Easter Services to Range From Stage to Stadium : Religion: Observers can attend celebrations from the solemn to the contemporary, complete with multimedia, as one Irvine church offers.

The Rev. Graydon Jessup wants this Easter to be “user-friendly.” That’s why the pastor of Eastside Christian Church in Fullerton says he’s not going to pelt his churchgoers with heavy biblical pronouncements or make them sit in a cold sanctuary for hours on end today.

“We’re not going to belt them over the head with ‘Thus said the Lord,’ ” Jessup said, “but present the Resurrection in an appealing way.”

Jessup’s services, the first ever to be held at Cal State Fullerton’s football stadium, are just one of the dozens of diverse Easter celebrations to be held throughout Orange County today.

Residents will attend services from the very solemn to the completely contemporary, all in celebration of the holiest day of the Christian calendar.

At South Coast Community Church in Irvine, churchgoers can expect to worship accompanied by the blasts of trumpets and trombones and the sounds of drums and guitars, church officials said. Pastor Bob Shank will speak about the meaning of Easter to his nondenominational church of more than 2,000 people, at services at 9 and 10:45 a.m.

Multimedia is the church’s specialty: attendees will watch actors live, onstage, interacting with a taped video shown on a large screen as if it were a news broadcast, said Lisa Schmidt, who works with the program. “It’s not what you would expect on Easter Sunday in a church,” she said.

At the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Santa Ana, today’s services will climax a week of often solemn contemplation. To accommodate its thousands of parishioners, the church will offer English masses at 6:45 and 10 a.m. and Spanish-language masses at 8 and 11:30 a.m. and 1, 5:30 and 7 p.m.

At Immaculate Heart, Holy Week, the week preceding Easter, includes picking up blessed palm fronds on Palm Sunday, watching live passion plays on Good Friday, and holding Easter Vigil on Saturday to await celebration of Christ’s Resurrection.

Father Enrique Serra said he will tie the week’s events together in his sermon.

“I’m going to be talking about journeys,” said Serra, originally from Cuba. “Since most of those in our congregation are immigrants, we’ll talk about a journey to salvation and how the journey has hardships, but a final destination.”

The Roman Catholic bishop of Orange, the Rev. Norman F. McFarland, will celebrate Mass at the Holy Family Cathedral in Orange at 11 a.m., culminating a busy week for the diocese.

Today is also the last day of celebration for two county congregations which are commemorating the Easter holiday together: Calvary Chapel churches in Costa Mesa and Capistrano Beach.

Pastor Chuck Smith Sr. of the Costa Mesa church will lead his congregation to the accompaniment of several choirs at a 6 a.m. service held in the open air at Irvine Meadows Amphitheater. His son, Capistrano Beach church Pastor Chuck Smith Jr., will lead a 9:30 a.m. service that will also feature Christian singers, music and “Scratch,” a lion-suited church mascot popular with children.

Traditional daybreak services in outdoor settings are also planned by various nondenominational churches.

Mariner’s Church will hold its sunrise service at the Newport Dunes waterfront resort and marina in Newport Beach at 6 a.m. And at Cal State Fullerton’s football field, Graydon Jessup will be waiting for parishioners at 6:29 and 9:30 a.m.

Jessup hopes people remember to set their clocks ahead for Daylight Saving Time, in time for today’s services. “If people come by at 10:30 instead of 9:30,” Jessup said, “they’ll be out of luck.”