An Easter egg hunt in Junction Square will be the Wodonga community's first introduction to New Life Chapel's new senior pastor, Zoran Paunovich.
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Up to 10,000 eggs will be hidden throughout the square on Good Friday for the free event.
New Life Chapel kids and youth Pastor Todd Werner has pulled out all the stops after not being able to run the hunt in 2020.
"It's open to anybody and everybody who loves chocolate," he said.
"People will be able to register their kids from 9.30am, they'll get a kid's pack with different information about Chapel Kids, colouring in and bags to collect their eggs in."
"At 10 o'clock we have a service and some music happening, and Pastor Zoran is going to share some words.
"Then we'll jump into the Easter egg hunt."
Pastor Paunovich took over as senior pastor from Michael Geerling at the end of last year and he and his wife Kate are now living in Wodonga.
"We moved up here on January 5, although I started in the role officially in October, going back and forward," he said.
"It's exciting to be part of the church here."
Pastor Paunovich was Geelong-based and has more than 35 years' experience including as vice president of Planetshakers College which offers degrees in Melbourne.
"I think the church has had a good background on this, but I really want New Life Chapel to develop more and more of a community focus about it," he said.
"We're doing a little more with migrants and cross-cultural communities.
"We also want to expand our food relief centre so we can reach more people.
"It's a real passion of ours to develop more community-based ministry.
Pastor Werner also has plans for youth-based programs in schools and with community groups, expanding on the existing Chapel Kids program.
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"We run Chapel Kids on Sundays, but we want to do an outreach not just for our church but for the whole community," he said.
New Life Chapel will also hold an event on Easter Sunday and its services.
Pastor Werner said it was exciting to be holding a public event again following restrictions last year.
In 2020, the church held two online services as the federal government deemed places of worship places of work so that services could be live-streamed to the community.
This time last year, lock-downs were ongoing, Albury Wodonga Health was monitoring 10 people who had COVID-19 and North East police handed out 13 fines for public health order breaches on Good Friday alone.
