A Community Passover Seder At A Church?

     Page Fifty-Five.
     I'm getting this blog up late. Please forgive me, I've been tired lately. A couple of nights ago I had 260 people for dinner and it wore me out, but I'm feeling better now, so here we go. I'm sure that whenever you have 260 people for dinner it tires you a touch. How do you handle it? I'll take suggestions. The fact is, I got in over my head a bit.
     I'm very friendly with the senior minister of one of our very large churches here in Cleveland Heights, Church of the Saviour. This church is United Methodist and it's a very grand, beautiful, 1920's, French Gothic cathedral. They added an addition in 2007, so it really is massive now. It's a large, thriving congregation with five different services every Sunday. Probably a couple thousand people are members as 500-600 show up regularly each Sunday.
     About ten years ago I began conducting "community Passover Seders" at a church on Cleveland's West Side and I did that for three years in a row. My Seders were instructional and with all the food. (The "Seder" is the ceremonial dinner and formal retelling of the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. The Seder takes place on the first two nights of Passover.) So in essence, my community Seders were a complete meal with a "Passover 101" lecture before, during and after eating. They were well received but not large. The first one was maybe 70 people with each of the following two under 50. I've been in the mood to do a Seder again during the last couple of years and the timing must've been right 'cause I approached my friend, Church of the Saviour's senior minister, a few months ago about doing one at his place and he was all for it.
     I just wasn't expecting 260 people to show up. Thankfully, the church has many wonderful volunteers and they even got a volunteer coordinator to oversee everything. There are also two fantastic kitchens, each one worthy of being in a white tablecloth restaurant. But everyday the office manager told me that the RSVP list had grown exponentially overnight. It was crazy. So there I am, trying to write a Haggadah (the booklet with the story of Passover) so that it's accessible to Christians, while planning an elaborate meal, while planning my oral presentation.
     It goes without saying that the reason Christians want to attend a Seder is that it was Jesus' last meal, but there, I said it anyhow. That link is a very valuable and vital association between the two religions; it's a relationship which cannot be overstated. Also, everybody has seen Charlton Heston and The Ten Commandments so everybody is sort of familiar with the story. Subsequently, many Christians want to experience a Passover Seder in real life. I'm glad to do it. The more people know about different religions, cultures and races, the more people are exposed to others who think or act differently, then the less people will exhibit bigotry, fear and hatred. This isn't rocket science.
     So... anyhow, I've been tired the last few days. But I am slowly feeling stronger. But, I think that the next time I have 260 people for dinner I'm going to get McDonald's.