The Big Easter Egg Hunt

Imagine an activity that is guaranteed to bring 12-15 families with small children to your church for a relatively easy-to-do event.  Imagine that the event itself spurs interests in other church activities and even prompts questions about the time for the next day’s worship. Sounds perfect. right? It does unless you are the preacher and you worry about what having an Easter egg hunt between Good Friday and Easter says theologically about what you are doing.

When I got here I was told that they always have THE EASTER EGG HUNT, with hundreds of small children. Of course the crowd was smaller than that, a lot smaller. Everything is smaller than we remember in a small church. We seldom saw the families who came at other events either. The folks who ran it did a wonderful job, but they were not going to be able to do it this year. In my heart of hearts, I was delighted.  We are too small to expend lots of effort into areas that do not bring interested visitors.  That, and my theological problem was resolved.

Then one of the moms, with three children of egg gathering age, said that she would like to run the hunt this year. So much for the theological issue.  The hunt was back. She did a great job with help from others. It was a smashing success.  Every child went home with enough candy to stay awake until Easter morning.  We had lots of baked goodies from Celebration Food, and coffee for the parents on a surprisingly cold spring morning.

So the children had fun and may continue to associate Easter with eggs. What then, theologically, can we say in our defense?

The borough has an egg hunt which has about 3 eggs per child.  We had about 40 per child. Score 1 for God. God is generous.

The borough’s event is a battle of speed and tenacity. At our place, all children, no matter how young or slow,  got more candy than they have teeth. Another 1 for God. God shows no partiality.

If Easter is about rising from death’s door, nothing says rebirth like happy youngsters.

Besides, God can still work it out by giving me a really good Easter sermon.

Hunger and Thirst

Spent today at the soup kitchen in Newark and had a good surprise.  We served leftovers from the seder;  matzo ball soup and matzo on the table were not huge hits, but the brisket was beloved by all!  One lady began to lecture the others about the matzo;  she was adorable.  Now, my good surprise.  One of the younger men, age 28, whom I have been advising about his resume, came up with a well organized folder after his lunch and asked me to fax a letter and resume for him to a prospective employer.  He also shared his overall plan.  I had given up since lately he had not seemed focused. 

We will take up our One Great Hour of Sharing offering this Sunday, and its focus areas make our local needs seem like ones we should have solved. Did you know that lack of clean water kills more children than any other cause?  Or that North America has 6% of the world’s people but receives 22% of the world’s food supply vs Africa with 12% of the people but 8% of the food? Or Asia with 58% of the population and 23% of the food? 

Of course, even the most affluent societies have inequities, and people who are displaced socially, unable to earn or integrate productively with the larger enterprise.  This is our sad little lot in Newark.  

Ups and Downs

We had our Christian Family Seder on Saturday night. The food was great, courtesy of Celebration Food.  The liturgy was faithful to our understanding of the Exodus experience and a great send-off to Holy week.  Alas, we set up the room to bring forty around a single table, when it would have been far more intimate and appropriate to have been prepared for twenty. So, I was a little down.

But what a difference a night makes.  We had a great crowd for Palm Sunday.  One of our young couples was here with their baby, and we will be having a baptism soon. A young man from our congregation played the guitar and sang. Wonderfully.  We even had one of those special moments in our Chilren’s message.  Do you know what is special about today? Yes, it is April Fools’s Day.  God bless.  Days like these make you love a wee kirk. And you know God loves the wee kirk, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many.

Children’s Sermons

One of the hardest but most rewarding parts of worship is the children’s sermon. We have two faithful young ones and others who are present sporadically. The children’s message fills our congregation with life and imparts simple lessons to these little ones. As they grow up, we will be able to have longer and more complex messages, but for now, we keep it simple!

See our new page on Children’s Sermons when you have a week that might like a new idea. And be sure to look over the Easter message – it was a big hit!!

Will it snow?

Because my church is so small, I have a part-time job at the Presbytery office.  We have a big meeting scheduled for Saturday, and snow is expected. Lots of snow. 

When I worked in the secular world, snow was something that could make you late for work, but seldom caused work to be cancelled. When I was a chaplain, I went into the hospital when several feet of snow was falling. 

My Dad was a school superintendent, and it was his job to determine whether there would be school. Now I have that responsibility for the Presbytery. Odd,because I never thought that they were related. He was, of course, concerned with the children’s safety weighed against the inconvenience of parents. I am concerned with the safety of those considerably older.  I am concerned about the 11th comandment for the senior set: thou shall not fall down. Snow is peril. 

I have, in fact, cancelled church twice, and not because I could not get there. Of course, few would come, if we had a service, but that is not why we did not have worship. I cancelled it because I was afraid that the only people who would try to come would be the ones who should stay home.  This seems to be something that we do in small churches that would be unthinkable under tall steeples.

Still, it is odd that people will go to work, but not church, in the snow.