An Easter What?

This is my first adventure into blogging. I hope it will form somewhere to record the experience, mainly technical, of running the Easter Trail at St. David's United Reformed Church, Easter. I hope it will inspire others to try something similar, and provide some assistance to those doing so.
So first of all, what is an Easter Trail? The idea (sometimes called an Easter Journey) is not ours – it comes from a number of other organisations, including Frodsham Churches Together and the Bible EncounterTrust. The aim is to create an engaging, immersive presentation of the Christian Easter Story, aimed at late primary school children from non-church backgrounds. It aims to present the events of Holy Week, the Crucifixion and Resurrection in a way which captures the children's imagination, and leaves a lasting impression upon them. This is something that all schools have to cover as part of Religious Education, but often struggle to do. Our experience is that schools are very receptive to Churches offering to help with this, which provides the churches with an outreach opportunity.

In Gethsemane

In “Arts” terms the Easter Trail is a piece of Promenade Theatre – the audience are split into small groups, who are lead by the “storyteller” from scene to scene through dramatic re-creations of the key locations in the Easter story. In each they meet actors in costume who play characters from the story and tell their section from their perspective. The audience is then lead onwards by the storyteller.

Empty Golgotha

For each scene a combination of scenery, lighting, sound and props are used to convey the atmosphere and engage the audience's imagination. Not every scene needs all these elements, but the combination of scene and cast needs to hold the audience's attention and communicate the key points of the Easter story.