Faiths unite for Palm Sunday event

When the sound of church bells fills the air of downtown Columbia on Sunday, don’t worry, you haven’t missed church.

The bells at 10:20 a.m. will signal the beginning of an ecumenical Palm Sunday procession. Congregants from each of the downtown Christian churches will be asked to head toward the corner of Broadway and Ninth Street, where a celebration will begin at 10:30 a.m.

“I think ecumenical relations are very important, as well as interfaith relations,” said John Baker, senior pastor at First Baptist Church. “This is a Christian story, so Christians come together, we drop the barriers that divide us, and we gather around the main story that unites us. That is, our belief that God was acting in Christ, drawing people to himself.”

Clergy from each church will split the duties of leading the service and blessing the palms, which will last around 15 minutes.

“If it lasted any longer, we’d all be late for our churches’ services,” Baker said.

There will be a brass band on a stage, amplified “so everyone can hear and participate,” Baker said. He hopes people who just happen to be downtown will hear the festivities and feel free to join in.

“It’s always a warm experience of Christian unity and harmony,” Baker said. “This is a congregational depiction of the celebration of Christ as he entered into Jerusalem on a donkey, leading up to the key events of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ.”

Easter, which comes a week later on April 8, is a celebration of the Resurrection.

Though a donkey has been part of the Palm Sunday procession in the past, Baker said he was unsure whether anyone would bring a donkey this time.