Phil Worthington
Can your Easter egg hunt lead to the greatest treasure?
Phil Worthington's guide shows how to turn the fun of hunting for eggs into an awesome way to point to Christ.
Easter traditions with a purpose
The New Testament shows Jesus as the fulfilment of beloved traditions. After all, if Jesus really “is before all things, and in him all things hold together,” (Colossians 1:17) then we can point to Him using any of God’s creation. So, in Acts 17:23 Paul uses the Athenians’ altar “to an “unknown god” to show them the real God.
The early church took the pagan festival celebrating ‘Eostre’ - goddess of love, resurrection, new life and rebirth - and showed people Jesus. ‘Easter,’ eggs, and rabbits are not hijacked Christian traditions, they are worldly things we have used to show Christ. It’s easy to get angry when people replace Jesus with a magic rabbit, but no-one asks angry people for their reason for hope. 1 Peter 3:15 says: “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." The key is to be so filled with His hope that people ask us why, then we can joyfully, creatively use worldly traditions to point to Jesus.
I’ve run multiple Easter services, been in some slightly dodgy Passion plays (Jesus once nearly lost his trousers while being crucified!) and organised ‘walks of witness.’ Those things are good and important, but none of them engage non-Christians like an annual Easter Egg Hunt. It attracts loads of people, has the gospel spread throughout, and is a great way to engage with your community at Easter.
So, below is a guide on how to run your own Easter Egg Hunt and all the printables you need.
Resources
Click on the links below to download each file:
About the author
Phil Worthington is an Elim Minister from Birmingham who is currently living in the Forest of Dean, with his wife Grace, and their three children. He loves anything geeky, especially Lego, but he loves connecting to people even more; he will feed anyone given half a chance!
Phil has two main roles at Elim - promoting Evangelism Culture, and overseeing the Ministerial Application and Training processes.
He also runs a business resourcing churches with practical and IT needs (holisticsystems.org), and is currently writing a book and developing a course on our identities as Kingdom Citizens.
If you would like to contact Phil to help you with Evangelism Culture in your church or book him to speak, please contact him at phil.worthington@elim.org.uk
This accompanies the article from the February 2025 issue of Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.