Easter Season Special Services

[Wilson L. Deaton]

How does your church observe the Easter Season?

You may check all that apply?

Wilson

[Lori Jeffrey]

The something else that is not listed is that instead of Sunday School we all gather together and have breakfast. Then someone does a devotional.

[Marsha Lynn]

Our something else is to cancel Sunday School and start the morning service half an hour earlier than usual.

Take that, all you once a year, people! If you show up on Easter at the regularly scheduled service time, you'll be half an hour late. Serves you right for not being in church on Palm Sunday to hear the announcement about the schedule change.

This disappoints me for two reasons.

1. It seems that the last time you would want to mess with your service time is on a Sunday when you expect a lot of people who aren't "regulars".

2. I teach the young adult class and holiday weekends tend to draw our wandering young adults back home for the weekend. I wish we could gather an hour before the Sunday morning service for a time of fellowship and Bible study, but not only is my class canceled without consulting me but the morning service is moved into our time slot. I don't think I can persuade my group to come half an hour earlier than usual so that we can enjoy some fellowship time while everyone is in town. I guess I should cook breakfast for them. Maybe I'll figure that out sooner next year.

I've never figured out the logic behind cancelling Sunday School on the biggest days of the year. Can someone please explain it to me?

Marsha

How does your church observe the Easter Season?

You may check all that apply?

Wilson

[Wilson L. Deaton]

I've never figured out the logic behind cancelling Sunday School on the biggest days of the year. Can someone please explain it to me?



I know of three reasons:

1) Sunday School attenders can come later than normal (after doing more morning stuff at home, egg hunt, etc.) Not necessarily a bad reason.

2) Worship service can be longer than normal without keeping everyone too late. Not necessarily a bad reason.

3). And finally, believe it or not, it is a statisical trick. If you dismiss Sunday School and have longer worship you can count worship attendance as your Sunday School attendance. A very stupid reason.

Wilson

[Marsha Lynn]

I know of three reasons:

1) Sunday School attenders can come later than normal (after doing more morning stuff at home, egg hunt, etc.) Not necessarily a bad reason.

2) Worship service can be longer than normal without keeping everyone too late. Not necessarily a bad reason.

3). And finally, believe it or not, it is a statisical trick. If you dismiss Sunday School and have longer worship you can count worship attendance as your Sunday School attendance. A very stupid reason.

Wilson

OK. I guess that makes sense. So I should plan home activities for Easter morning instead of polishing my lesson and spending the usual hour with my Sunday School group. (Or cook them breakfast.)

It still makes me sad to have everyone in town for a special Sunday and have the church trim down the day's schedule to one service.

Marsha

[Michael B. Ross]

Now, now. Marsha. It's not so bad; just wait for the year Easter is the first Sunday of April, and clocks are moved forward an hour, but your county doesn't, but some will forget and will, and others from other counties should but forget to move their clocks, and others come home for the weekend from different time zones, who forgot to change their watches, but think your county does, and others come from other time zones who change their watches the other way but forget you don't. So, I figure you will have people show up at 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, 10:30, 11:00, 11:30, 12:00 and 12:30. Then you can count them all for Sunday School, declare you had TWO worship services, and report to the district that several showed up a little early for the evening service (that was cancelled because it was Easter.) Now, got it?

Our something else is to cancel Sunday School and start the morning service half an hour earlier than usual.

Take that, all you once a year, people! If you show up on Easter at the regularly scheduled service time, you'll be half an hour late. Serves you right for not being in church on Palm Sunday to hear the announcement about the schedule change.

This disappoints me for two reasons.

1. It seems that the last time you would want to mess with your service time is on a Sunday when you expect a lot of people who aren't "regulars".

2. I teach the young adult class and holiday weekends tend to draw our wandering young adults back home for the weekend. I wish we could gather an hour before the Sunday morning service for a time of fellowship and Bible study, but not only is my class canceled without consulting me but the morning service is moved into our time slot. I don't think I can persuade my group to come half an hour earlier than usual so that we can enjoy some fellowship time while everyone is in town. I guess I should cook breakfast for them. Maybe I'll figure that out sooner next year.

I've never figured out the logic behind cancelling Sunday School on the biggest days of the year. Can someone please explain it to me?

Marsha

[Marsha Lynn]

LOL. It's actually a little more complex than that, but I think you have the general idea.

By the way, my plan is working. The Daviess County commissioners voted this week to petition the feds to put us back in the Eastern time zone, hoping to accomplish the move before October. If that happens, we will pass yet another clock-changing day without changing our clocks. Ha! The Daylight Savings Bill passed over a year ago and we haven't reset our clocks yet and may not for almost another year. It's simply a matter of timing the shifts between time zones properly.

Of course, we can't have a sunrise service Sunday because the state legislature couldn't agree on what time to roust the sun in Indiana and there's too much uncertainty to plan a service until this all settles out.

:fun06

Marsha


Now, now. Marsha. It's not so bad; just wait for the year Easter is the first Sunday of April, and clocks are moved forward an hour, but your county doesn't, but some will forget and will, and others from other counties should but forget to move their clocks, and others come home for the weekend from different time zones, who forgot to change their watches, but think your county does, and others come from other time zones who change their watches the other way but forget you don't. So, I figure you will have people show up at 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, 10:30, 11:00, 11:30, 12:00 and 12:30. Then you can count them all for Sunday School, declare you had TWO worship services, and report to the district that several showed up a little early for the evening service (that was cancelled because it was Easter.) Now, got it?

[Hans Deventer]

How does your church observe the Easter Season?

You may check all that apply?

We'll have a service on each night from Monday until Saturday at 7:30 pm. It will mostly be short services of about half an hour.

[Gina Stevenson]

(quote=Marsha Lynn]2. I teach the young adult class and holiday weekends tend to draw our wandering young adults back home for the weekend. I wish we could gather an hour before the Sunday morning service for a time of fellowship and Bible study, but not only is my class canceled without consulting me but the morning service is moved into our time slot. I don't think I can persuade my group to come half an hour earlier than usual so that we can enjoy some fellowship time while everyone is in town. I guess I should cook breakfast for them. Maybe I'll figure that out sooner next year.[/quote]

Yes, Marsha! Great idea! Have known many Easter mornings with a breakfast included (as Lori suggested above, too) ... might be "half there," not being a morning service, but it's always nice when there's a fellowship breakfast ... whether at church, or at the SS teacher's home, as you suggested. ;)

What!? Haven't you (oh, pollmaster) been to any Easter morning breakfasts, that you forgot to include that item? It's usually been between the Sunrise service and the morning service, when it occurs. Actually, a breakfast before service, without the extra-early sunrise rising wouldn't be so bad, either, huh ... for those less-than-morning folks. :cool:

[Ron Davis]

Our something else is to cancel Sunday School and start the morning service half an hour earlier than usual.

Take that, all you once a year, people! If you show up on Easter at the regularly scheduled service time, you'll be half an hour late. Serves you right for not being in church on Palm Sunday to hear the announcement about the schedule change.

This disappoints me for two reasons.

1. It seems that the last time you would want to mess with your service time is on a Sunday when you expect a lot of people who aren't "regulars".

2. I teach the young adult class and holiday weekends tend to draw our wandering young adults back home for the weekend. I wish we could gather an hour before the Sunday morning service for a time of fellowship and Bible study, but not only is my class canceled without consulting me but the morning service is moved into our time slot. I don't think I can persuade my group to come half an hour earlier than usual so that we can enjoy some fellowship time while everyone is in town. I guess I should cook breakfast for them. Maybe I'll figure that out sooner next year.

I've never figured out the logic behind cancelling Sunday School on the biggest days of the year. Can someone please explain it to me?

Marsha

I understand your problem. At the beginning of Lent I started a series with the teens beginning with Jesus raising Lazarus through the resurrection. Except we don't have Sunday School on Easter Sunday so I had to end the series with the crucifixion last Sunday. It doesn't make sense to me to move the resurrection part of the story to another Sunday.

Even so I understand the tradition here and we do have a wonderful Easter Celebration service. It just makes it hard to focus on the significant church holidays in Sunday School when we cancel Sunday School for every major holiday of the church year.

[Wilson L. Deaton]

The best laid plans...

Went to Good Friday service which included Communion.

We don't have building and normally worship in a Middle School. However, for Good Friday and Christmas Eve, we always worship in an assisted living senior campus chapel so any residents who want can join us.

1. We had the bread, the juice, and the cups, but as we pulled into the parking lot we realized the serving trays were back home.....

2. My wife and another lady were going to sing two duets, one before and one after the Communion portion of the service. The other lady called in sick....

3. When the service was over my wife discovered we (specifcally me) had spilled grape juice on the linens. Not our linens, but the chapel's very nice embroidered linens....

Well, in spite of all that, I think it was a good service!

1. I went home for the serving trays and ended up arrivng at the service just in time--actually with about 3 minutes to spare!

2. We "listened" to a couple good CD songs since the duet had to be cancelled.

3. As I type this, my wife is on her way to a dry cleaner with the linens.

All's well that ends well.

Wilson

[Vince Crouse]

I was able to catch thelatter part of a service this afternoon. I heard 3 short sermons on the last three words of Christ.
this ecumenical service was held at a UMC church. I didn't hear anything that made me wince (I was expecting to) but I guess the only minor distraction was the rainbow flag placed next to the Christian flag.
I was glad for the opportunity to worship. It has been a long week at the office dealing with some heavy stuff. It was good to have the vivid reminder of the heavier stuff Christ took upon himself for me.


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[Doug Kitchen]

The best laid plans...

Went to Good Friday service which included Communion.

We don't have building and normally worship in a Middle School. However, for Good Friday and Christmas Eve, we always worship in an assisted living senior campus chapel so any residents who want can join us.

1. We had the bread, the juice, and the cups, but as we pulled into the parking lot we realized the serving trays were back home.....

2. My wife and another lady were going to sing two duets, one before and one after the Communion portion of the service. The other lady called in sick....

3. When the service was over my wife discovered we (specifcally me) had spilled grape juice on the linens. Not our linens, but the chapel's very nice embroidered linens....

Well, in spite of all that, I think it was a good service!

1. I went home for the serving trays and ended up arrivng at the service just in time--actually with about 3 minutes to spare!

2. We "listened" to a couple good CD songs since the duet had to be cancelled.

3. As I type this, my wife is on her way to a dry cleaner with the linens.

All's well that ends well.

Wilson

Wilson,

Maybe there's a virus or something going around. We had a pretty well scripted service with a couple of narrative/drama readings using many different members of the congregation. Unfortunately, some of the pages got out of order (mostly people probably didn't notice) but then someone turned off the projector (instead of just blanking it). So one of the choruses became a solo after the pianist played it through several times (those projectors don't like being turned on and off quickly). A couple of mikes didn't work at the appointed time. The 11 year old boy doing the solo kept plugging away showing grace under fire as my wife drifted over and handed him the working wireless mike.

Someone called the church (which rings through to the parsonage) at 1am on Friday morning to ask about service times. The pastor picked up the phone (probably assuming it was an emergency). He told her the service times. She and her son attended last night because she believed that Christ must be in that man if he's answering the phone at 1am. Sometimes our reactions to difficulties speaks more to people than having the perfect system.

In the end God pulled it together. Communion was beautiful. The mistakes seemed to be accepted gracefully.


Doug

[Charlene Clevenger]

The Fort Wayne zone churches always have a combined Good Friday service. We have it at a different church each year and the newest pastor to the zone preaches, unless he/she preached the year before. I don't know how they decide who preaches if that's the case.

This year we met at First Church, and Chuck Sunberg was the preacher. I had never heard him preach, so it was a treat. The church is a small one and the attendees pretty much filled it up. It's nice to get a chance to see everyone. I saw Jenny Mitchell but she got away before I could talk to her.

On Sunday we're combining our traditional and contemporary services. The praise team will be leading the congregation in some songs and the choir is performing a few songs from a cantata we did a few years ago. There will also be a couple of solos. Meanwhile a drama will be acted out without words. For example: while I'm singing Via Dolorosa a man playing Jesus will be carrying a cross down the aisle followed by 2 soldiers.

[Marsha Lynn]

It seems that the last time you would want to mess with your service time is on a Sunday when you expect a lot of people who aren't "regulars".


Well, it turns out that even "regulars" can be caught by surprise when the schedule is rearranged for special days. There was one out-of-town couple who were either late for the special 10 am start time or early for the usual 10:30 start time. Whichever, I don't think they missed too much. The ones that broke my heart was the young family who came in at 10:25 and were surprised and disappointed to discover that they had missed almost half the service. Their comment: "I wish someone had called us."

Yes, they have had opportunity to hear it announced but they have small children and don't always have the ability to focus on the announcements. Yes, they could have read it in the bulletin. Yes, if they would get around in time for Sunday School, they wouldn't have a problem with missing a service scheduled into that time slot. I didn't mentioni those things to them. I'm not sure which is worse -- to think that the service time was moved without anyone letting you know or to have it pointed out that you either ought to start paying attention to the announcements or reading the bulletin or making the extra effort it takes to make it to Sunday School.

Was the half hour saved by cancelling Sunday School and starting the morning service early worth having this active young family feel like outsiders to whom nobody bothered to give a personal reminder of the rearrangement of the schedule? This happened once before when they were out of town for the morning service on one of these special Sundays but came back for the evening service only to find out it had been cancelled.

If I were in charge of the world, 10:30 services would ALWAYS start at 10:30, even, or maybe especially, on special Sundays.

Maybe that's one of the reasons why I'm not in charge of the world -- lack of flexibility and spontaneity and excessive sensitivity to the pain of those who don't show up for every single service and pay close attention to the announcements and then don't know what's going on and feel like outsiders.

Yes, I'm figuring out that until someone sees fit to put me in charge of the world, I should maybe take responsibility to identify and contact those who might not know about the schedule changes made by the flexible and spontaneous people. But to me, it sure would be easier to just leave the schedule alone.

Marsha

[Michael B. Ross]

Marsha, I always enjoy your posts. I am curious (and you may have already answered this): what was the justification given for moving the service up by 30 minutes? Was it to have more time, to get out early, to accomodate people in some way, or something else?

We attended church with our daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter. We went to the 9:30 service. Actually, they had two services at 9:30: a traditional in the sancturary and a contemporary in some big room somewhere. There were a total of seven services scheduled there this morning (91st Street Christian Church in Indy). Their attendance was 3500 last Sunday. I suspect they hosted over 5000 today.

It was well done, of course. I leaned over to my wife and told her I was about to cry because of two recent events. A dear friend's wife died last week; another friend's husband was told he has only weeks to live--liver and pancreatic cancer. The first is a Nazarene preacher, pastor and evangelist. The second is a co-worker and a devout Roman Catholic. They both have deep faith. I was very moved as we sang:
Crown Him the Lord of life, who triumphed over the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife for those He came to save.
His glories now we sing, Who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring, and lives that death may die.

I wondered what each of them was thinking this first Easter Sunday following the facing of death.

The highlights of the service were Communion, singing Handel's Messiah, and the immersion baptism of two new believers.

Well, there also were the doughnuts and coffee, but that is another story.

Happy Easter.

Well, it turns out that even "regulars" can be caught by surprise when the schedule is rearranged for special days. There was one out-of-town couple who were either late for the special 10 am start time or early for the usual 10:30 start time. Whichever, I don't think they missed too much. The ones that broke my heart was the young family who came in at 10:25 and were surprised and disappointed to discover that they had missed almost half the service. Their comment: "I wish someone had called us."

Yes, they have had opportunity to hear it announced but they have small children and don't always have the ability to focus on the announcements. Yes, they could have read it in the bulletin. Yes, if they would get around in time for Sunday School, they wouldn't have a problem with missing a service scheduled into that time slot. I didn't mentioni those things to them. I'm not sure which is worse -- to think that the service time was moved without anyone letting you know or to have it pointed out that you either ought to start paying attention to the announcements or reading the bulletin or making the extra effort it takes to make it to Sunday School.

Was the half hour saved by cancelling Sunday School and starting the morning service early worth having this active young family feel like outsiders to whom nobody bothered to give a personal reminder of the rearrangement of the schedule? This happened once before when they were out of town for the morning service on one of these special Sundays but came back for the evening service only to find out it had been cancelled.

If I were in charge of the world, 10:30 services would ALWAYS start at 10:30, even, or maybe especially, on special Sundays.

Maybe that's one of the reasons why I'm not in charge of the world -- lack of flexibility and spontaneity and excessive sensitivity to the pain of those who don't show up for every single service and pay close attention to the announcements and then don't know what's going on and feel like outsiders.

Yes, I'm figuring out that until someone sees fit to put me in charge of the world, I should maybe take responsibility to identify and contact those who might not know about the schedule changes made by the flexible and spontaneous people. But it sure would be easier to just leave the schedule be in my mind.

Marsha

[Marsha Lynn]

I am curious (and you may have already answered this): what was the justification given for moving the service up by 30 minutes? Was it to have more time, to get out early, to accomodate people in some way, or something else?

That was my question in my first post. No justification was given locally. I don't even know who made the decision -- not the church board, I go to those meetings as treasurer. From my point of view, the announcement was simply made without any reason given and nothing said about whose decision it was.

What I heard tonight was that "a lot of people like it" when this schedule is followed on holidays. They have more time to devote to large family gatherings.

The other reason given was that cancelling Sunday School allows workers to focus more on the service itself, giving it greater significance.

So I guess that's it. Cancel Sunday School so we're not distracted from our preparations for the special services on these special days and then move the service up half an hour so we can get on with the huge family dinner preparations. It's what's most convenient for "us".

(By the way, I was reminded, it doesn't hurt to change things now and then. Those who oppose changes like this are showing a lack of flexibility.)

We attended church with our daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter. We went to the 9:30 service. Actually, they had two services at 9:30: a traditional in the sancturary and a contemporary in some big room somewhere. There were a total of seven services scheduled there this morning (91st Street Christian Church in Indy).

I think I've been to that church! My husband's cousin was married in a large church in that area a few years ago.

I'm glad you were blessed by the service.

Since I had a lot of time on my hands this morning, I slipped into the sunrise service at the Odon United Methodist Church. It was very nice -- scripture, music, and short thoughts on various themes drawn from the scripture.

Marsha