Russ Jones - OneNewsNow - 4/22/2011 3:45:00 AM
Easter and Christmas are two holidays that typically draw Christians to church. But one pastor believes that's the wrong place for believers to celebrate Resurrection Sunday.
Rev. Eric Foley is author of The Whole Life Offering and pastor of Doers of The Word Evangelical Church, which meets simultaneously in Colorado Springs and in Seoul, Korea. He says the Bible suggests the proper place to celebrate Easter is on the road.
He references Matthew 28:7, where the angel tells the "women who come to anoint Jesus' body [to] 'go quickly [and] tell his disciples he's risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him.'" From that, he decides that "if we want to be faithful Christians at Easter, then the way that we truly celebrate Easter isn't to dress in our fine clothes...gather together for a worship service, and then...go home and eat with our family members, but we ought to be able to go. It's almost as if it's best if there's a sign on the [locked] church door...that says, 'He is risen, and he's gone ahead of you out into your community, and that's where you will meet him.'"
Much of Foley's ministry is aimed at areas that practice great persecution against Christians, where churches do not have the luxuries of overhead projectors and other resources. So he says leaders have to know scripture well.
"They have to be able to make a compelling presentation of the gospel. That ought to challenge us as Christians in the United States to ask this Easter, 'Could we be a living Bible to the people that we meet? Could the celebration of Easter take place, not just in that hour on Sunday morning when we gather together with the church, but when we leave? Where are we going, and how are we going to celebrate Easter by sharing with the people who do not yet know the message of the risen Lord,'" the pastor decides.
Ultimately, Foley says Easter Sunday is the perfect day to practice both of those through acts of service in one's community.
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What do you think? More importantly how are you planning to tell the world about the Risen Savior this week?
Live holy, preach Jesus!
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