Easter outreach ideas

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by His great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation... 

1 Peter 1:3

Easter is the perfect time of the year to speak naturally and clearly about who Jesus Christ is and why it is important to believe in Him.  I’ve included a few ideas for using the holiday of Easter to talk to others about Jesus: 

·         Print out the article Beyond Blind Faith at http://www.everystudent.com/features/faith.html to hand out to classmates.  Ask them to read the article and let you know what they think.  Of course it would be good for you to read the article yourself and find a few parts of the article that you can ask them about which will enable you to talk about the importance of Christ’s death and resurrection (found in the latter half of the article).

·         You can host an event and show the film The Passion of the Christ or the JESUS Film.  Here are some questions designed for small group discussion with non-Christians after viewing the film.  One idea is to show the last half of the JESUS film to make the showing shorter and use some of the questions from The Passion for discussion.

·         Write a survey – you could include questions like, ’What is the significance of Easter?’  ‘How do you celebrate Easter?’   ‘Do you practice any of the Russian Easter traditions?’  ‘What is the significance of the traditions you practice/why do you observe them?’   ‘Who is Jesus?’  ‘Why did He die?’  ‘How does the fact that Jesus died affect your life today?’  Interview your classmates, friends, fellow students living in the dorms, etc.  Ask them if you can briefly tell them how Jesus has changed your life.

·         Get familiar with the history of Easter in Russia.  Find out what the traditions are surrounding Easter and the church (for instance, what does giving one another a red egg symbolize?  What part does it have in the Easter story?  What do the different elements of the Easter service represent and why are they important to observe?).  Understand how your culture understands Easter.  Find ways to use this information to talk about how death and resurrection of Jesus has changed your life in your conversations about Easter.

·         Consider going with your friends to a Saturday night Easter service at an Orthodox church.  Listen/look for elements of the gospel in the service and initiate a discussion of what you just experienced together.  You can suggest looking at the Biblical basis for what you experienced at the service and open your Bible to a passage talking about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and highlight or summarize why He died and rose again.  You can talk about sin, consequences of sin (eternal death), God’s love and Jesus’ willingness to be executed for us so that we can have forgiveness and eternal life with God.  Of course, you will want to explain how they can start that kind of relationship with Christ – it would be easy to use a gospel booklet at this time, especially the Сущность booklet if you have one.

Of course, in any situation, you will want to have thought through what Easter means to you and how Christ’s death and resurrection has affected you life.  Think through specific examples and be ready to give an account for the hope that is now within you!