West Hills Community Church in Morgan Hill invites all South
County residents to join in a joyful Easter celebration for all
ages at 10am on March 27 at the outdoor amphitheater of the Morgan
Hill Community Center, 1700 Monterey St. There will be a full
worship band, 40-voice choir, plenty of congregational singing and
a guest soloist, Steve Lively.
West Hills Community Church in Morgan Hill invites all South County residents to join in a joyful Easter celebration for all ages at 10am on March 27 at the outdoor amphitheater of the Morgan Hill Community Center, 1700 Monterey St. There will be a full worship band, 40-voice choir, plenty of congregational singing and a guest soloist, Steve Lively.
This talented musician has film credits which include “The Lion King” and “Aladdin,” as well as national television commercials for products such as Honda Motorcycle. In addition, he has done background vocals for Neil Diamond and Sheena Easton.
Lively also serves as a music minister at Grace Baptist Church in Santa Clarita. For the past 10 years he has directed a 110-voice high school/college musical group along with a small vocal ensemble, Jubilation.
In addition to the day’s message, which will focus on explaining why Easter is celebrated, there will be free refreshments, special gift bags for children, visitor packs for adults, a tent stocked with Christian literature and trained volunteers ready to handle prayer requests or meet other spiritual needs.
Six hundred chairs will be available, and people are invited to bring blankets to sit on the grass. The service will go on rain or shine, so if the weather looks threatening people are advised to bring umbrellas.
“This is a time of celebration for those who have faith in Jesus, but it is also an opportunity for others to come and hear about how He has overcome death for all of us. We hope as many as possible will come to share our joy,” said Pastor Mike Burchfield.
For more information call the church at (408) 779-0697.
Although American society emphasizes the holiday of Christmas, for most Christians the most important day of the year is Easter, a great feast commemorating the resurrection from the dead of Jesus of Nazareth.
The word “Easter” is used only in Germanic languages. It may be derived from the name of an ancient Teutonic goddess of spring, but scholars are not in agreement about its origin. Other languages call the day by some form of the Jewish word “Pesach,” for Passover.
Easter is a “movable feast,” which means that it does not always fall on the same calendar date. At the Council of Nicea in 325, the assembled church officials agreed on how to calculate the date of Easter: It is the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring, because Jesus’ death and resurrection were linked to the Jewish Passover, a feast calculated according to a lunar calendar.
In the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, Easter falls between March 22 and April 25, but because the Eastern Orthodox churches use a different calendar, their Easter sometimes coincides with that of the Western churches, but can come as much as five weeks later. This year it will be May 1.
