Easter Productions

This Sunday is Easter and I have to say that I've always had one problem with the church at Easter and that's the productions. Now you may be saying, "Shaun I love the Easter productions at our church, they are such a great way to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord." I understand that and I'm not saying that I hate all Easter productions or that they are what's wrong with the church today. I'm just saying we need to think about what we are doing.

The problem I have with them is that many of the Easter productions I have seen do not represent the church they are held at very well. Churches that don't have choirs bring one in, churches that never use elaborate stage decorations have stages that look like a Hollywood set, churches that never do drama have people dressed up like angels and Romans. The goal seems to be to make everything in the church look and sound as different from a regular Sunday as we can get it.

So what's so wrong with wanting to do something different to celebrate the Sunday that Jesus rose from the dead? Nothing except for this, Easter is one of the two Sundays of the year that people who would never think of going to church any other time will come to visit. Many of us will have a little over an hour this week to show these people Jesus and what His followers really look like. There are people who would really love our churches if they could see who we really are but take one look at our productions and decide this isn't the place for them. There are people who really love our productions but are disappointed when they come back next week and see a different church. The only people that we are safe to impress with our productions are our regular members because they just like the change every once and awhile. We put on a once a year production and then wonder why people only come once a year.

What if we were just ourselves when the visitors come? What if when we choose to do productions we chose things that represent our own style and talents instead of trying to stay on par with the mega church across town? What if this Sunday we show people who we are every other day of the week rough spots and all in hopes that maybe this is what people need?

This Sunday at The Venue won't be a whole lot different than most. We'll sing songs of praise to God, Bekah will announce the start of our connection groups, and I'll preach about when it feels like God doesn't care. Besides the new faces and the egg hunt after, I don't plan on it looking much different than any other service. Maybe this is a mistake and maybe there will be people who will leave disappointed because they were expecting something else and that's fine with me. I'd rather disappoint you by being who I am than empress you by being who I'm not.