FAMILY HOLY WEEK EVENT:
Children’s Ministry hosts a Holy Week in a Box event in Tempe on Wednesday, April 5 from 5:30-7:00 in Fellowship Hall. Join us for this open house style event that will be full of activities, crafts, and learning to lead your family through the Holy Week experience. Activity stations will begin at 5:30 and run continuously through 7:00 so come when you can, as this is an ongoing event where kids will get the opportunity to create and experience their way through Holy Week.
MAUNDY THURSDAY:
Our Taizé-style Maundy Thursday communion service, with music from the Celebration Singers, is Thursday, April 6 at 6:00pm. Our music includes “The One” by Craig Courtney and Harry T. Burleigh’s simple but haunting arrangement of the spiritual “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” This second piece is especially powerful when we remember that the people who first sang it were enslaved and tortured. How did they identify with the suffering Jesus? How did they relate to the injustice of his torment and execution? We will sing it with great intensity and reverence, but we will also be asking ourselves and the listeners, “were you there?”
GOOD FRIDAY:
Tempe: The Dayspring Chorale will sing the original version of the Fauré Requiem, accompanied only by organ at 6:00pm on Good Friday, April 7 in the Tempe Sanctuary. Fauré’s work is remarkable among Requiem settings for its focus on consolation and redemption. His setting of the Latin Mass for the Dead was unprecedented: other than a brief reference within the “Libera me,” Fauré altogether omits the “Dies irae,” with its portrayal of the Last Judgment as a day of terror. His music instead focuses on the promise of Heaven. On the darkest day of the church year, Good Friday, we present this music as a sign that while a death precedes a resurrection, Jesus’ sacrifice assures us that resurrection must follow a death. Its ultimate message is one of hope
Arcadia: Dayspring Arcadia will show the film Jesus Christ Superstar on Good Friday, April 7, at 7:00pm in the park. Please bring your own chairs/blanket.
EASTER SUNDAY
Tempe: Join us on Easter morning, April 9 for festival celebrations with brass and choirs at 9:00 and 10:30 in Tempe.
Arcadia: Arcadia’s celebration begins at 11:00am and is followed by an Easter Egg Hunt in the park at noon.