Attended an amazing Easter service this Sunday at the Pacific Amphitheatre (Orange County Fairgrounds) with thousands of others. There were 2 worship services, one at 9:00am and one at 11:15am. I attended the first one, and glad I did. The amphitheatre's seating capacity is 8,500, and looked about 2/3 full. The California sun burned pretty hot by 10:00am, so the later service would have probably been packed and scorching.
What made this community Easter worship service remarkable was that one church ran the whole worship service! From what I gather, and I don't know the whole story, this was not a multi-church joint-project kind of event. During the announcement, the worship leader mentioned that it was the third time this kind of community Easter worship service has been done, and it's no small feat. This one church mobilized hundreds of volunteers, setup the equipment, built the set, rehearsed for many hours, led worship music, provided Bible teaching, and more. Yes, they had mass quantities of Krispy Kreme donuts, coffee, and bottled water at the entry courtyard too.
This church did all of this and never mentioned who they were! They generously provided everything for the worship service, pointed to Jesus, and then encouraged people to get connected to a great church in the area. The bulletin provided a list of 10 great churches, with no particular notation of which was the host church, as did the event website at www.oceaster.com. All the printed posters and bulletins didn't make a mention, and everyone on stage didn't make a mention.
This church keeps finding ways to "give themselves away", as the lead pastor has said on many occasions when at the home church.
Who is this church? Rock Harbor. I happen to know, because I attend Rock Harbor regularly as my home church. [there, that's my full disclosure.]
--- DJ Chuang, Leadership Community Director @ Leadership Network
love it!
Posted by: Mike G | March 24, 2008 at 05:52 PM