NYM event set for Friday morning

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

As local churches get ready for Holy Week services and prepare for Easter, schedules with Maundy Thursday and Good Friday worship make up a large portion of the local offerings. Central Haven Church (Assembly of God) in New York Mills is breaking the norm this year by adding a Passion Walk on Good Friday.

The event is the idea of Central Haven’s pastor, Stewart Burns, who first experienced a passion walk in 2004 after being invited to one in Perham.

“It’s part of our testimony,” said Burns. “My wife and I, 20 years ago were invited to come to this passion walk that was happening in Perham and we did and to be honest, I thought it was really strange, but that opened the door, a tragedy that came in our lives later on that year and we went to Pastor Dirk, who was the lead pastor of the church at that time and he lead us to the Lord and we’ve been following Him faithfully ever since.”

For the inaugural Passion Walk, community members are invited to meet at the city hall parking lot near the Post Office at 11:30 a.m. on Good Friday, March 29. The group will start with a prayer before walking down Walker Avenue, at a slow pace, added Burns, in order to accommodate all participants.

“We’ll gather there and then we’ll stand the cross up and gather around it and pray,” said Burns. “Usually we pray for our city officials, state and federal officials, we pray for our town and then for the witness of the cross as we walk along the streets.”

Burns said that they will follow the main parade route through town, with the exception of Centennial 84 Drive. They will start on Walker Avenue and from there the group will carry the cross to Park Street, then turn north on Tousley Avenue, going as far as Gilman Street, before making their way to Hayes Avenue and then to the church.

“Typically, we just open it up to whoever wants to carry the cross,” he said. “We say carry, but it’s actually just dragging, you put it over your shoulder and drag the one end. It’s always amazed me how many people that you wouldn’t expect that want to do that.”

Burns explained that Northwoods Assembly Church in Perham has held passion walks in the past, including the first one that he attended in 2004. He asked them if they would be holding one this year and when the church said no, he asked if he could use their cross this year. They were happy to oblige his request.

“It’s kind of a cool thing for me that we’re actually going to be using the same cross that we used 20 years ago to do that in NY Mills,” said Burns. “It’s always been an amazing thing for me, we did it for several years, and often today, we will see people that have stopped and they’re mouthing something, we might not know what it is, you can tell they’re not happy about the wait or whatever, but I’ve never seen anything like that when it comes to the passion walk, people stop and they just stare.

“I always love seeing parents in the car with kids and they all just stare and watch us walk by and I can’t help but think what that conversation must be like, ‘what were they doing? why were they doing that?” he continued. “I think it’s a great visual remembrance of what Christ really did on Good Friday. You can read about it all day long, but when you see a cross being dragged, then it kind of becomes real.”

Burns said that so many online preachers are teaching “with every head bowed, every eye closed,” and asking people to make a commitment to Christ, which according to Burns is “so opposite of what the Bible teaches.” He said that in contrast to that, the passion walk is a great opportunity to profess one’s faith.

“Jesus said in Matthew 10:32-33 that ‘whoever will confess me before men, I will confess them before my Father and whoever denies me before men, I will deny them before my Father.’ So it’s really a great opportunity to publicly confess an allegiance to Christ,” he said. 

After the group reaches Central Haven Church, a short communion service will be held around 12 p.m. All are invited to participate in both the Passion Walk and the communion service.

“It has an impact on people that I just don’t know how you could do any other way,” said Burns.