If you have still got your Christmas tree trunk and made it into a cross, here are a few ideas for using in worship displays leading up to and including Easter

If you haven't, talk someone into creating a large cross for you (and then talk someone else into loaning you their 'workmate' to stand it in).

A large palm branch fastened across the span will dry through the Lenten period and add character to your Easter Cross. Chicken wire up the trunk and across the span will enable palm crosses to be threaded through by congregations or to be placed before the service  for the congregation to help themselves.

There are several services already created directing you to hang items from the Easter Story on the cross so I am not going to recreate any of them here. Start with a fake-grass base and add sacking or hessian.

Your tree may not be large enough to hang anything from in which case place them at the foot of the cross offering them through the service or each week in prayer.

Draping a deep purple cloth from one end of the span adds another texture to the display, but leave the hessian and grass there - add to it rather than remove, you are adding layers to the story.

On Easter Sunday morning take away the palm crosses, the items from the display, the purple fabric, the hessian and the crown of thorns. Simply leave the grass and the cross with its chicken wire and invite the congregation to insert fresh flowers into the wire frame. If you have someone who can create one, hang a circlet of fresh flowers where the crown of thorns had been hanging. And rejoice!

The large palm frond will keep if kept dry - it will never be the same again but it will be useable in other displays. (I paid about £15 for the one shown in these photos.)

Do please feel you can use these ideas or change them to suit your purpose, and please let us know if you create something - send us a photograph to add to the ideas for others to share.

Jacqui Hicks