By ALLISON WOOD

The Post staff writer

Brunswick's North Park was the setting for nearly 200 people to pray and reflect on the last hours of Jesus Christ's life on Good Friday.

Fourteen different churches participated in a Stations of the Cross, with each church completing a reading at one of the 14 different stations.

The event was sponsored by the Brunswick Ministerial Association, which is an organization of area churches.

Matt Lofy, youth minister at St. Ambrose Church, said while Stations of the Cross is often associated with Catholic tradition, many Christian denominations also practice it during the Lenten season. The order of Stations used was the one first introduced by Pope John Paul II in 1991.

This is the first time Stations had been done by the member churches of the Ministerial Association, Lofy said.

The stations were spread out among the park's walking trail that goes around the pond. Someone from one of the churches would carry the large wooden cross to the next station, where there would be a Bible reading and prayer. After that, another member would lift up the heavy cross and take it to their church's station. During this procession, everyone would sing while the next readers got into place.

A couple of the stations had props to remind the crowd of which station it was. For example, there was a rooster at the fourth station where the apostle Peter denied knowing Jesus three times before a rooster crowed.

While the event encouraged quiet reflection, the cold rain that fell nearly the entire time made it hard for some to keep standing still during the last few stations, which detailed Christ's last words before his death.

"I was really impressed by the number of people that turned out," said Rev. Don Poest of Brunswick Reformed Church after the last station.

The Brunswick Ministerial Association was recently revived after a long period of inactivity, Poest said. A few weeks ago, the association's youth service held a special joint service.