Sunday, April 08, 2007

Easter Services

Today we had the occasion to visit Landmark Baptist Temple (Pastor Matt Holman), and participated in the most amazing Easter service! Part of the service included an artist writing some of the descriptive names of Jesus in chalk on a black canvas while a song was going, and when it transitioned into another song, he took large cans of paint and swept his bare hands in the paint to cover the entire canvas (larger than him) with various strokes and sprays and flicks of paint. First with the red, then with the white, then with some yellow. Each movement was an act of worship, timed to the music. The paint went atop the names of Christ. By the end of the 3rd song, the face of Jesus emerged. Amazing!

They also baptized 18 today. Each one had a slip of paper with their info on it, and while Matt baptized the candidates, another man hammered the info sheets onto the cross. Again, a great object lesson-the visual was so real. Not to mention, Matt performs a thrilling baptismal service-lots of excitement!

His son Jake is amazingly talented with voice, guitar, and keyboard. I would buy tickets to hear him in concert.

They have a light show too, and probably my favorite part is when the many many fairy lights twinkle on a black backdrop as the many stars in the sky on a dark night. It brings the songs to life.

They showed a great video presentation containing a marriage of powerful resurrection words and scenes from their Easter production. Whoever produced it is very talented-it looked professionally done.

And for a bit of comic relief-while also having a message, they played a video of a Terry Taylor-wanna be (Terry was the office linebacker, this guy was the Easter linebacker-tackling anyone celebrating Easter in the wrong way).

Matt's message was great, and lead to 8 souls accepting Christ at the invitation. They culminated the service with two songs from their Easter production.

They crammed all of these elements into just a 75 minute service. How do they do it? Everything is SEAMLESS. Our favorite style of service order.

For all who worshipped today, let us say in unison, "He is risen from the dead-He lives!"

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