Alright, Easter weekend is behind us and all of you worship leaders have had your restless nights, your “helpful” comments, your debrief meetings, your second thoughts and your exciting memories of what happened this weekend.

So I want to know – what’s the story? Tell us a story of something significant that happened at your church this weekend.

Me? I’ve got two -

1. At the end of both services we saw lots of people respond in pretty significant ways (some placing their faith in Christ, some acknowledging that Christ is Lord of their whole lives) including several people we have been praying for for YEARS. Very encouraging.
2. Towards the end of “Christ Is Risen” by Matt Maher we do this big celebration thing where the band just plays a couple chords and we sing “He’s alive! He’s alive! He’s alive! Our God is not dead, He’s alive!” over and over. We’ve done this a few times now and during our 11:00 service the crowd started clapping and cheering as we were doing that part of the song. Chills. Very special moment.

So.. let’s go. What’s the story?

Easter Sunday. Not sure it gets any better than that. Packed house for both services, lots of family and friends and people from our community making their annual pilgrimage :) The beauty of knowing that visitors are coming (and we plan for and expect visitors every week) is that you can be praying and preparing for them to respond when they hear the great news of the resurrection. Of course the challenge is that people (not just visitors) go in to “I’ve heard it all before” mode very quickly so you’ve got to present the timeless truth of the gospel in a way that may penetrate an already hardened or indifferent heart.

We’ve been working our way through the gospel of Mark over the past 6 or 7 weeks and on Sunday we finished the series by looking at the resurrection account in Mark 16. As you read, you can’t help but notice the obvious presence of both doubt AND belief from those who have encounters with the risen Christ. Over and over people are told about the resurrection, they are afraid and they don’t believe. Then an encounter with Jesus and they move from doubt to belief. They go to tell others but the others don’t believe. Until they meet Jesus. Incredible.

Let me sidestep here and say that this should be very encouraging to those of you who are in leadership positions at your church and may not be seeing the fruit of lives changed by the gospel. Even those who were in the presence of Jesus himself after the resurrection were not able to convince his closest friends – the ones who had spent three years with Jesus, witnessed the miracles… he even told them three times he would be killed and then alive three days later. And those guys couldn’t be convinced by those who had seen Jesus alive, until they had an encounter themselves. This should be encouraging to you. Pray for Jesus to reveal himself to people who need to know him.

Here’s what our Easter Sunday service looked like -

Everlasting God – Brenton Brown – Bb
Our God – Chris Tomlin – Bb
“He Is Risen!” responsive reading
Christ The Lord Is Risen Today – Bb -> C
Offering
Congregational Prayer
Video –  Skit Guys “Grace”
We Will Run – Gungor – E
Forever Reign – Hillsong – C
Christ Is Risen (chorus/bridge) – Matt Maher – F
Message – Mark 16
I Stand In Awe – Mark Altrogge – A

Three things about our service on Sunday that I want to share with you -

• A couple of really special moments yesterday. At the end of “Christ Is Risen” we normally do this big ending where we just give people a chance to declare and celebrate  - “He’s alive! He’s alive! Our God is not dead, he’s alive!” Yesterday people starting clapping and cheering while we were singing that part. I’ll remember that for a long, long time. Incredible.
• We’ve been praying for some people in our church to come to Christ for YEARS and we saw several of them respond yesterday. We’re doing some follow-up to work through that response and decision but God was clearly at work. Amen.
• I posted this yesterday on twitter – “Worship leaders, don’t let the Pharisees in your church decide if your service was ‘good enough.’ It will never be good enough for them.” I can’t even tell you the kind of response I got from that. It clearly struck a chord. If you feel like nothing you did was appreciated, people were focused on singing the “right” songs rather than focusing on Jesus, if people just deflated you with their words as soon as the service was over know that you are not alone. Jesus is still risen. The gospel is still true. And Pharisees are still present.

Mark 16

The Resurrection
1 When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” 4 And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large. 5 And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. 6 And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
9 Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. 10 She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. 11 But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.

Jesus Appears to Two Disciples
12 After these things he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. 13 And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.

The Great Commission
14 Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. 15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. 20 And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJDguHJ34SE

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Here’s a list of songs we’ll be singing this Sunday at OBC for our Easter services -

Everlasting God
written by Brenton Brown & Ken Riley

Our God
written by Chris Tomlin, Jesse Reeves, Jonas Myrin & Matt Redman

Christ The Lord Is Risen Today
written by Charles Wesley

We Will Run To You
written by Lisa Gungor

Forever Reign
written by Reuben Morgan & Jason Ingram

Christ Is Risen
written by Matt Maher & Mia Fieldes

I Stand In Awe
written by Mark Altrogge

Lots of you are getting close to nailing down details for Easter weekend and you may be interested in seeing this video of Mars Hill Church‘s Good Friday service from last year. I’ll admit, most of this wouldn’t really work for us but it is pretty inspiring to see a local church know their audience so well that they feel total freedom to design an experience that will have major impact regardless of what is hip/cool/trendy/popular for the Christian church in general.

Have a look –

If you’re interested in these songs and some of the other resources they’ve created for this service, you can find them here – www.marshillchurch.org/media/good-friday-music/preview

Here is a responsive reading we used on Easter Sunday at Orangeville Baptist Church. We took the traditional Paschal greeting and added some resurrection scripture to it. Great way to start our services together.

Leader:
Christ is risen

Congregation:
He is risen indeed!

In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 1 Peter 1:3
He is risen indeed!

Jesus has come that we may have life, and have it to the fullest. John 10:10
He is risen indeed!

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17
He is risen indeed!

God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. Acts 2:24
He is risen indeed!

Christ is risen
He is risen indeed!

Image from Flickr

One of the real unique things we do at OBC is work together with a bunch of churches in our region to host a community Good Friday service. This has been happening in Orangeville for a number of years and I’ve loved being involved since I came here in 2005. The focus of the service has always been the crucifixion and death of Jesus – very much the beginning of a weekend which ends with real celebration on Sunday!

This year, for the first time, we decided to do two identical services. Our building has always been packed when we did one and we’ve talked about possibly making this service multi-site in the future. By taking the first step of offering this service more than once then we could begin to create some diversity in how or when the service is offered. It was definitely the right call! Both services were very full (we only offered childcare at the first service) and our total numbers were up about 30% from last year. It will be interesting to talk through why that was – did churches promote more because we made more space available? did people invite more because they knew there would be room? Interesting questions.

For the service itself, I began working on the content right after Christmas. I came up with the idea of using the stations of the cross as a template for the service design and eventually landed on a concept where we would tell the story of Good Friday in five segments or movements: condemnation, procession, crucifixion, death, burial. We used scripture, readings, songs, videos and visuals to help tell the story. We did record both services (the band was tight!!) and I’ll try and get some audio online later this week.

One of the visuals that we used to help tell the story was a set of five candles on a table right at the front of our stage. These fives candles were lit at the beginning of the service and as we progressed through the five moments – condemnation, procession, crucifixion, death, burial – each candle was extinguished. Here’s a quick video showing what the table looked like – the five candles are talking about are the big ones which are unlit in the video:

We began the service with a call to worship, explaining the morning and our pastor, Earl Marshall, read from John 1 and then lit the centre candle. From there the service progressed through each of the movements. Here’s the rundown:

Call to Worship – John 1
Lighting of centre candle
Condemnation
Reading – Matthew 27:15-26, Luke 23:18-25, Mark 15:16-20
Responsive Prayer
Silent Prayers of Confession
First candle extinguished
Procession
Reading – Luke 23:26-31
“This Is The Day” – presentation song cued to “Passion of the Christ” video
“Mighty is the Power of the Cross” – Chris Tomlin
Second candle extinguished
Crucifixion
Verses on screen – Matthew 27:33-39, Mark 15:24, Luke 23:33, John 19:17-18
Reading from St. Matthew’s Passion

Commend your ways and whatever grieves your heart
to the most faithful care of him who directs the heavens;
he to clouds, air, and wind assigns paths, ways, and course,
will also find ways where your feet can go.

Third candle extinguished
Video – Psalm 22 with St. Matthew’s Passion underscore
“I Stand Amazed (How Marvelous)” – the Passion version
Death & Burial
Reading – Mark 15:33-39
Fourth candle extinguished
“You Gave Your Life Away” – Paul Baloche
“Jesus Messiah” – Chris Tomlin
Communion
“This is the Gift of God” – Carl Cartee
“The Wonder of the Cross” – Vicky Beeching
Fifth (centre) candle extinguished

Alright.. If you’re thinking that the outline looks complicated, you’re right. There were LOTS of moving pieces – four scripture readers from different churches, eight communion servers from different churches, lots of video and light cues and some elements that really needed to happen in the right sequence to have impact. It came off BEAUTIFULLY – this is probably the most complex service I’ve put together at OBC but the response was incredible.

I had run through the service on my own about 6 or 8 times during the week to prepare myself – videos, readings, songs, everything – but then still on Friday morning participating with everyone as we listened, watched and sang together the emotion of the day got to more more than a few times. I had lots of comments from people on not only the content but how everything flowed from the beginning of the service right to the end. This service was very produced but was executed so well by the people involved that it came off very naturally. I was really proud of everyone involved and at the end of the day we had accomplished what we had set out to do – to tell the story of the darkest day, the story of Christ’s condemnation, procession, crucifixion, death and burial. It is a day that I will not soon forget.

Choir isn’t something that we normally do at OBC but I thought we’d change this up a little this year and put together a worship choir for our Easter Sunday services. We opened it up to anyone in grade 6 & up and there’s no requirement on previous singing ability. My gut told me that we would get enough people interested in being a part of this that there would be a solid group of singers who would join our band for the services on that morning.

Well tonight we had our first rehearsal and had 40 – FORTY!! – people come and sing. I know that 40 isn’t a huge choir but for us trying something new it was pretty encouraging. Like I said on twitter tonight, I’m really glad that we decided to do this and I’m really glad that we’ve got five weeks to practice before the big day :)

Thanks to a shipping issue, I wasn’t able to give our choir the actual parts they’re going to be singing but instead I just printed out the hymn charts from CCLI and we ran through those at practice. We rehearsed four songs tonight which will be part of our service -

• Hosanna by Paul Baloche
• Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) by Chris Tomlin
• Revelation Song by Kari Jobe
• Mighty To Save by Hillsong United

We’ll be adding a couple more songs to this list but doing that much was a big chunk for us to chew on tonight – especially ‘Revelation Song’. I told the group when we were done that this is not an easy song and even if we were doing it with one of our bands we would need several weeks of rehearsal to pull it off. I was very encouraged to hear them sing tonight.

So here we go. A new adventure for me and for OBC – we’ll see how this turns out but it will definitely give me some material for blogging over the next several weeks :)