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(Don Richards) The cross becomes more than just a furnishing
on the altar, when the people bring the witness of
Jesus Christ into the community.
I'm Don Richards. I'm a pastor at
Grace United Methodist Church.
And we're carrying a 425- pound cross 14.5 miles from my home
in Alliance, Ohio to Grace United Methodist Church
in North Canton, Ohio.
We're doing this to make a public witness that Easter
is about something more than chocolate bunnies
and colored eggs, and the cross is more than a piece of jewelry.
♪ (group) Amazing Grace how sweet the sound. ♪
(Don) I was out in my woods last fall.
There was this tree...
it was just so straight and beautiful,
and I was thinking "We need a cross in our church
in our family life center," and then the idea of carrying
the cross on Good Friday began to emerge.
(Matt Brown) It's raining, it's about 45 degrees out,
we have constant wind from the southeast.
What we're putting up with today is really nothing,
it's a pittance compared to what Christ had to put up with.
(Rebecca Evanoff) I think this is
a once-in-a-life time opportunity.
It's something really close to my heart.
I would walk all day.
(Don) No one was complaining.
No one was griping.
And we became a church without walls.
We became a church without a steeple,
without any furnishings.
(pastor) Those who had placed their cloaks and palm branches
along the way and praised Jesus now were hurling insults
at the innocent victim of human cruelty.
(Don) We became a church that was centered around
this cross of Jesus Christ.
(group) Our Father who art in heaven.
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
(Blake Fogle) This day has changed my life because it's
really helped me embrace the true meaning of what Jesus went
through when died on the cross.
(Rebecca) After this day the cross will mean so much more
to me because I carried it.
It's an amazing thing that I will never forget.
(Paul Olson) Being out here in the cold and carrying this
cross, and actually seeing a cross that's fourteen feet high,
and I could visualize him dying on the cross,
and it just makes me stop and think.
(man 1) Watch the pole.
(man 2) We're going to park it right here.
(Don) We couldn't get the cross in the door.
But they weren't willing to leave it parked outside
on the lawn and they tilted that thing up
and picked that 400-pound cross up.
And brought it through the door and there were so many people
in there waiting to see it.
Everybody broke it to a cheer.
I think this event will change the way I look at the cross.
I think I will look at the cross and see the power
it has to bring unity.
God brought 260 people together today just with a wooden cross.
It was a phenomenal, spiritual, Christ-centered experience.