Holy week on the campus of WSU, for me, felt anything but holy.  The whole experience made my stomach hurt to be honest.  I over analyze things, I lose sleep over things, and I became a bit obsessive compulsive if you want to know the truth.  The entire week I couldn’t help but feel like this fragile relationship between the campus and the church was somehow in our hands, and somehow we had an opportunity to change things, to tell a better story, and it all made me nervous.

You see, at WSU, Christians hand out fliers.  They stand in the free speech area, the lobbies of dorms, behind trash bins, and outside the bathroom, and they hand out fliers;  it’s reminiscent of Las Vegas (not that I have ever been there or anything).  Students try to dodge, try not to make eye contact, they pull out their phones and fake calls, reach down to tie their shoe, but no matter the strategy the Christians are there, flier in hand, as if they were getting paid per handout.  

The problem with this method mostly, is that it doesn’t work.  At the end of the day these fliers have gone from an invitation to the Kingdom, to litter for the janitors to clean up and fuel for the campus newspaper to write about.  

For Holy Week, if we wanted to stand a chance, our approach had to be different, and that is what made me nervous.  

So, a team of dreamers assembled and mapped out the week to focus on the lives of the people around Jesus.  Day one was to be about Pontius Pilate, two Judas, three Mary, and Thursday and Friday were about Jesus himself.  The hope was to pose questions as present struggles that tie back to these people’s ancient realities, which in turn would segue into the story we were trying to tell all along.  Which for Good Friday was {Experience the Day True Love Died} and Easter {Experience the Day True Love Rose}.

On campus we set our hearts not to leave the tent to approach anyone with a flier for the first four days.  We resolved to provide good coffee (fair trade), good music (Coldplay, the Fray, DMB), artistic expression, a well-designed flier (not colored paper bearing the papyrus font), and a heart willing to converse (not debate).

On Monday we spray painted the question “Are there things you want to forget?” onto a 4x8 piece of Masonite board.  Then we provided black paint so students could come by, put their hand in the paint and leave a hand print on the board.  We also provided a basin of warm water to physically wash their hands of these things, thus referring to Pilate.  On the coffee cups we printed labels that said, “What is truth?  And Jesus stood silent.  So Pilate called for water to wash his hands clean of this man.”  

Tues:  “What is not for sale?”  The board was covered in stock market clippings and fake silver coins.  People wrote with sharpies or painted their answer on the board.  Again to reinforce the story we printed labels on the cups that said, “They counted out 30 pieces of silver and Judas led them to Jesus.”

Wed: “What has been your greatest loss?”  We ran clotheslines between our boards with pinned up small cloths that had the word “weep” written on them.  Students could write their loss on an index card and exchange it for a weep cloth.

Thurs.-Fri.:  “What would you give up your life for?”  We rented a helium tank and filled black balloons, duct taped them to a board on the ground, provided silver sharpies and scissors, and students could write their answer and then cut the balloon free from its string.

Friday we also bought every snack you could imagine, stapled them to our fliers, and in one four-hour block handed out over 500 invites.

Our tent was a sight to see with boards, clotheslines, and balloons everywhere, and we were physically throwing fruit snacks out as quickly as our interns could staple them.  Maybe people trusted us by then, or maybe students just like fruit snacks.  Either way, fliers were no longer a burden, no longer a disconnect, they had somehow began to feel natural, like a small part of a greater engagement.  

In Pullman 130 people attended our Good Friday experience and 50 attended in Moscow.  On Easter morning Resonate Church experienced three firsts.  It was the first time we ever met in the morning, the first time we held service on campus, and the first time we had over 250 people in attendance.  I heard word of an official number somewhere around 259 (counting the pregnant ladies as two of course).   

I shouldn’t bore with details.  I should tell you that I think what happened on campus was a result of our Church taking this Lent season very seriously.  As a body, we journeyed for 40 days through the same guided devotions, through the same prayers, and through the same scriptures.  We were unified, we were fasting, we were expecting, and we were praying big prayers together; daily.

The culmination of this Lent season may have looked liked boards, questions, spray paint, coffee, fliers, fruit snacks and music in the free speech areas of WSU and U of I, but it was so much more than that.  It was a like-mindedness that propelled us to be on campus each day with a humble urgency, and a quiet confidence. WSU senior Kate-Lynne Logan put it like this, “Holy week worked because we were quite literally ‘the body.’ Resonate does not have a building so there are no four walls to fall back on. We have our hands and our feet and our willing hearts and that is it.”

Liz Rodriguez, a Resonate intern on the campus of U of I, shared a conversation she had with a student named Molly who said she, “really enjoyed watching our boards all week, she felt they showed who we are as a generation and that these boards should be kept for a life time.”  And Brian Newman, a WSU Jr. said, “Due to Resonate’s presence on campus I was able to have spiritual conversations with friends I would not have otherwise been able to have.”  

Our church is growing into its personality, we are learning how to speak a language, and glory by glory God is revealing to us His plan.  We know that God, not coffee and art, is our only chance at reaching students, and we know that Jesus' great hope for the campus is Jesus, but we also refuse to not participate as God unfolds things.  So, for Resonate Church, Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter, were just another act of participation, another attempt at obedience, and another opportunity for us to extend a hand to the campus, and see, if just maybe, they are interested in a better story.