Celebrating the Resurrection outside the church building.

Easter Sunday in the Christian church is a day in which to celebrate the risen Christ. “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb...” (Luke 24:1-2)

When visiting the Darling Downs city of Toowoomba (sometimes known as QLD’s city of churches) there are many choices of where to attend an Easter worship service. This year, a group of about 30 young people and their leaders were camping at Easterfest in Toowoomba’s Queens Park and their youth worker had decided that a “campsite communion” service was appropriate and relevant on Easter Morning.

The elements of Communion

Rev Josie Nottle, presbytery youth worker for Bremer Brisbane Uniting Church Presbytery, said that its the perfect time to do it. “We’re here to celebrate Easter and so I thought lets do something simple and meaningful to connect the young people in our camp with the Easter Message”.

Fa Ngaluafe shares her testimony

With a short time of singing and an open invitation to share what Easter means to campers or leaders, it was leader and ministry candidate Fa Ngaluafe whose moving testimony had the rest of the camp in silence. Fa had shared how it was an Easter Sunday not much different to this one that she heard God really speak to her. It changed her life and her faith and despite being a little teary she said “this is not a sad day, this is a GREAT day and I’m just really happy to share how much God loves me and I love God”.

Rev Josie Nottle explaining the eggs

The sermon consisted of a reflection based around toy eggs (not unlike the toys you would get out of a novelty vending machine) being thrown to campers. When each egg was opened an element of the story of Jesus, in the lead up to and immediately following his crucifixion, was found and each of the recipients were asked to share and maybe elaborate on where in the Easter story this would appear. Rev Nottle then tied it all together with some reflections on the importance of the Easter message to the Christian church.

Tammy White serves Brad Case

During communion each of the campers was asked to actually serve the person next to them before they themselves were then in turn served. This seemed to cement the message of the selflessness of Jesus. Once again as the communion service finished, members of Glebe Road Uniting Church from Ipswich led the singing to finish the short time of worship. 

The genuineness of the worshippers was obvious and the connection to each other and to God was done with simplicity. This worship service in its simplicity managed to reflect the complexity of the Easter message and still connect to its “gathered congregation” of campers from Bremer Brisbane UCA congregations of Glebe Rd, Centenary, Indooroopilly, Oxley, Bulimba, Karana Downs and Forest Lake. 

Worshippers from Glebe Rd UCA as part of Bremer Brisbane Easterfest camping

For this blogger personally, it was the best Easter Sunday service of worship that I had been to in a long time. It was a privilege to be in the midst of these young people and their friendliness and genuineness of welcoming a stranger into their midst.