THE MADONNA OF THE RABBIT is a 16th-century painting by Titian, now in the Louvre. It depicts Catherine of Alexandria being entrusted with the infant Christ by Mary, who is stroking a small white rabbit — symbol of fertility, innocence, and purity — with her left hand. Enchanting as the picture is, one can’t help feeling that if the same subject were painted nowadays, the Easter bunny, in all its enormous, gaudy, pink-and-yellow brightness, would tower gleefully over a diminutive Mary, crouching forlornly over her largely ignored infant.
Today, when more than a quarter of British children do not know the Easter story, moving the focus of the celebration away from furry, chocolate-bringing mammals to an exploration of the love that God has for each of his children is an urgent but challenging task — and one that churches bravely undertake every year. Against us is the ever increasing push towards material consumption. For us is a growing but perhaps unarticulated search for deeper meaning and a sense of purpose and direction in a bewildering world.
Beginning at the end
One advantage of presenting Easter in a fresh way is that the festival has accumulated far fewer accretions of tradition and established ways of celebrating. With less pressure on “how it’s always been”, opportunities for new approaches are more plentiful perhaps than at Christmas. Easter planning begins at the end: what is the one concept, principle, idea that you want people to have absorbed by the end of Holy Week and Easter? In true interview-question manner, “What is your gospel?”
The underlying theme of God’s great love can be explored in different ways, every service, assembly, and event building on the others as the theme embeds itself in the spirituality of the community. Darkness and light, finding God in the everyday, sin and forgiveness, human and divine love, life as a journey, sacrifice and resolution — all are aspects of the Easter story, which, fortunately, is deep and complex enough to embrace and rejoice in critical examination from every angle. Time spent refining your “mission message” for the season will be repaid in coherence and clarity of articulation as the season progresses.
Once your main theme is sorted, services and events can be planned around it, with extended metaphors coming into play, provided you don’t get overambitious and lose yourself in your own contrivances.
Plan realistically
How much time are you planning for? Is your offering an assembly, a service, a morning?
How many people are you hoping will attend? How many will realistically do so? Are they “press-ganged” (as for school assemblies) or here voluntarily?
Will your congregation be familiar with the Easter story, or have they come in because it’s raining and everything else is closed on Good Friday?
Each of these should have an impact, not on the fundamental message, but on the way in which it is presented.
Don’t forget the details
- Make sure you have enough helpers and that they have the requisite safeguarding checks and training.
- Ensure that the main food allergies are provided for, supplying gluten- and dairy- free options and a nut-free environment.
- If you are in a church building check your signage: is it clear where the loos are the moment you enter the building?
- If you can, provide “escape” spaces for fidgety people and overwhelmed people. Make sure these are not the same space (rookie error; disastrous consequences).
- Reinforce the message that anyone is free to leave at any time. Church should not be a prison (not applicable to school events).
Engage in as many ways as possible
Although church communities might seem a homogeneous group, they are not. It is our task to enable all types of people at all levels of understanding to engage with the gospel, and this means providing different ways of doing so. Be imaginative. Think of the person with whom you have least sympathy, and target them in your planning. Remember those with physical and processing challenges: how might you make things more straightforward?
- Don’t be afraid to use Easter eggs: just emphasise the new life/resurrection side of things.
- Engage all the senses: put scratch-and-sniff stickers on the service leaflets, or burn incense or light incense sticks. Provide different types of bread to taste or explore the whole Easter story through food. Make or find an Easter soundscape — or create one during the service, and record it to play at another event.
- Sing songs or hymns, even if you don’t have an accompanist. Find ones that can be taught easily and don’t need words. Songs with actions are ideal provided the actions are not too silly or complicated. Avoid meaningless actions (and jazz hands).
- If you are having craft activities, try and include something to take home and something to create together. Everyone loves a “takeaway”, and an Easter garden demonstrates to the rest of the community that “church” is not just about them.
- Go outside if you can. Look for signs of spring, make trails or labyrinths, plant seeds (remembering all the time to keep faithful to your theme). Moving in and out of the church adds drama, and relieves the stress of sitting still and concentrating.
- Provide time to wonder. Offer Godly Play-style “I wonder” questions, either written or spoken, during the event. Invite contributions to a discussion. Display pictures of Holy Week and Easter events from different times and contexts to encourage breadth of thinking. Offer different Bible translations.
- Bring a sense of progression to the event. Just calling it an “Easter Journey” doesn’t make it one. Are you going to travel physically in/out/around the church? What is the corresponding mental/emotional journey? How are you going to impart a sense of movement?
Remember the grown-ups
There will be a certain number of events at which grown-ups are willingly or unwillingly present. These events might be their only encounter with the gospel for the year, apart from a crib service; so make it count. Have printed versions of the story at craft tables; encourage them to join in the “wondering” and the discussions. Don’t be afraid to go deeper. If it goes above some people’s heads occasionally, that’s fine provided it is only brief.
End with a powerful visual
Find an image that sums up all you want to say about Easter and focus attention on that. It could be candles in the outline of a cross, a large heart, an empty tomb, an icon, or a pair of hands. If possible, draw people’s attention back to it after any hospitality you have offered. You could use this on your Easter publicity, and include in your presentations/services sheets.
And finally, go and tell
Modern ordination training is all about creating portfolios that demonstrate what you have learnt, how you learnt it, and what you feel about that. We should be experts at this, but many of us fail to carry this skill into our ministry contexts. Too often, the only evidence that an event involving children and young people occurred is crumbs on the floor and sticky patches on the seating.
If you did a good thing, make sure the rest of the church community know about it. Take pictures (get permission first) for your noticeboard or website, talk about it in the notices or, better still, get those who attended to report back at the next all-age gathering. Big it up: demonstrate how well the budget is being spent. Leave the Easter Journey up in church, adapted so that visitors can engage with the stations. Keep the Easter garden. Make everyone who wasn’t there wish they had been.
The Revd Dr Sally Welch is the Vicar of the Kington Group in the diocese of Hereford.
Resources
easterjourney.org.uk
jumpingfishpublications.co.uk
brf.org.uk
