A New Start

It’s Easter! We arrived! Or did we? As worship leaders, I’m sure we all hope we’ve arrived because that means the chance to rest is just within reach. We know how much energy we will put into planning and preparing for a joyous Easter celebration. We’ll transform the sanctuary into a flower-filled and/or color-filled expression of joy and new life. We’ll rehearse the choir, gather the musicians, prepare a special organ voluntary, add a few extra band members, and prepare a heartfelt Easter sermon. We’ll plan for additional people and extra enthusiastic singing. We’ll share traditions that hold meaning for our congregations. And then…what? We take a nap (hopefully), maybe take a day off, and then we go right back to planning worship for the next week.

I don’t say that to discourage us—not at all! All the extra work and time we put into Easter is worth it. We are celebrating the Resurrection, the miracle that death is not the end, and God’s steadfast love endures. This is worth pulling out all the stops! And Easter means a new start for all of us. Just as we journey with the disciples to the cross, we come with them again to the empty tomb, a turning point in our journey that redefines our trajectory, redirects our priorities, and realigns our love for God and neighbor.

So, as you plan Easter worship, add in a few hints about the journey ahead. Remind your congregants that Easter is not the end, but a new start, a time to recharge and prepare for the journey ahead. Talk about the guidance Easter gives us for day-to-day Christian life. Practice finding the joy of Easter in ordinary things. Enter into the characters of the Easter story and consider how their lives might have been changed by Easter in real and substantive ways. How might putting ourselves in Mary’s or Peter’s or the guards’ shoes help us live as Easter people today? Above all, help those gathered know and experience that we don’t go on this journey alone. Easter is a new start for all of us who journey together in grace as the Body of Christ, for it is the good news that binds us together and empowers us to continue on the path set before us.

Dr. Lisa Hancock, Director of Worship Arts Ministries, served as an organist and music minister in United Methodist congregations in the legacy Northwest Texas and North Texas Annual Conferences, as well as the New Day Amani/Upendo house churches in Dallas. After receiving her Master of Sacred Music and Master of Theological Studies from Perkins School of Theology, Lisa earned her PhD in Religious Studies from Southern Methodist University, where she researched and wrote on the doctrine of Christ, disability, and atonement.