Easter Highlights!
I love Easter! Churches all over the world are full of people hearing about a risen Savior! And we got SUNSHINE to celebrate with! That is a rare occurence for Pacific Northwesterners!
My big highlight is standing after first service at Hazel Dell with a 20 year old, through his sobs, saying, “I can’t do this by myself. I thought I could, but I can’t. I need Jesus.” What else matters? Jesus makes every aspect of our lives richer AND surrendering to Him gives us eternal life. That’s why we do what we do.
The launch at Battle Ground was a great success! At both campuses we rounded out at 460 people total (not counting many families who were at multiple services serving!). You know it’s Easter at the Coffee Church when both of the early services were full. That doesn’t tend to happen normally…most of us think the morning starts much later than the early service…
I happen to know that there were 174 chairs at Battle Ground. When I got the text that there were 175 people at the first service, I audibly laughed. Some people were in the Kid’s classes, so I knew we were OK, but I also knew it was tight! Thank you to Abacus Event Rentals who lent us 40 chairs for free, just in case we needed them…WE DID! Here’s a shot of first service:
On a much different note: kids everywhere looked ADORABLE in their Easter best. We normally have a much more random, jeans-are-great dress code, but on Easter we sure cranked out some cuteness! And all of the kids left with a goody bag of stuffed eggs to have a hunt at home!
Chris and Mark preached the same sermon at two separate locations and both knocked it out of the park! I sat through all three of Chris’ sermons and enjoyed them all! I could probably get up and preach that message without notes after hearing it multiple times. Good thing that the story of Jesus’ resurrection just never gets old!
We have offically sent about 35 people from Hazel Dell to Battle Ground on a permanent basis. I’m excited because that opened up much needed room to grow at Hazel Dell. You just watch – in the next few weeks, God will fill those seats with new faces. He does it every time!
Our worship team and kid’s leaders need a BIG shout out! You are heroes and give deeply of yourselves week in and week out! Thank you for working hard on Easter and blessing people with your passion. Awesome job!
Mark and I are enjoying today off. We are completely wiped out, but also feel like we just watched a miracle happen. We estimate that in the last two weeks, between the building, the ad campaign, and the website upgrade, about 2000 man hours poured into North Creek Church. That is a lot of volunteer hours that made a lot of difference! Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, to all of you who did something from praying to painting. You may not even feel like it was enough, but it helped and we are so grateful! And a big thank you to Ron Steinmann and JB Hamilton who nearly lived in Battle Ground all week in order to get the details done.
And that’s how you launch a second campus in 35 days!