Several months ago we set out with a 20 step plan to reach 700 on Easter. 700 would be the single largest attendence Clark Fork has ever experienced in 35 years as a church. Our goals are not driven by the desire to just be a large church, but we know God cares for people in our city and we know we exist for all the people who are not at our church yet! I will get to our number record at the end of the blog but want to share a few highlights and share a warm thank you to our wonderful team who pulled off an amazing Resurrection Sunday.
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11am the second service which was the smaller of our two Sunday meetings!
(also notice the super sweet stage set made of cardboard!) |
We decided to have two services instead of one. This is a scary thought because you need to virtually double your volunteers. From greeters, ushers, worship teams, parking team, decoration, cleaning, projector and video crew, and office staff our church aced it! Job well done! One new lady who came to church had a huge struggle with crowd anxiety. One of our greeters noticed she was nervous and pulled her aside on the way in, prayed for her and she made it thorugh the whole service sitting in the crowd! Not only that she let us know she decided to quit smoking after the meeting and has been smoke free since Sunday. Well done team in taking care of people!
Our Creative Team, Volunteers, Cleaning Staff, and Saturday Grounds Crew got our building and property ready to put our best foot forward. Elke Olbricht also did a bang-up job on the stage design and flowers/decoration. From details like flowers even in the bathrooms- to a beautiful new copper cross on stage our church showed a pride of ownership.
Kid's Ministry was over the top! We had over 70 kids in each service with a live tomb experience, over 2,000 eggs given away, and powerful worship with a full band in kids minsitry. Thanks team for going above and beyond for our young people.
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| "Broken Marriage" |
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| "God Restored and Blessed 36 Years" |
A highlight for me was the cardboard testimonies. We had over 40 people share a very personal testimony written on cardboard, then they flipped it over to show how God has worked freedom into their lives. The testimonies were during the worship time and culminated in a standing ovation as Doug and Tammy Dove came on stage to share their incredible story. One lady in our church shared on her cardboard testimony that she had been "Molested" and she put on the back that she was healed through forgiveness. She had several brave ladies approach her and thank her for sharing because they went through the same thing in their past. God really used your stories to touch hundreds of people!
Our message on Easter was about God's heart for the underdog. It was so cool to see so many underdog's who the world may have thrown away or discounted living life full in Christ!
Thank you to every one who prayed, believed, had faith and invited to 2012 Easter Sunday. We did not quite reach our goal of 700 but we did have 621 people in church Sunday! This is huge considering we had a down week on April 1st at around 300 people. Looking back, we had the third highest attendance ever for our church and the largest in over 7 years. That is an amazing jump and great to have two full services and see so many people respond to the message of Hope.
I can't wait to see what happens this Sunday with baptisms and many more who will be blessed!
