I love preaching creatively. But if you like me have been preaching for any length of time…there can be a challenge to present the Easter or Christmas story over and over in a creative and captivating way. So in the lead up to Easter 2019, I thought I would post some of the creative message ideas that I have delivered around the Easter Season. Most of these I have actual sermon notes for so if you want them or more information on the sermon, please don’t hesitate to email me on ppilt@ozemail.com.au. This blog is not to unpack each idea extensively but just give you the idea with some pics as to how that looked when we did it. If you use any of these ideas, which I am more than happy if you do, email me some pics of how it looked in your church. Would love to see them.
You may also want to check out my two other blogs on Creative Sermons.
Top 32 Creative Sermon Titles and Illustrations from Peter Pilt
Top 20 Creative Sermon Titles and Illustrations from Peter Pilt
So here are some creative ideas you may want to use for your Easter Messages.
1) Top Ten Reasons Why Easter Jesus is Better Than Christmas Jesus.
This is our theme for Easter 2019. It was in part inspired by the Prayer that Will Ferrell’s character prays in the movie Talladegada nights. Click here to see that prayer
We intend on setting up the Auditorium half as Christmas, complete with Christmas trees and presents, and the other half will be Easter.
The world is more comfortable celebrating a baby in a manger than a man dying on a cross claiming he is the Messiah.
Here are a few of my sermon points…just to help you with your thoughts.
- Keepers of the sheep met baby Jesus …..who on the cross became the keepers of the sheep
- King of Israel despised the baby in a manger, who on the cross become the King of Israel.
- Christmas Jesus is about a prophesied baby, Easter Jesus is about a prophesied Saviour
- Christmas is about three wise men. Easter is about just one wise man….the man on the cross beside Jesus yielding his life to him.
- When Christmas Jesus was born he was taken to the temple and dedicated as the presence of God was there…..With Easter Jesus, the veil was torn in two and the presence of God left the temple and now dwells amongst us.
- Christmas Jesus is about a small journey to Egypt….Easter Jesus is about a journey to Wholeness
- Christmas Jesus shed drops of baby tears. Easter Jesus shed drops of Blood.
- Christmas Jesus received gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. Easter Jesus received gifts of sin, wickedness and unrighteousness.
2) Law and Order Jerusalem
In the lead up to Easter 2018, I preached a whole series titled Law and Order….and made the church look like a court room scene.
My first week of preaching I addressed the congregation as if I was a lawyer and they were members of the jury. I spoke of the parties that form part of the prosecution and defence. The Jews, the angry mob, Pilate, Judas. I spoke of the man who was murdered, the man Jesus. I spoke of the difficulty in the case because there was no body. Is murder really murder if the person raises from the dead three days later.
One Sunday in the series, I spoke on the Blood, as evidence in the trial. I wore a red suit for effect.
I am also a fan of the TV show Suits, so I used this image in church one morning for effect.
3) Easter Protest and Calls For A Citywide Boycott of Hell.
So one year we did a whole stack of press releases and advertising calling for a citywide boycott of Hell. We explained that Hell is bad for you and we want people across the city to boycott this horrible place.
I went to strategic locations around the city and took photos of me encouraging people to Boycott Hell by Choosing Jesus. We then ran our Easter Weekend services like a protest rally. We had different people speak on hell and on Jesus….but all in the style of a rally.
We dressed the auditorium up like we were standing at the gates of Hell protesting people choosing to go there.
3) Easter as if it was Happening in Today’s World
One Easter we used this flyer as our Easter Services flyer. On the back was the story Easter, put into everyday news language that we see on the TV News: Encouraging people to come out and hear more about this man who has been executed and his claims that were going to change the world.
4) Funeral Service for Jesus.
This was possibly the most dramatic. We started our Good Friday Service and I interrupted the worship and announced that this man who we are singing about, has just been killed in the Middle East and we have been able to obtain his body.
At that point, four solemn pall bearers walked in with a coffin, to the funeral tune of the 23rd Psalm.
We then proceeded to have a funeral service for Jesus, complete with Eulogy and people speaking about him in the first person.
At the end I knocked on the coffin and said…it was true 2000 years ago but now the grave is empty as a coffin couldn’t hold him. We finished speaking about the power of resurrection. Was an amazing service.
This is a pic of Associate Pastor Lynley delivering a powerful Eulogy for Jesus at this funeral
5) CSI EASTER (Crime Scene Investigation)
At Nowra City Church we had a police lady, a paramedic, a doctor and a forensic photographer all part of the church. So one Good Friday service we had them speak as if they had just been called to a scene that was a man crucified on a cross….what did they observe from their profession viewpoint and what in their professional role would they actually do? The police lady had to get official permission to wear her uniform in this church service, which was granted. The second pic of her is her unveiling the murder weapon.
The Doctor spoke as if he had been asked to perform the autopsy…going through in the natural what would have killed Jesus on the cross…but he concluded that what killed him was our sin.
In all this, we had to be mindful that there will children in the service and so we had to not be too graphic.
The forensic photographer showed images of the cross that were from the movie The Passion.
6) Easter Now and Easter Then
We split the auditorium in half and had it dated 33AD and 2009
I, on the left, spoke about Easter that happened 2000 years ago, and Ps Russell spoke about Easter as if it had just happened. Just a creative way of retelling the story.
7) Easter in the Old Testament.
We actually did this for a Christmas Day service but it works for Easter too. We made a Tardis, and I dressed up as Doctor Who. We had six stations on the platform and every time I would go into the Tardis, I would come out at a different point in Old Testament History (which would be lit up now with the other 5 stations in darkness) and I would examine the story to see Easter in that story. (We had the appropriate sounds for the Tardis and Dr Who theme music). For example. Adam, Eve and the snake and the prophecy that the seed of Eve was to crush the head of the serpent, (this was a man and woman with a real snake in a tree). Abraham on Mt Moriah and the substitutionary lamb (It was a man cooking lamb on the BBQ), Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness, The original Passover in Egypt (a man painting the door posts and lintels of his house) and then the prophetic words about Jesus (An old time prophet declaring the works that Jesus would do).
8) Hope’s Stories
A simple yet powerful idea. We just filled our Good Friday and Easter Sunday services up with very different yet powerful testimonies of what Easter has done in people’s lives. This was amazingly powerful and very inspiring.
9) Testimonies of the Martyrs of Christianity.
Obviously Easter is about Jesus giving his life for others. What about the people who gave their life for the cause of Christ.
Joan of Arc, William Tyndale, William Wallace and others. We had people dressed up as these famous people and they shared their story in the first person. We then finished off talking about how these people gave their life because they believed in the man who gave his life for them. Some of the people who were speaking we had arrested and dragged out whilst they were still speaking….for dramatic effect.
Other ideas that I have used but I don’t have pics for, is to preach on all the vantage points of the Easter Story. There was a movie that came out a few years ago called Vantage Point and it was the same story told 6 times from different people’s vantage points. It was excellent. So we did the same for the Easter Story. Another year I preached on all the ways you can be more like Judas this Easter. Here are some of my points.
- Feed our personal issues rather than allow Christ to deal with them
- Don’t allow God to search our hearts and minds
- Allow Money to speak too loudly to us.
- Make our plans the god of our life and think God is there to serve us.
- Acknowledge Jesus as teacher – but never Lord or Master
- Try and manipulate Jesus – to force his hand as it were
- Identify with the humanity of Jesus but not his ultimate mission
Anyway, I hope that helps you come up with some sermon ideas for your Easter preach.
You may also be interested in two of my very popular blogs on other Easter topics.
Is It Ok To Eat Red Meat On Good Friday?
What is Lent and Why I Don’t Celebrate It
Happy Easter
Peter
Here are my Top Ten Theologically Orientated Blogs:
- Powerful Meditation on Ezekiel 37–Valley of the Dry Bones
- A Meditation On The Story of Jonah–From A Recent Sermon I Preached.
- There Is A Smorgasbord Of Religions In The World: What’s A Key Distinctive Of Christianity?
- I Support Euthanasia and I am Against it at the Same Time.
- Be Inspired by These Amazing Bible Illustrations.
- Peter Pilt on Shemitah, Blood Moons and the End of the World
- Peter Pilt’s Trip to Israel and the West Bank with World Vision.
- A Paper on the Application of Job – Love Does No Harm
- An Exegetic Analysis and Meditation on Romans 12:9-21
- Honour Killings–Are they rooted in Islam?
Categories: CityHOPE Church, Creative ideas, Easter, Nowra City Church
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