Stations...

First, I should probably explain that Easter is really important to me. For one, it's been a time of milestones in my faith. On a brainier level, our first priority in life is to love God. The events of Easter remind us that we've crap-failed dismally to do that (Jesus' blood is on all our hands in His death), and that God's grace totally overwhelms our incompetence, bloody-minded stupidness, and hate (the resurrection). Communion on Easter Sunday recalls all of that and affirms our marination/saturation in faith - even though we don't really understand (no matter how much we pretend when John Campbell comes to call). On top of that it draws us into some weird kind of community where we are reminded that we're also called to love our fellow humans.

So, for me, that moment of tasting the bitter bread & the sweet, sweet wine is the high point of my year. The culmination of who I am.

Of course, if I tried to say that to a bunch of teenagers, I'd just sound like a wanker. Perhaps I do anyway. So how can I communicate the importance of Christ's sacrifice & triumph - not just cosmically, but personally & communally? Stations of the Cross.

The idea is that by physically entering into the events of Holy Week on the way to sharing communion, we become part of the story. The significance washes over and through us. We can still reject it, but we can't ignore it.

On Sunday night, me & a group of friends took a trailer-load of stuff out to Tirohanga to put together a communion/stations of the cross/art installation/interactive worship experience for the kiddies. I was a little worried - first of all, it's all outside & dependent on the weather. Second we had to have the first station way down the end of the camp because of fire regulations - I thought the distance between stations would dilute the impact. Third of all, it all depended on the reaction & participation of the campers, and because I wasn't at camp, I didn't have a feel for that.

"So, what the hell did you do then?" you ask oh-so-rudely. It all started with a pleasant sing-song outside one of the cabins. Rev Ian Pittendreigh from Flagstaff Union conducted the most complete exposition of communion that I've ever heard (maybe I failed to communicate that I wanted it short - I screwed that one up myself :-P ) & managed to garner the Holy Spirit's blessing on the whole occasion. Then the kids embarked on the journey.

I haven't got space to go through it all, but try downloading it here.

My inspirations included http://www.youthspecialties.com/free/programming/stations/ and the altar worship resource developed by the YFCNZ creative team.