Good Friday Stations, part 1

In spring of 2015 the local paper ran an article about an artist with an exhibition taking place around Easter time. Without going back to re-read and get the details, what I recall was that the artist had a series of works that invited the viewer to consider the Easter story and the renewal of creation as individuals walked through the installation. I never even got around to see the exhibit, but something about the article struck me and stuck. A month later I was talking with our worship committee about an idea for an interactive Good Friday experience that relied on art to let/help persons recall and meditate on the Good Friday story. I wanted an experience that would be meaningful for adults, but 100% approachable by children. Our committee worked on the concept all year.

What evolved was an evening-long experience in which persons could drop-in, participate and leave on their own, much like those horrid drop-in communion services we've all heard of! We wanted a series of "stations" purposefully recalling the "stations of the cross" model of Good Friday worship. Each station would be an art project, based on a Bible verse which persons could complete quickly and either take home of leave for others to view. We wanted to provide food, as we anticipated that we would run the event throughout the dinner hour. We wanted older, traditionally-minded folks, to feel like they had experienced something substantive when they were done; and we wanted children to feel like they had encountered the Bible story in a mode they could comprehend. We knew we would need the help of committees apart from our own to bring it off.

The event was last night. Upcoming posts will deal with it in some detail. We feel it was a success, though we are waiting to hear more from those who participated. It's the nature of the event and how it was billed that we didn't do much debriefing as folks departed.