Experimenting at Easter

Rev. Joshua Patty
Regional Minister and President

Is there a part of your worship service that you would like to do differently?

Change can be hard in the church. (Perhaps you've heard that!?) This is especially true when it's difficult to convince others to even try a new idea or approach.

Ironically, the extra services around Holy Week provide opportunities to experiment with things. As worship planners, we often focus on the "extras" added to these services, but usually we balance those out by shortening other parts of the service. For example, even congregations that always invite a public sharing of prayer requests and celebrations -- often called Joys and Concerns -- usually omit this practice on Easter.

So this year, why don't you try out a new approach to a part of the worship service at Easter. If it works, it will be easy to continue it in future services. If it doesn't, it was simply a change you made for a special service.

Improving Hybrid Worship

Are you looking for practical ideas to bolster your online worship? Do you even know what you don't know? Rev. Jim Keat, the Digital Minister of the Riverside Church in New York City, shares helpful videos weekly on his YouTube channel. If you have questions -- or if you are looking for ideas, I encourage you to check out some of his videos.