FAITH IN THE COMMUNITY: Our Easter experience helps you explore Jesus's final week
by the Rev Emma Racklyeft, vicar, All Saints Church Denmead
I wonder what’s the first thing you think about when it comes to Easter – chocolate eggs and daffodils? Bank holidays and bunny rabbits?
If I tried to pin you down as to what we’re actually celebrating over the Easter weekend, you might know it’s something to do with Jesus. But do you actually know the story of Jesus’s final week on earth, and why that might be relevant for us today?
At Denmead, we’ve introduced something that tries to explain the story. The ‘Easter experience’ is something we introduced last year – and it was an amazing success with more than 150 adults and 100 children visiting and taking part.
We set up six ‘stations’ around the church, each of which tells you something about the story of Holy Week – from Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey, to his Last Supper with his disciples, to his betrayal and brutal crucifixion, and then ending with the amazed disciples discovering he had risen from the dead.
With each station there is also a reflection and an invitation to have a go at a practical activity. It’s designed for either adults and children to experience.
This year, we’re opening up the church for our ‘Easter experience’ every day this week, until Easter Sunday (April 5). The church is open every day from 9am-4pm, and we’re also offering an evening session on Wednesday 1st April from 6pm-8pm.
Each station takes between 10 and 15 minutes to complete, but of course part of the joy of the Easter experience is that you can take as short or as long a time as you need at each. People from our church will be there to chat, but they’ll just let you engage with the stations at your own speed.
Among the feedback we received last year was from people who found that specific stations really resonated with them. Or people who spent longer at individual stations because they really enjoyed the activity.
If you’re the kind of person who has often dismissed the story of Jesus as not relevant, or not bothered with church because it seems boring, why not give this a try? It’s a different way of understanding something about Jesus’s life story and why – 2,000 years later – this humble preacher from Galilee is still so significant for so many people.
ALL SAINTS CHURCH, Hambledon Road, Denmead, PO7 6NN
www.allsaintsdenmead.org.uk