First United Methodist Church shares message along with invite for Good Friday observance
(Seguin) — Public restrictions because of the COVID-19 pandemic will not be stopping the observance and footprints of Christ this Easter weekend. First United Methodist Church is one of the many churches in Seguin and around the nation who will be relying on technology and other innovative ways to ensure that the Easter message is delivered.
Pastor Rev. Cathe Evins, of First United, says today marks the observance of Good Friday. Evins says as an alternative to a mass gathering, the local church will be presenting its Good Friday video titled, “The Final Hours.”
“This is unusual for us not to have services during Holy Week but it’s the most important week of the year, crucial to our Christian faith so we just felt that we could not let that go by without having a service to commemorate the cross and all that leading up to Easter,” said Evens.
Evins says the video is for all those in the community who want to travel alongside Christ as he makes his way to the cross. She says the video will be made available for viewing on YouTube after 5 p.m. Friday.
“What we’ve done is we had all three of us pastors have recorded different sections of the Scriptures that are leading up to the crucification and then we interspersed those readings with musical selections from our organist and choir director so our music director, Keith Robinson has gotten all of that input from us and he has spliced it together and actually the background scenes are each going to be different. Each pastor recorded in a different place and so I think it will be very powerful and moving to see the different voices coming through, interspersed with music that is applicable to the readings and it resonates with us and at the end of the service will be a solo rendition of ‘Were You There?’ which I think will be very moving for the service to end in silence so I encourage everybody to take a look at that and once again remember the greatest day in history ever was the one that secured our salvation,” said Evins.
Evins says the story of Easter continues on Sunday with a live broadcast of its service beginning at 9:30 a.m. on Seguin Radio KWED. That service will also be available on the church’s Facebook page.
While church leaders worked to assemble their new plans for the Easter celebration, Evins says it became apparent to all of them that this year’s message would feel a little familiar.
“You know interestingly enough, the very first Holy Week if you will when Jesus began entering into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey and there was a parade and people were sure that this was going to be a great, great week ahead that he was going to become king of Jerusalem and take back that reign from Roman officials and then when the week went on, it just got progressively worse and darker and people became more and more afraid when they saw that actually, his pathway was going to lead to an arrest and then to the cross and then by the time that Easter morning came, all of the disciples were hidden away and afraid behind locked doors so I almost feel like this year, it is an echo of that very first Holy Week. That it wasn’t a time of let’s get together and have ham and celebrate, get an Easter outfit, got to church. It was actually a time of fear and being huddle together in very small groups behind closed doors and so in a sense, that’s where we are today. We are not sure what each day will bring with the news ahead but we know how the story ends and we do know that Easter morning did come. I know that this too shall pass,” said Evins.
Evins says more than ever, families are encouraged to accept this year’s message and incorporate it into their own lives.
“In the meantime, just to keep the faith and to realize that God is walking through this with us. He is in charge of all things in our lives and knows the plans that we have for us and those plans are good I believe so prayers for our leaders, prayers for the health professionals and those on the front lines that are trying to help all of us get through this time. I’m extremely thankful for the folks that are researching and caring for people and I hope that people will reach out, give a call to somebody who may be living alone or who is maybe needing something at the store, anyway you can spread the love of the Lord by encouraging one another through this difficult time and helping us all get through it together — I think that’s the best thing that we can do,” said Evins.
Again, most if not all churches in Seguin have adopted a new way of sharing their Easter message. Online and other special services for local churches can be found on the religious page of this weekend’s edition of the Seguin Daily News. The online newspaper is available at SeguinToday.com.