Lent, Passover and Easter: A roundup of story ideas

Lent is in full swing, and Passover and Easter will arrive shortly. Check out these ideas for a fresh approach to the season.

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Going green for Lent

Across the country, congregations have been holding viewings of Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth. In evangelical circles, debate continues to burn hot over how much attention – if any – evangelicals should give to environmental concerns. And some Christians are saying that Lent and Easter – seasons of repentance and resurrection – are exactly the right time to reflect on the relationship between the people God created and God’s Earth.

RESOURCES

North Carolina Interfaith Power & Light, one of a network of faith-based environmental groups around the country, is inviting people to “fast from carbon” during Lent – to work seriously during these 40 days to reduce the carbon dioxide they release into the atmosphere by doing such things as driving less, producing less garbage and asking elected officials to support legislation that protects the environment. The organization has prepared a Lenten prayer and action guide, with Scripture readings and suggestions for change.
Some congregations – including Calvary Lutheran Church in Federal Way, Wash. – are sponsoring Lenten studies focused on the environment. Calvary’s “Caretakers of Creation” program includes a study of J. Matthew Sleeth’s book Serve God, Save the Planet (Chelsea Green and Zondervan, 2006).
Sleeth, an emergency-room doctor turned environmental advocate, sold his big house and gave away half of what he owned; read a Sept. 22, 2006, interview in the Austin Chronicle. He’s been traveling the country, talking at churches and colleges and encouraging congregations to “go green.” Contact Sleeth at 859-858-0066, contact@servegodsavetheplanet.org.
Ann Kristin Haldors Fontaine, an Episcopal priest from Wyoming, is writing a blog called Green Lent. She’s driving more slowly on the 120-mile trip to church, washing all her clothes in cold water, trying to limit shopping trips by car to one per week. “Lent is a good time to begin these simple disciplines,” she writes. “They may not only help save our planet, but could also save our souls.”

Some evangelicals are debating how far their commitment to take on global warming and other environmental issues should run. James Dobson and some other conservative Christians have been calling for the ouster of Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals. They contend that the NAE’s commitment to “creation care” detracts from other evangelical concerns, such as the battle over abortion.

Read a March 3, 2007, story in The Washington Post and a Religion News Service story, posted March 2, 2007, on the Christianity Today Web site. A March 14, 2007, New York Times story discusses the NAE board’s response to the criticisms.
Jerry Falwell preached a sermon on Feb. 25, 2007, about “The Myth of Global Warming.”
Still, evangelicals are increasingly becoming involved in climate change and other environmental issues. Read a Feb. 8, 2006, story from The New York Times.

Some congregations, concerned about the environmental impact of over-harvesting of palm products, are making the commitment to use “Eco-Palms” on Palm Sunday. This is an effort to gather palm branches in a more environmentally friendly way in Mexico and Guatemala and provide a fair price to the farmers who harvest them; it’s similar to campaigns for fair-trade coffee and is supported by Lutherans, Catholics and Presbyterians.

Read about the Eco-Palm movement on the Lutheran World Relief Web site, in a Jan. 10, 2007, story from the Presbyterian News Service and in a Religion News Service story, published April 8, 2006, in The Washington Post.
Contact Melanie Hardison, with the Enough for Everyone Project of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 888-728-7228 ext. 5625, mhardison@ctr.pcusa.org

The National Council of Churches, through its Eco-Justice Programs, is recognizing April 22 as Earth Day Sunday. It’s providing a worship resource for congregations called “Our Daily Bread: Harvesters of Hope and Gardeners of Eden,” and is asking Christians to push for more just farm legislation in the United States. Contact 202-544-2350, info@nccecojustice.org.

And some congregations long have followed a tradition of outdoor Easter services, often at sunrise, on beaches and in parks, in cemeteries, on mountains and in canyons – celebrating the beauty of nature and the promise of Christ’s resurrection. Find out what congregations in your area are planning to do, and talk to people about what it means to them to worship in an outdoor cathedral.

Passover: the ‘festival of freedom’ behind bars

Passover commemorates the Jewish people’s ancient escape from bondage to freedom. Contemporary Jews are drawing on that triumph to help others in bondage as well.

For almost 70 years, volunteers from Denver’s B’nai B’rith chapter have shared the holiday with a group of Jews who are decidedly not free; they are inmates at the complex of correctional institutions in Canon City, Colo. Members of B’nai B’rith Denver are now making preparations, including extensive advance paperwork, for their annual 110-mile trip to hold a seder at the medium-security Fremont Correctional Facility for about a dozen Jewish prisoners. The hourlong, simplified service takes place in a locked room with barred windows and generally includes a pause for officials to make a head count. ”It gets a little touchy when it comes to opening the door for Elijah,” says prison project co-chairman Ed Koplin, referring to the traditional practice of welcoming the biblical prophet to the seder.

What Passover observances are offered to Jewish inmates in your area? How have the services enriched the Passover experience for the prisoners? For those who organized them? What difficulties, if any, have occurred?

One troublesome issue for some organizations is that hundreds of prisoners who have no connection to Judaism – including some Neo-Nazis – claim to be Jewish in order to obtain perceived advantages, such as kosher meals. (See a March 1, 2006, Seattle Weekly article.)

RESOURCES

Contact Koplin at 303-394-9700, edandcarolynkoplin@msn.org.
Aleph Institute of Surfside, Fla., is a nonprofit organization affiliated with Chabad-Lubavitch that provides services to Jewish prisoners. Aleph published the Institutional Handbook of Jewish Practice and Procedure, a guide for wardens, chaplains and institutional staff that outlines daily and holiday requirements for Jewish inmates. Contact 305-864-5553.
The Web site Jews in Prison, a program of Chabad of California, provides encouragement to Jewish inmates and their families. Its author, Rabbi Yosef Loschak, has been working with prisoners for two decades. Contact 805-683-1544, rabbi@jewsinprison.org.
Rabbi Gary Friedman, a federal prison chaplain and chairman of the board of directors of Jewish Prisoner Services International of Seattle, says Jewish inmates are being pressured to convert as evangelical prison ministries gain power behind bars. JPS’ board includes members from a number of areas. Contact 206-985-0577, jewishprisonerservices@msn.com.

Out of bondage

The release of prisoners back into the world is significant at this season. Passover celebrates the release of Jews from bondage in Egypt. For Christians, Lent commemorates the time that Jesus wandered and was tested in the wilderness, and Easter celebrates humanity’s release, through his crucifixion and resurrection, from sin and death. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, some 650,000 Americans are released each year from prisons and jails. As congregations become involved with prisoner re-entry programs, the themes of Passover, Lent and Easter — spiritual trials and testing, the exaltation of freedom, the return home after captivity or after a siege in the wilderness — echo in the lives of inmates rejoining society.

RESOURCES

A newly released film, “Hard Road Home,” tells the story of Julio Medina, a former gangster who founded the faith-based Exodus Transitional Community, a re-entry program for ex-felons in Harlem, after his release from prison. Auburn Media, a division of the Center for Multifaith Education at Auburn Theological Seminary, is a producer of the film and is helping to connect reporters with Medina and Exodus staff. Contact Joshua Olesker at Auburn, 212-870-3175, jco@auburnsem.org, or reach Medina directly at Exodus Transitional Ministries, 917-492-0990.
Leonard Sipes, senior public affairs specialist for the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia, works with faith-based prisoner re-entry programs. Contact 202-220-5616 or 240-882-8274 (cell), leonard.sipes@csosa.gov.
Omar McRoberts, associate professor at the University of Chicago sociology department, has studied faith-based prisoner re-entry programs. He wrote Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighborhood (University of Chicago Press, 2005). Contact 773-834-8970, omcrober@midway.uchicago.edu.
Prison chaplains help prisoners prepare for re-entry and connect with transitional services. Find prison chaplains through the American Correctional Chaplains Association. Contact president Anthony Bruno, Anthony.Bruno@po.state.ct.us.
The Reentry National Media Outreach Campaign connects reporters with re-entry programs and is particularly interested in helping shine a spotlight on faith-based prisoner release efforts around the country. The four-year-old campaign is run by Outreach Extensions and funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Contact Sally Turner, re-entry project director, Sally@reentrymediaoutreach.org.
Prison Fellowship’s InnerChange Freedom Initiative is a Christian religious program meant to help prisoners make the transition back to freedom. InnerChange starts working with them behind bars and organizes support and volunteers from local churches to help them upon their release.
The Inner City Muslim Action Network is a small nonprofit serving Chicago’s South Side and Southwest communities. Prisoner re-entry is among its programs.
Islamic Health and Human Services, a Detroit-area organization that ministers to prisoners, also has prisoner re-entry services, in which mentors help released inmates get established in the Muslim community.
Find re-entry programs in each state using the National Criminal Justice Reference Service’s Reentry Resource Map.
The Urban Institute offers background and research on prisoner re-entry and a list of institute experts on the topic.
The Crosswalk (Christian) Directory has links to many religious re-entry programs.
Aleph Institute helps Jewish prisoners inside and outside prison.
Jewish Prisoner Services serves Jewish inmates before, during and after incarceration.

Judas: Misunderstood guy or Gnostic gnonsense?

In time for the Easter holiday, Judas is coming to a bookstore near you. The Gospel According to Judas, by Benjamin Iscariot by Jeffrey Archer (St. Martin’s) is a fictional gospel that the British novelist wrote in consultation with the Rev. Francis J. Moloney, a Catholic scholar. Archer is a millionaire best-selling novelist whose career as a rising Tory politician ended when he was convicted of perjury and spent two years in jail. Moloney, now head of the Australian branch of the Salesian order, was dean at Catholic University of America and president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America.

Also stepping up to the plate with new views on the disciple who betrayed Jesus are Elaine Pagels and Karen King, scholars who specialize in early Christianity and who have a gift for accessible writing. Their new book, Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity (Viking, March 2007), has an announced first printing of 250,000, a sign of great expectations from the publisher.

This year’s revisionary look at Judas rests on the discovery of a fragmentary gospel of Judas, unveiled with fanfare in 2006 by the National Geographic Society. The ancient and authentic pieces of papyrus gave rise to a startling theory that Judas was a hero who had betrayed Jesus to authorities at Jesus’ own request to help the Messiah fulfill his destiny. Scholars say that this radically different view of Judas is simply evidence of a wide variety of stories and beliefs during the early years of Christianity. The new view, disseminated in two books, a DVD and a television special, piqued the interest of a public primed by The Da Vinci Code, noncanonical alternative gospels and popularization of scholarship about early Christianity, thanks to Pagels and other readable scholars.

Archer says his book contains surprises, among them what happened to Judas after the Crucifixion. With strong interest in rights for foreign translation, the book will get worldwide attention and readership and launches March 20 in Rome.

RESOURCES

Contact Archer through his U.S. publicists: John Murphy, vice president, director of publicity, St. Martin’s Press, 646-307-5561, John.murphy@stmartins.com; or Laura Pillar, Goldberg McDuffie Communications, 212-446-5110, lpillar@goldbergmcduffie.com.
Contact Moloney at fmoloney@salesians.org.au.
King teaches ecclesiastical history at Harvard Divinity School and is particularly interested in women in early Christianity. Contact 617-496-3398. Her assistant is Katherine Lou, 617-495-4265.
Pagels teaches religion at Princeton University and is an expert on Gnosticism, a mystical Christian philosophy prevalent in the second and third centuries. Her book Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (Random House, 2003) was a best seller. Contact 609-258-4484.
See the National Geographic Society Web site on the gospel of Judas.
Bart Ehrman has written best-selling books about Jesus and early Christianity and has done the forewords for several recent books about Judas and his gospel. He is on leave spring semester 2007 from teaching religious studies at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Contact behrman@email.unc.edu.
Marvin Meyer teaches religious studies and is director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. He has written extensively on early Christianity and Gnosticism and was one of the editors of The Gospel of Judas (National Geographic Society, 2006). Contact 714-997-6602, meyer@chapman.edu.
Philip Jenkins, who teaches history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University, thinks the gospel of Judas is unremarkable. He is the author of Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way (Oxford University Press, 2001). Contact 814-863-8946, jpj1@psu.edu.
Read the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Judas.

Faith views on suffering

Easter calls on Christians to consider the meaning of suffering. But since suffering is a central mystery to all faiths, consider writing about how all religions seek to explain why, if God is good, pain and catastrophe can be random and unearned:

Christianity: The faith’s central tenet is the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus: He was without sin, but he accepted torture and death so humanity could be absolved of sin and freed from eternal damnation. Some Christians view suffering as a test of faith and a way to grow closer to God.
Islam: Suffering is seen by Muslims as an opportunity to strengthen one’s faith and to reinforce Islam’s central commandment, which is submission to the will of Allah.
Judaism: Orthodox Jews teach that suffering can be an indication that one’s devotion to study and prayer are insufficient, or it can be God’s way of provoking growth. There is an acceptance among Jews that God’s intentions, while always good, are unknowable. Judaism emphasizes the necessity for humans to work to alleviate suffering on Earth.
Hinduism: Hinduism teaches that humans cannot control the events that cause suffering. Rather, they can control their attachment to the world, which is the root cause of suffering and the origin of the cycle of reincarnation into the suffering world. Attaining nonattachment provides liberation from suffering.
Buddhism: Suffering arises from attachment — to stuff, to life, to each other, to pleasure, to anything at all, Buddhists believe. The aim is to accept reality, completely and without reservation, in each moment, even when suffering is a component of that moment. The way out of suffering is the Eightfold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

RESOURCES

Beliefnet.org’s article “Why Bad Things Happen” explores the meaning of suffering in different faiths.
Religious leaders at synagogues, mosques and churches can discuss how they approach suffering and may be willing to connect reporters with members facing difficulties who will discuss their own experiences.
Consider interviewing both believers and people who are nonreligious, asking each how their faith — or lack of it – influences how they see their difficulties.
The work of chaplains – in hospitals, prisons and the military — and others who minister to the suffering brings them into close contact with people in pain. Find Veterans Administration chaplains — listed by religious affiliation, contact information and location — using the directory of VA chaplains at the National Chaplain Center site. Contact information for chaplains can also be found in these previous ReligionLink tips: “Chaplains usher religion into schools, businesses“; “Ramadan challenges inmates, prisons as Islam spreads“; and “Hospital ethics boards sharpen decision-making.”
Arthur Caplan is Emmanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics. He co-edited Who Owns Life? (Prometheus Books, 2002) and Assisted Suicide: Finding Common Ground (Indiana University Press, 2002). Contact 215-898-7136, caplan@mail.med.upenn.edu.
Brian A. Hatcher is a professor of religion and humanities at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington. He teaches courses in the Hindu religious tradition. Contact 309-556-3160, bhatcher@iwu.edu.
Ingrid Mattson is a professor of Islamic studies and Christian-Muslim relations and is director of the Islamic Chaplaincy Program at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn. She has written on slavery, poverty, Islamic legal theory and Quran and culture. Contact 860-509-9531 (office), 860-509-9534 (department), imattson@hartsem.edu.
Janet Gyatso is Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies at Harvard Divinity School in Boston, where she is co-chairwoman of the American Academy of Religion’s Buddhism section and president of the International Association of Tibetan Studies. Contact through Charlene Higbe, 617-495-4518, Charlene_higbe@harvard.edu.
Jerry Walls, philosophy of religion professor at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky., has written about making sense of evil and Christian conceptions of God. Contact 859-858-2116, jerry_walls@asburyseminary.edu.
Raphael Grunfeld is a New York attorney and Jewish scholar who can explain Jewish philosophy and religious thought regarding suffering. Contact 212-238-8653, RafeGrun@aol.com.
David J. Wolpe is senior rabbi of Temple Sinai, a Conservative congregation in Los Angeles. A well-known speaker and writer, he has written several books, among them The Healer of Shattered Hearts: A Jewish View of God (Henry Holt & Co., 1990) and (with Mitch Albom) Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times (Riverhead Trade, 2000). Contact 310-481-3242, dwolpe@sinaitemple.org.

Good Friday: a secular holiday, too?

New religious diversity is causing some school districts to rethink which holidays they close on, and Good Friday can be a flashpoint for debate. Just ask Hillsborough County, Fla. The school board there recently eliminated all religious holidays from the 2007-08 school calendar, including, after much discussion, Good Friday. Last year, the board voted to remove Good Friday, the Monday after Easter and Yom Kippur from the current school holiday calendar after a Muslim raised questions, but the holidays were restored after the board found itself at the center of an angry, emotional debate.

Courts have sent mixed messages about Good Friday, which Christians observe as the day of Jesus’ death on the cross. It’s observed as a holiday in 12 states, in which state government offices and public schools close for the day. In a handful of other states, only government offices are closed on Good Friday, or the day is an optional holiday.

Church-state separationists and some non-Christians have criticized making a government holiday out of the day Christians commemorate Jesus’ death on the cross. Legal challenges have been filed, to mixed results. The 9th, 6th and 4th U.S. Circuit Courts have upheld laws that make Good Friday a holiday for either schools or state employees, saying that because Easter has become increasingly secularized, the Friday before Easter has become a traditional day to start preparations for days off that benefit people of all religions. However, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court ruled that such laws were unconstitutional in closing schools, but not for giving state employees a day off if the government could give a legitimate secular reason for doing so. In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to review the 4th U.S. Circuit Court ruling, allowing the conflicting rulings from the various Circuit Courts to stand.

In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a ruling that said Christmas could be a federal holiday because it had secular as well as religious purposes. But what about Good Friday? Is Good Friday a holiday for schools or state employees (or both) in your state? If not, is there a movement to make it a holiday? Who is involved? What are their motivations? If your state does make the day a holiday, is there opposition? From whom?

RESOURCES

Read “All school religious holidays dropped,” a Feb. 28, 2007, story about Hillsborough County, Fla., in the St. Petersburg Times.
Read an American Atheists commentary on a Jan. 19, 2000, decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow a Maryland statute to stand. The statute requires public schools to close on Good Friday. It lists the states that have Good Friday holidays and relevant court cases.
A segment on the Web site About.com looks at the legal questions surrounding making Good Friday a state holiday.
Religioustolerance.com offer a snapshot of the court decisions involving Good Friday holidays.
Read a Dec. 21, 2000, Associated Press story posted by the Cincinnati Enquirer about a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that Christmas can continue to be a legal holiday, as it has been since 1870, because it has a secular purpose.
Read the Becket Fund’s page on Ganulin v. United States, in which a Cincinnati lawyer filed suit to argue that Christmas should not be designated a federal holiday because doing so is a government endorsement of Christianity.
To find expert sources on religious holidays, consult ReligionLink’s “Guide to church-state experts and organizations.”

Happy Hispanic Easter

Latino Christians – especially Catholics – celebrate numerous traditions leading up to Easter. In the United States, many of today’s Hispanic immigrants may relate their own obstacles to the anguish of Christ, finding hope in his resurrection.

Where Latinos reside in great number, communities often stage Passion plays. One by San Antonio’s 276-year-old San Fernando Cathedral, the nation’s oldest in continuous use, attracts thousands each year. Another custom – one many ethnic groups observe – is to attend evening Holy Thursday Mass and then visit seven churches and their altars of repose. On Good Friday, Latino Christians may re-enact Via Crucis, Christ’s walk to Calvary; La Tres Caídas, the three falls of Jesus; and Pesame, condolences to Jesus’ mother, Mary. On Easter (and some other occasions), cascarones may be part of the celebration. Cascarones, a custom that has been spreading from the Southwest throughout the United States, are emptied eggs that are decorated, filled with confetti and then playfully cracked over people’s heads.

RESOURCES

Read a ReligionLink tip on Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” and Passion plays.
Read a 2005 article by Catholic Citizens of Illinois about a staging of the Via Crucis in the Pilsen area of Chicago.
Miguel A. De La Torre teaches social ethics at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, where he directs the school’s Justice and Peace Institute. He is ordained as a Southern Baptist minister. His numerous books include, as co-editor, Rethinking Latino(a) Religion and Identity (Pilgrim Press, 2006) and Handbook of Latina/o Theologies (Chalice Press, 2006). Contact 303-765-3133, mdelatorre@iliff.edu.
Gilberto Cavazos-Gonzalez, a Franciscan friar, directs the Hispanic ministry program at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. Contact otrebligcg@ctu.edu.
Monsignor Arturo J. Bañuelas is pastor of St. Pius X in El Paso, Texas. He founded and directs the Tepeyac Institute and is nationally known for his expertise on border issues and culture. Bañuelas edited Mestizo Christianity: Theology From the Latino Perspective (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004). Contact hopie12@msn.com.
Valerie Menard has written several books on Latin culture, including The Latino Holiday Book: From Cinco de Mayo to Dia de los Muertos – the Celebrations and Traditions of Hispanic-Americans (Marlowe & Company, 2004). Contact Karen Auerbach, Avalon Publishing Group, 646-375-1066, karen.auerbach@avalonpub.com.
For more experts, see ReligionLink’s “Guide to Hispanics and religion in the U.S.”

Sermon inspiration

Easter Sunday is the Super Bowl of Sunday worship, drawing more people to church than any other day of the year. Ideally, the sermon that day is one of the year’s best, motivating many people who do not regularly attend church to come back again.

That’s a lot of pressure on pastors. How do they deal with it, and where do they find inspiration? How do they craft a sermon that spiritually feeds both the once-a-year crowd and the weekly churchgoer? And how do they keep from repeating themselves year after year? Talk to pastors in your area about what guides them as they prepare their Easter sermons.

RESOURCES

The Rev. Dale P. Andrews is a professor of homiletics and pastoral theology at Boston University. He is an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and has written a book for pastors on preaching through Holy Week. Contact 617-353-3050, andrews@bu.edu.
Jana Childers is a professor of homiletics and speech communication and dean of the San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, Calif. She edited Birthing the Sermon: Women Preachers on the Creative Process (Chalice Press, 2001). Contact 415-451-2859.
Thomas Long is a professor of preaching at the Candler School of Theology in Atlanta. He helped lead a Colloquy on Teaching Homiletics to a new generation of pastors at the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion in Crawfordsville, Ind. Contact 404-727-5144, tglong@emory.edu.
John S. McClure is a professor of homiletics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He has written several books on preaching. Contact john.s.mcclure@vanderbilt.edu.
The Rev. Fleming Rutledge was one of the first women to become an ordained Episcopal priest. She has written several books, including The Undoing of Death: Sermons for Holy Week and Easter (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002). She lives in Rye Brook, N.Y. Contact via Eerdmans publicity, 616-459-4591, publicity@eerdmans.com.
Andy Stanley is the senior pastor of North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Ga. He has written for Leadership Journal about making sermons more potent and writing good holiday sermons. Contact 678-892-5000.
Frederick J. Streets at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Conn., is considered an expert on the art of preaching. Contact 203-432-1128, Frederick.streets@yale.edu.

Virtual Easter

Thanks to podcasts, blogs, emailed devotionals and streaming audio and video services, Christians can celebrate Easter without stepping foot in a church. But is virtual Easter a true Easter? The ubiquity of electronic worship has some scholars and pastors worrying about the implications for church life as their community-centered faith increasingly supports solitary worship and contemplation. Others say they find that cyberworship materials are mostly used to supplement an already-active life in church. Research on the subject is lacking, but what is certain is the increasing popularity of electronic delivery — of sermons, particularly.

Consider exploring with local churches their attitudes toward and experience with cyberworship. Ask what plans they have for offering Easter content to worshippers electronically.

TRENDS

The challenge of engaging Easter-and-Christmas churchgoers in year-round congregational life is a perennial one; the possibility of attending church while sitting at a café or on the beach only adds to that challenge.
Podcasting seems to be growing rapidly, along with blogging, by churches and pastors.
Podcasting content mostly is MP3 files of Sunday sermons. Most Easter podcasts are likely to be re-broadcasts of Easter sermons.
Churches are using Web sites, blogs, podcasts and streaming media in three ways, says Martin Spriggs, chief technology officer for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod: as marketing materials to potential new members; as tools of ministry (compelling sermons are shared by friends or family); and as an archive for the church community.
One benefit of electronic media is that podcasting and blogging open the faith conversation into a more-responsive, two-way dialogue, replacing the traditional, passive sermon, Spriggs says.
Text messaging is a popular medium among young people, but as a means of worship, it’s a novelty. Church leaders and electronic pioneers say they have not yet figured out how to leverage texting in the service of religion.

RESOURCES

Religion sociologist Tex Sample is the Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor Emeritus of Church and Society at the St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Mo. He wrote The Spectacle of Worship in a Wired World: Electronic Culture and the Gathered People of God (Abingdon Press, 1998) and Powerful Persuasion: Multimedia Witness in Christian Worship (Abingdon, 2006), and he coordinates the Network for the Study of U.S. Lifestyles. He advocates electronic media in churches yet worries it may encourage worshippers to receive but forgo gathering in community. To worship only alone, he says, is not truly Christian worship but a troubling, powerful accommodation to the individualism and consumerism of American culture. The challenge, he says, is to make technology serve Christ, not consumers, and to counter the trend of individuals withdrawing from the institutions of society. Contact 623-536-7976.
Shane Hipps, a former advertising professional, thinks about the influence of new media on faith as the electronically sophisticated lead pastor of Trinity Mennonite Church in Glendale, Ariz. He wrote The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel and Church (Zondervan/Youth Specialties, 2006) and “The Gospel According to Electronic Culture: What if the medium really is the message?,” an entry on the Out of Ur blog. He also hosts the “Third-Way Faith” podcast at wiredparish.com. Hipps wonders how Christians can authentically embody the gospel in a disembodied world and how a ministry meant to be incarnate can find genuine life in the discarnate media culture. He was amazed to find 2,500 people — many of them strangers to his 300-member church — downloading sermons from the church Web site, and he wonders whether those listeners attend any church at all. Such wide electronic consumption of sermons from individual churches is not uncommon, provoking what Hipps calls one of the greatest challenges for churches in the struggle to be both relevant and authentically Christian. Contact 623-931-9241, shane@trinitymennonite.com.
Quentin J. Schultze, professor of communication at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., studies the relationship between email, blogs and podcasting, and virtue and spirituality in society. Among books he has written are Habits of the High-Tech Heart: Living Virtuously in the Information Age (Baker Academic, 2002) and High-Tech Worship? Using Presentational Technologies Wisely (Baker Books, 2004). Contact 616-526-6290, schu@calvin.edu (email preferred).
Lynn Schofield Clark is assistant professor at the University of Denver’s School of Communication and director of the Estlow International Center for Journalism and New Media. She co-edited Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media: Explorations in Media, Religion and Culture (Columbia University Press, 2002), wrote From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media and the Supernatural (Oxford University Press, 2003) and edited the forthcoming Religion, Media and the Marketplace (Rutgers University Press, 2007). She studies young people’s use of new media and has written about religious blogging, hip Christian youth culture and Jewish cool. The sharing of electronic materials — particularly newsletters, email and podcasts — within church communities is changing how people do ministry and church life today, she says. Contact 303-871-3984, Lynn.Clark@du.edu.
Martin Spriggs is a former pastor and chief technology officer for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, with 1,400 churches the third-largest Lutheran body in the U.S. His work includes helping synod churchesset up and use electronic media. Only about 45 of the churches offer podcasts or streaming audio and video right now, but many others are coming online as technology becomes easier to use. Early adapters are megachurches and small church plants led by young, tech-savvy pastors, since the technology is affordable. The biggest barriers, Spriggs says, are technical issues such as recording quality.In his observation, media consumption does not seem to encourage skipping church; in fact, it encourages a two-way dialogue, which traditional sermons do not allow. Contact 414-256-3888, martin.spriggs@sab.wels.net.
Anthony Coppedge is a Bedford, Texas, church media and communications consultant. Churches have been recording their sermons for years, he says, but now, with Web sites as electronic front doors and with easy access to MP3 files, church members and religious surfers alike are listening to and sharing sermons, giving the spoken word much wider circulation. Since churches already have microphones and recording equipment, all they need is a little help to get sermons online. He tracks the increase in sermon downloads with a recent surge in pastoral blogs, which now number in the hundreds, he estimates. Contact 817-819-7288, anthony@anthonycoppedge.com.
Craig Patchett is founder of The GodCast Network, which offers free MP3s of Christian and family-friendly audio content. Patchett ascribes the rapid growth of religious podcasting to its ability to spread a message quickly and globally with little cost or effort. Besides sermons, he sees potential for other formats, such as Christian-themed talk shows, music shows and comedy. These have great potential, he says, because they counter religious stereotypes while hewing to the Christian message. Most users, he finds, use podcasts to supplement church participation; to explore religious options in a safe, familiar environment; to review sermons they missed or really enjoyed; or to overcome physical, geographical or political barriers that prevent them from attending church, as in China, for example, where Christian worship is suppressed. Contact 815-301-8600, craig@godcast.org.
Sociologist and regional planner Manuel Castells is professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been researching economic and social transformations resulting from information technology since 1983. He has focused on secular — social and economic — uses of the Internet and has produced one of the few efforts to get a scholarly overview of the technology. He wrote The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on Internet, Business and Society (Oxford University Press, 2001). Contact em511995@berkeley.edu.
Secular sites offering Christian podcasts or videocasts include Podcast.com and YouTube. At these aggregators, try search terms like Easter, prayer, God, religion, Christian, Christianity, Jesus, Bible. Religious sites include WiredParish, Faithstreams.com and The GodCast Network.
The United Methodist Church’s site sends out email devotionals.
Technologies for Worship Magazine, based in Ontario, Canada, covers the industry, from AV systems and video production to music, media and ministry.
ChurchMedia.Net is a community for those working in religious electronic media. Participants on message boards discuss a host of topics, from which songs to broadcast for Easter to which microphones work best.
LeadNet.org is the site of the Leadership Network, a Dallas nonprofit whose mission is to encourage church innovation, including adapting technology to religious purposes.