The Christ Victorious Project
The Request
The Worship Pastor was planning Easter and wanted something around the theme of Christ Victorious. He wanted to both: a) prepare the congregation in advance of Easter to celebrate joyously and b) to communicate to visitors that God is still active today.
The Project
1. Our faith is built on God's faithfulness. It nurtures us to remember. At Easter we celebrate Christ Victorious, but we already know him as Victorious in our lives. We all have stories of Christ Triumphant in us or in our circumstances. We decided to collect true stories from the congregation in the weeks leading up to Easter.
2. We presented the project to the congregation:
At Easter we welcome lots of visitors. What if they were to experience one of our stories of Christ Victorious? What about two stories? Ten? 153? 700? We invite you to share your stories. For the next 3 weeks, there will be tables in the lobby with these shipping tags on them. I love them because they remind me of medals. When you see a medal on a soldier, even if you don't know the story behind it, you know these things: there was a war, there was a battle, there was a cost, and praise and gratitude are due. We don't even need to know the story to know those things. We invite you to think of those battles you've experienced in which Christ revealed himself as Christ Victor, either in you or in your circumstances. Do you have a memento you could share with us? This tag has just a scrap of fabric on it. I am not going to tell you the story. I know it and God knows it, the visual is still useful. God won in this true story. This tag has a scrap of a map on it. This one a photograph of a powder-blue pickup truck. For those who need to use words, this tag has a phrase on it, and this one a story written out. You can take a tag with you if you would prefer to work at home. If you are not sure what story to write, spend some time with the Holy Spirit, asking Him to bring to mind the story He would like you to share. You can do more than one tag. We need them back by April 1st.
We gathered tangible reminders of Christ's Triumphs in our lives and circumstances. We also invited people to tell their stories to one of our videographers.
3. My little team of artists mounted the shipping tags on Styrofoam boards covered with ivory felt. We hung two large 8 foot boards at the front of the sanctuary, twelve 4 foot boards along the walls in the sanctuary and another eight 4 foot boards in the lobby. We wanted people to feel surrounded by evidence of the Living God. (Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures during the exhibit. The pictures featured above are of a few of the smaller panels taken a year after the project had been taken down. They are leaning in a hallway. That is not how they were displayed).
4. The videographer put together a short little video to accompany the Worship Pastor's explanation of the project on Easter Sunday.
The Debrief
This project needed very little debriefing. So many participated and wanted to share their stories with family, friends and guests. For the weeks following Easter Sunday, there were always people lingering around the panels, reading tags, sharing stories, giving thanks and worshipping together. The ivory panels were hung on mostly white walls, but the stories stood out and the people remembered The Mighty Acts of God...Now.
Here is the exhibit tag we posted with the panels:
Christ Victorious: Mementos From the War
Our faith is based on God's faithfulness and sharing the stories of His Real Presence and victory in our lives is one way we strengthen each other's faith. As we prepared to celebrate Christ Victorious on Easter Sunday, we gathered tangible reminders of His Triumphs in our lives and circumstances by mounting mementos of our stories onto tags. These are stories that are real, stories of triumph, stories from our Family.
Why?
Because He told us to remember
Because He saved us once, and He saves us still
Because Love has come for us all
Because He knows the number of hairs on your head
Because His Name is Faithful and True
Because He conquered Death by death
Because He is Victor