Churches encouraged to text during Sunday sermons

Churches encouraged to text during Sunday sermons

Members of Presbyterian Church congregations won’t be told off for taking their mobile phones out during sermons this Easter Sunday, 8 April.

In fact, ministers will be encouraging them to make more use of texting as Holy Week 2012 (1 - 8 April) sees the launch of KiwiEaster -- a chance to step into Easter week’s dramatic events through first person story telling, delivered free to subscribers mobile phones either by text, facebook or twitter.

The texting initiative, KiwiEaster, is a partnership between the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Presbyterian Youth Ministry (PYM) and Presbyterian churches throughout the country.

The texts unfold the Easter story from the viewpoint of a number of different people in the Bible via short text messages - each Biblical character shares their own unique viewpoint on what they ‘see’, allowing the subscriber to journey through Holy Week with them as they receive the messages at the “time” events would have occurred during the time of Christ.

Subscribers will share the dramatic last week of Jesus' life, death and resurrection as described in the Bible; experiencing in real time this story of suffering, pain and joy in a series of 33 free messages.

Gordon Fitch, national Youth Coordinator for Presbyterian Youth Ministry says, “KiwiEaster brings a fresh look to the Easter story and gives people the opportunity to read it in the context of a familiar, and modern medium. The story is a good one and will never change -- it’s just how we tell it that does.”

This innovative Easter texting project is available to anyone to sign up to at www.kiwieaster.org.nz, or by simply texting ‘follow kiwieaster’ to 8987.

The Presbyterian Church is the third largest denomination in Aotearoa New Zealand, with more than 400,000 people identifying as Presbyterian in the 2001 Census, and 30,000 regular church attenders.

More information about Presbyterian Youth Ministry can be found at www.pym.org.nz

ENDS

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