good friday

Jason Yee and I got to plan the afternoon Good Friday service on ASU campus. it was for a yearly event called rez week. they let us set up in the middle of campus. I guess in the past, the Good Friday thing has usually been a straight up worship service with testimonies or a sermon.

this year, Jason and I wanted to change it up a little - not just for the sake of changing - but for the sake of outreach and a little bit different focus than just gathering a bunch of christians to talk christianese to each other.

so we had Brandon Reid Allen out and DJ Ruthless (bro was scratching on a tape deck - sick!). but instead of preaching about christian living or holiness, we had different campus and community organizations talk briefly about social justice, the needy, the poor, the homeless. folks from asian bible fellowship, helping hands for the homeless and neighborhood ministries came and had some interactive activities to help us learn more about the less fortunate in our area and how we can help them.

more emphasis was made for us to see the church's mission as more than simply convincing people that Jesus is Lord - to see that he died and rose from the dead in order for us, in turn, to serve those around us. to 'give unto the least of these' while we're here. i think some folks got it.

so there wasn't a huge turn-out. and it wasn't a complete disaster. we did do a bit of praise and worship at the end. but as Jason and I agreed, we'd rather have done something we believed in and fallen flat on our faces, than to do what was always done for the sake of tradition.