Sunday, April 23, 2000

Easter: A new beginning

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Easter morning sermons share a common message

BY Richelle Thompson
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        On a corner once teeming with prostitutes and drug dealers, the Rev. Carolyn Ford-Griffith will preach about second chances until her voice goes hoarse.

The Rev. Carolyn Ford-Griffith (Stephen M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

        Meanwhile, from a music stand pulpit and a makeshift altar in a middle school cafeteria, the Rev. Eric Anspaugh will tell his start-up congregation about the promise of new beginnings.

        Today, religious leaders around the Tristate and world will deliver Easter sermons on redemption and hope, new beginnings and second chances, to pews packed with people dressed in their Sunday best and Easter bonnets.

        For some in the audience, this may be the only service they attend all year. For others, Easter will bookend countless days spent in worship and communion.

        Yet the message, say area pastors, is the same for all Christians. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a promise of hope, a pledge there is life beyond this world.

        As Tristate leaders prepared for the holy season, six pastors talked of Easter's timeless message and what it means in their lives.

        “This whole area was known as "The Killing Field,'” says the Rev. Mrs. Ford-Griffith, her hand waving up and down the 3300 block of Montgomery Road in Avondale.

        Some buildings still have broken windows. But the sidewalk in front of Hope Temple Church Ministry is swept, and newly planted trees are starting to bud.

        “You couldn't tell what color the grass was,” she says. “Nobody with good sense would come here.”

        Nobody but the Rev. Mrs. Ford-Griffith, who felt — and answered — a spiritual call to help the neighborhood. In 1991, she left a comfortable position with an established church to start a ministry in a cubbyhole that fit no more than 20 people shoulder to shoulder.

        Two years later, the one-time lounge singer opened Hope Temple in two buildings slated for demolition. Framed photographs on a wall inside the church chronicle its resurrection.

        In the beginning, there was no roof. The floor was caved in.

        Today, the smell of fresh paint from a new classroom and sawdust from an expansion linger in the air. Shrieks of laughter rise from the basement, where the ministry offers an after-school program five days a week.

        Some of the children play basketball on The Lord's Courtyard, once a trash heap. Instead of discarded drug needles, a tot-size swingset and picnic table sit on a patch of grass behind the building.

        On sunny days, the 56-year-old pastor throws the sanctuary doors open to the streets. Sometimes people stagger in; sometimes they fall.

        But everyone receives the same treatment. And they hear the same message.

        “When you fish and throw out the net,” says the Rev. Mrs. Ford-Griffith, “You don't know what you're going to drag in. What I do is try to help them so they don't leave the same way.”

        This Easter, she will remind the audience of what the building used to be. And how it took hope and faith to turn it around.

        “That's part of our name,” she says: “Hope. Each day is a new beginning.”

        Twenty miles north, at one of the Tristate's largest churches, the Rev. Steve Sjogren will draw on his darkest days.

        “I've had to re-examine personally how to find hope and how to go back and rediscover it,” says the Rev. Mr. Sjogren, founder of Vineyard Community Church in Springdale. “There's not a once-in-a-lifetime (experience where) you get a wheelbarrow of hope and it lasts you.”

The Rev. Steve Sjogren

        He used to think it did. The Rev. Mr. Sjogren was riding high on a wave that began in 1985 with 37 people meeting on Sundays in a square dance barn. He led a contemporary worship service designed to meet people where they're at spiritually and imbue in them the motto that is the foundation of the church, “Small things done with great love will change the world.”

        By December 1997, when the Rev. Mr. Sjogren went into the hospital for a routine operation, the church had flourished — with weekly attendance near 4,000.

        During the surgery, a needle punctured his aorta, nearly killing him. Seven surgeries later, the Rev. Mr. Sjogren walks with a cane and has lost some vision. The latest prognosis: at 44 years old, he needs hip and knee replacements.

        “I used to be a rabbit,” the Rev. Mr. Sjogren says. “Now, I'm a turtle.”

        But the turtle wins the race in the long run. Six months ago, the church moved into new facilities with 130,000 square feet on 48 acres. The sanctuary seats 2,450; the staff numbers 100.

        At the first Easter in the new building, attendance is expected to total 8,000 to 9,000 — half the population of Mason. The church will conduct four services to accommodate the crowds.

        Yet even with the church's success and his own re-invigorated faith, the Rev. Mr. Sjogren still battles depression. And that's part of his Easter message.

        There will be pain in this life, but God provides the strength to persevere. Once people drop the conditions they place on God, the do-this-or-I-won't-believe blackmail, God gives hope, the Rev. Mr. Sjogren says.

        Peace will follow.

        “Is Jesus alive in your life?” the Rev. Mr. Anspaugh will ask the members of the new Cincinnati Church of the Brethren Fellowship.

        The 20 families will hear the message of the resurrection in the same room that fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders sat in to eat pizza and french fries last week.

The Rev. Eric Anspaugh

        The tables at Loveland Intermediate School will be pushed to the back, and the chairs arranged like pews.

        Bright chalk drawings and the cafeteria rules decorate the walls. The foyer/hallway is plastered with inspirational posters aimed at 12-year-olds: “When in doubt,” said Mark Twain, “tell the truth.” And, “Smile. It will increase your face value.”

        “It requires some creativity,” admits the Rev. Mr. Anspaugh. To create a worship environment, they often use candles, fountains, greenery or plants.

        But at the only Church of the Brethren congregation in Southwest Ohio, it's not where they worship, but how they practice their faith.

        The philosophy of carrying on the work of Jesus “peacefully, simply and together” is at the heart of the Church of the Brethren.

        The congregation stood outside Wal-Mart last month collecting donations that filled more than five dozen health kits for people in crisis. Small but mighty, they plan to renovate a playground in Loveland and are working with an interfaith group to re-establish a food bank.

        Easter is a reminder to make Jesus evident in daily life, from relationships with spouses and children to witnessing in the workplace, says the Rev. Mr. Anspaugh.

        “That's the power of the resurrection,” he says. “It signals new life, new beginnings and new possibilities. On this side of the empty tomb, we can't fully explain it. We just know life doesn't end at death.”

        From the pews of Bond Hill-St. Mark United Methodist, the 100 or so people attending Easter Sunday services can look out into the neighborhood.

The Rev. Norman Macon

        The rambling old homes speak of more prosperous days. Some yards need a mow. It is a neighborhood forgotten during the 1960s and 1970s, when white residents left for the suburbs.

        In 1973, the dwindling Bond Hill congregation merged with St. Mark, an east-side fellowship. And the church was resurrected.

        When members replaced the more than 100-year-old stained glass windows about seven years ago, they decided to put in clear glass.

        “That way we could have a view of the outside,” says the Rev. Norman Macon, “and people on the outside can see we're not hiding behind stained glass.”

        It doesn't take Easter for the Rev. Mr. Macon to preach about reaching out and helping others up. His congregation is opening a computer lab to teach adult literacy classes. They operate a food pantry and run a multi-cultural library to promote diverse role models for kids.

        But Easter is a good reminder.

        “He is risen,” says the Rev. Mr. Macon. “It's a message that's always new.”

        In Bellevue, Ky., two churches looked to an ancient tradition to plan a groundbreaking celebration.

        The congregations of Prince of Peace Lutheran and St. John United Church of Christ planned to come together for the first time for an Easter eve vigil service and candlelight procession.

        They were to enliven the Scriptures with drama, puppetry and dance. Kids were encouraged to bring stuffed animals to share in the story of Noah and the Ark.

        “We need to get beyond our own four walls,” says the Rev. Jane Ellen Jarrell, the first woman ordained in a Northern Kentucky Lutheran Church.

        “It's not to say we scrap our own traditions, but we reach out.”

        In October 1998, four Protestant denominations — including the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and the United Church of Christ — joined in full communion. That means they recognize each other's baptism and can share clergy.

        Promoting cooperation and unity is a part of the Easter story, the Rev. Ms. Jarrell says. Because the resurrection promises another world, people should share the good news and hope with all.

        “I'm not just a Lutheran,” she says. “I am a Christian.”

        After a year spiked with health problems and highlighted by a celebration of 40 years in the priesthood, Cincinnati's Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk will tell his flock about hope.

        “The basic message is always the same. Christ is risen, and all who believe in Him have a share in His risen life,” says the archbishop, who presides over the 550,000 Roman Catholics in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.

        “That means there is hope for our lives,” he says. “That there is significance in our lives, and that we do not live alone.”

       

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