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Easter among God's handiwork
By GAIL HOLLENBECK CRYSTAL RIVER -- If an Easter service in a building packed with dressed-up worshipers is not your style, some churches are offering a breath of fresh air Sunday. In more ways than one. "How often does a community get to gather and worship?" asked the Rev. Ray Cortese of Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church, who will lead a service at Rock Crusher Canyon. "It's not Seven Rivers doing Seven Rivers Church at the canyon. We're inviting the community to come, and we recognize that people who are Baptist and Methodist and other stripes are going to come and join us. So there's something sweet that happens when the community is more broadly represented than any church can represent it." The service will be a picture of restoration, Cortese said. "We have old and young and black and white that gives us this picture. What will heaven feel like when Christ restores things? What does it look like to see people vastly different? Most of us don't get to taste that in our churches. So to gather in a vast crowd that sort of represents the whole community is a beautiful picture of the restoration of the way things are supposed to be." How Jesus can be our friend while still being our king and even our judge is one of the questions Cortese said he hopes to answer in his Easter message. "The Bible says that Abraham was a friend of God," the pastor said in a recent interview. "That sounds so intimate, so personal. How could it be? It also says, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend.' Jesus comes to be our friend, and not somebody to meet for coffee and chat with, but the ultimate friend who dives on the grenade for you." We have an enemy as well, Cortese said. "God takes away our sin problem, that's our ultimate problem, but ... everybody knows they have an enemy called death. The question is, do we have a friend that's stronger than our enemy? We have a friend that whips the bully in our life. We celebrate him as king on Palm Sunday." The Easter service will include congregational singing, uplifting praise music, and a 75-voice choir and praise team accompanied by a brass ensemble and timpani. It will culminate in the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. A dramatic reading called The Main Event will set the stage for Cortese's message. The children will have a separate service with Nathan Dorrell, The Crazy Tie Guy. The international juggling champion will present the gospel through juggling, art and storytelling. Each child who participates will receive a special Easter gift. "My hope for the service," said Cortese, "is that the people will worship there with such passion toward the risen Christ, that the implications of Christ's resurrection would be so rich, that the music and the worship would cause anyone who comes there to say 'God is in this place. There's a great lover of my soul and if I have no relationship with him, I'm missing out on what is life indeed.' " * * * The service hosted by the Nature Coast Community Church will overlook the Blue Waters of the Homosassa River at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park. The Rev. Paul Kalfa will give the message. "The neat thing about the service is that we're right in the Garden of the Springs," said Tom Linley, park manager. "We're encouraging (boaters) to anchor just off the shore and they'll be able to hear the service. It's a beautiful morning so come out and worship and then when you're finished you can go fishing." Linley said this is the third year the Easter service has been held there. "Last year we had about 250 people and we were very pleased with that. We don't have any idea how many will be there this year, but we had between 800 and 900 people at the Christmas Eve service." There will be a children's message with a dramatic presentation involving a judge given by Ted and Lorrie van Voorthuijsen, the park manager said. "This really helps to illustrate the message of what Easter is all about," Linley said. He thinks more people attend services at Easter partly because it's tradition to do so. "I know that for some years of my life I was a Christmas, Easter churchgoer," Linley said. "But then God got a hold of me and changed that. "I think for many families, it's tradition. Also, to go to services outdoors adds something. Ours is really kind of a very somber, low-light situation when you start, but as the service progresses, the sun comes up over the tree line."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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