156@N00/516719944/