The Real Easter

Have you seen the ‘Real Easter Egg’? It’s a fairtrade Easter egg that includes both delicious chocolate AND the story of Jesus. What a great way to remember the real reason we celebrate without taking away the fun of eating large amounts of chocolate! Usually, when it comes to passing on the good news of Jesus, Easter eggs are a bit of a distraction. Along with the Easter bunnies and lambs and flowers they provide a backdrop of ‘new life’ symbolism that’s almost as sickly sweet as the chocolate itself! The real story of Easter is a bit more edgy! Jesus did come to bring new life...because there was such a massive problem with the old one! Jesus didn’t just come with a message of bunnies and flowers and ‘everything’s fine’. He came because the world isn’t fine. When Jesus was criticised for spending time with some of the less accepted members of his society, he explained, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. I didn’t come to invite good people to be my followers. I came to invite sinners.” Yup... I’m afraid the real Easter story starts with sin – real, horrible, deadly sin. But in his incredible love, God responded to our sin by sending Jesus to die on the cross. It’s not an image that fits with the cute, cheap niceness of commercial ‘Easter’. It’s not ‘nice’ but it is ‘good’ and Jesus sacrifice on Good Friday paved the way for his glorious resurrection on Easter Sunday. We too can share in his new life: the real, resurrection life that lasts forever!

For an account of the real Easter story designed to appeal to teenagers and young adults see 'The Third Day' published by the Good Book Company. (See the trailer below) Definitely no bunnies in sight and you'll have to provide your own chocolate!

It's a wrap!

The filming portion of the youth video project is finished...at last! It took several weeks longer than we planned and involved a lot more gaffer tape and barbecue skewers that you might imagine but the footage is finally ‘in the can’. Now we’ve just got to edit it all! Some of the outer-space scenes were filmed on a green screen, set up in St Aldhelm’s church centre. Assistant editors William and Matt have helped transform some of those scenes into truly intergalactic experiences (see the clip below).  The crew of the starship ‘Destiny’ are currently in Catharine’s computer, having their voice recordings matched with their puppet performances. They will be launching off on their adventures in time for the children’s holiday club at Emmanuel church during the Easter break. It might not sound as if it has much to do with the Easter story but actually Captain Adamson and his crew will be illustrating some really big ideas like sin, salvation, forgiveness and eternity!

Teens record new song

A couple of our young people have recorded a song to be used alongside the youth video project at our various church holiday clubs this year. The tune is Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’ but Catharine has written some new lyrics all about God’s great, cosmic plan to save his people. The recording was done at St Aldhelm’s church centre by singers Maisie and Tabby and our own amateur music producer Pete Evans-Jones from St John’s. The track is receiving the final tweaks before being released (initially at Emmanuel church before Easter). Watch out for ‘The SpaceQuest song’ making an appearance at a church near you!