Easter 復活節

We had a wonderful Easter service at our church. Now I’ll bet you are wondering why I am writing this more than a week after Easter. Well, I like to sit on things and think about them a bit before I comment. As you can see I didn't take any photos at the service so I had to do something as dumb as take a take a photo of a photo of it...which does look kind of interesting with the crinkles.

Easter in Western cultures seems to be a time when a lot of people go to church who don’t normally go, hence the term ‘Easter Christians.’ Pastors do their best sermons 信息 and try to lead people to Christ or at least attract them to come back in the future. There are usually not a lot of spaces in pews, even in churches that normally have quite a few. There are even sunrise services which, not being a morning person, do not often attend.

Among Chinese Christians, I notice there is not the same variation in attendance. Of course the pastor gave a great message about the resurrection and we had a wonderful flag dance / singing by one of the choral groups, but they were just as crowded as they normally are. We also had more than 30 baptisms 受洗 just in our service!
They normally have very good attendance and I did not notice really that much of a difference. …maybe a little bit more overflow, but not much more than usual. That is probably because there is no secular tradition 沒有這種習慣 of Easter in Chinese culture as there is in Western culture where people who otherwise would not darken the door of a church suddenly dress up and attend.