Easter brings light and sound to local church
By Tim O?Connell
On both sides of the Belmont Hills, local churches are ever hopeful of a few extra parishioners in their pews as annual Easter celebrations draw near. With Easter eggs on the shop shelves and the chocolate bunnies being stored away for Sunday morning, the commercial hype surrounding Easter appears to be as popular as ever. For followers of all church denominations in the Wellington area however, the upcoming weekend is all about reminding people of the original reason for the holiday break-the death and resurrection of Jesus. Pastor Daryl Collingwood of the Maungaraki Baptist Church said the church is planning an audio visual extravaganza on Easter Sunday, which focuses on the significance of the cross. ?This will be the third time we?ve done it since I?ve been here-it?s varied in the last couple of years but it?s just something a bit different.? A massive Easter camp at Manfield, near Fielding was another big event that the Maungaraki faithful were taking part in, along with 800 others from all around New Zealand. While conceding that the holiday did not generate extra people in the church on the Sunday morning, Pastor Collingwood believed that people were still using the holiday to do something positive. ?It?s quite interesting actually-we tend to get more here at Christmas than on Easter, in fact it would be close to nil extra really,? he said. ?I think for most people Easter is a time when they are saying ?it?s about family, it?s a holiday?, and there probably isn?t a hang of a lot to do with reflecting on the extra significance of it.? At St Benedicts Catholic Parish in Khandallah, Father Tony Kearns says that while there hasn't been any real increase in congregation numbers over Easter, he is noticing a gradual return of people in general to embracing traditional values of previous generations. "My view personally is that the trend towards conservative traditional values have changed, and people are choosing a better lifestyle over having more money. "While people aren't flooding back in their thousands, we are certainly not experiencing a drop off, anyway."
