We planted Vintage Faith Church in 2004 and each year we have put our Good Friday focus and time not in a Good Friday worship gathering but instead we bring the story to the downtown Santa Cruz streets. We have Easter Sunday gatherings at our church building on Sunday which is where we have the more usual teaching, songs etc. about the resurrection. But for Good Friday we try and tell the story in a public place as the crucifixion itself was in a very public place.
On Good Friday (and we also have it set up on Saturday) we have what is normally 12 "stations" of art or interactive art of some sort that is set up on the sidewalks of downtown Santa Cruz. We get permission from the city and also work with the stores who we set it all up are in front of. But along the sidewalk for a block we tell the story of the crucifixion and resurrection through art and Scripture. Some are very large art pieces, some are extremely interactive which people are there creating things to tell the story right there on the sidewalks. We even we had a walk-in empty tomb 2 years ago that you would enter into as part of that station. That year it was built by someone in our church who had recently became a Christian the year before and was so cool to see what she came up with for that station. You can see some photos from a blog entry I posted 2 years ago about that year's Stations of The Cross here. I'll post photos on this blog next week of what this year's experience was like. The local newspaper just called us again about it and will be doing some write-up and they had it as a front cover story once. So it is favorably received in our community with this approach.
The stations are all numbered and a guide/brochure is given out as people begin the walk through the story. At each station there is a display which contains the Scripture reference and the artists words to explain what they did to represent that part of the story. In the brochure we have the actual verses from Scripture written out that people read as they look at the artwork. So as someone goes through the experience, they actually read from Scripture the whole story of the crucifixion and resurrection.
It is always an incredible experience watching people who normally would never even go to a "Good Friday" gathering and happen to be downtown stop and end up going through the whole display. We allow the Scriptures they are reading and the art pieces to be doing the talking - although people do ask questions from people who are there from our church. But they are there to watch the artwork and make sure things are going OK. A few years ago we had someone who was Wiccan go through it who had negative understanding of what it meant to be a Christian. As a result of being intrigued by what she experienced, she ended up becoming part of our church community and eventually was baptized. So that was quite a thrilling story that happened.
So I look forward to seeing what will happen this weekend as I haven't seen any of the art experiences yet. I have heard that the displays this year have become even more interactive, so I am anxious to see what they have come up with. If you are in Santa Cruz, you can click on the postcard ad above and it shows the details of the times and where it will be.
