City Church Norwich, based in Cowgate near Anglia Square, is a family church with a weekly attendance between 100 and 150 people ranging in age from young children to elderly members of the congregation.

 

Its Easter Sunday celebration was one that portrayed many ways to worship God with a warm welcome for visitors and hot cross buns.

 

Within the service there was a variety of performances woven throughout the worship. A compelling solo of ‘Thank you for The Cross’ had the congregation in awe of the price Jesus paid.

 

The young dance team energetically danced along to the song “I Am Free” by NewsBoys. The dance was choreographed by the six members of the dance group, involving a mix of drama to provoke us to think about our response to Jesus and the Cross.

 

The drama team performed two fun comedy sketches during the service. The first showed two characters and their responses to the crucifixion, whilst the second told the story of two soldiers outside the tomb of Jesus. These sketches, although light and wonderfully witty, again provoked us to think about our response to Christ.

 

A third sketch, via a short video, showed a spoof of the Vicar of Dibley performed by two other members of the drama group, purely for fun.

 

For the youngsters there was a children’s puppet show, with puppets singing along to a song based around the famous John 3:16 scripture.

 

The service was wrapped up with an Easter sermon by the Senior Minister Phil Thorne, on ‘The empty promises of Easter’, thanking God because the cross is empty, the tomb is empty and the grave clothes are empty.

 

The message and presence of God was strong within the church and following the sermon a number of people made first time or re-commitments to Christ.

 

The service really brought home the message and story of Jesus Christ and portrayed God’s love in many different ways.

Pictures of the dance and drama teams by Dave Humpries.