(April 17, 2014 - by Ruth Pike)  What do the X Factor, a superhero and an Urdu-speaking couple have in common?

This year they all inspired different creative approaches to sharing the Easter story to thousands of listeners via U.K.-based commercial and Christian radio stations.

The Egg-straordinary Talent Show, an advertisement for the “Real Easter Egg,” was produced by the Reach Beyond-UK team on behalf of the Meaningful Chocolate Company and aired on Premier Christian Radio.

A spoof of the X Factor, a British television music competition, the public service announcement offers a humorous comparison of an “organic posh egg,” a large American egg and the “Real Easter Egg.”

Winner of the competition, the Real Easter Egg, tells listeners, “I’m made from Fairtrade chocolate, and 10 pence [about 17 cents] from every sale goes to the charity Traidcraft Exchange, and there’s a free copy of the Easter story in the box.”

The Real Easter Egg is available in Britain’s supermarkets (Waitrose, Morrison’s and Tesco), offering an explanation of the Christian understanding of Easter. Certified as a Fairtrade product, it meets international stands for fair trade, whereby fair prices are paid to producers in developing countries.

Meanwhile, a fearless superhero goes in search of the illusive power known as “the resurrection.”

Aired on 17 radio stations owned by the UKRD network, an estimated 80,000 listeners are expected to tune in to the program, Call of the Beyond, during the Easter weekend.

Produced by Luke Haley of Reach Beyond-UK, Call of the Beyond adopts a comic-book style to explore the meaning of resurrection.

“From the very beginning, my idea was that I wanted to tackle the idea of resurrection,” said Haley.

“Resurrection—it can be just one of those Christian words that doesn’t really mean anything to people just in society in general. So I wanted to explore that—not only what resurrection meant to the everyday person on the street, but also explore what it could mean for them.”

Listeners to Sunrise Radio, a popular Asian radio station with a weekly average audience of 170,000, have been tuning in throughout the last week to a series of short radio programs in Urdu that focus on the events of Holy Week from the perspective of a married couple living in Jerusalem.

Produced by Reach Beyond-UK and Radio Worldwide (RW), the programs explore the identity of Jesus. “One of the underlying questions that I’m trying to ask in each of these thoughts is: ‘What kind of king is this?’” said Shely Ganguly, a scriptwriter with RW.

She said the Holy Week series also helps address a common misconception—that the gospel of Jesus Christ is only for white people.

“People have a lot of wrong ideas about Jesus, particularly that He’s a white god for white people,” explained Ganguly.

“This program is so Asian in its sound, in the words that we’ve used,” she added. “We’ve got Bible readings directly from the Urdu Bible, and we’ve got native [Asians] voicing it. We’ve tried to crush the impression that Christianity is a white religion.”

Ganguly, who describes herself as British Asian, wrote the script in English. It was then translated into Urdu and voiced by native Urdu speakers Christopher and Bela Singh of RW.

The first program of the Holy Week drama is set on Palm Sunday when Jesus arrives in Jerusalem. The wife of the couple sees the donkey and says, “Ooh it’s a wedding! That’s got to be the groom arriving!”

“In India when there’s a wedding, the groom usually arrives on a horse or even an elephant,” explained Ganguly.

Through discussions between the husband and wife, the series explores some of the questions that onlookers might have as they experience the Easter story for the first time.

“Wherever Sunrise Radio is playing, I pray that the Word of God would come alive in their heart language and really have a huge impact,” said Ganguly.

Sabras Radio in Leicester and Radio XL in Birmingham are also airing an Easter passion in Hindi on Good Friday, which was produced by the Reach Beyond/RW team and broadcast on Sunrise Radio last year.

For Asian and British listeners alike, understanding the relevance of Jesus can be a barrier.

“[Asians] just think like a lot of the white population here that Jesus is irrelevant,” explained Ganguly. “What relevance could He possibly have in my life?”

Through different radio programs this Easter, the Reach Beyond team, together with partner RW, hopes to challenge listeners of different nationalities to think about who Jesus is and what His death and resurrection mean for them.

Sources: Reach Beyond-UK, Radio Worldwide, Sunrise Radio, UKRD