Easter Stories 2009
FBC / La Verdad, Yakima, WA
Yakima had a good Holy Week. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Saturday egg decorating and hunting with about 20 children (several from the neighborhood), Sunrise Service, Intergenerational Celebration in which Laffing Matters, our clown troupe, performed an original script with about sixty people from both language groups, and worship.
Dave Roberts, Pastor
FBC Pocatello, ID
Our series leading into Easter was madatchurch.com. We put up billboards around town with just the website on a white background. We had 335 hits on the website in about a month, and had over 500 people in services for Easter. During the four weeks of the series, we had somewhere between 20-25 people indicate that they gave their life to Christ, including three on Easter Sunday. The whole series created a buzz both in our church family and in the community.
Bill McCready, Senior Pastor
FBC Sunnyside, WA
We had a fantastic Easter Sunday. We were at capacity with 165 in attendance. Many are non-members who have been attending for several weeks or months now and are melding into the fellowship. It was a wonderful, joyful worship!
Mike Hughes, Senior Pastor
Cle Elum Community Church, WA
The work of becoming externally focus is bearing fruit as we had a record attendance for Easter Sunday with 212 people attending. Many of the new attenders came as a result of our efforts to reach out in our community. Several people made commitments to Jesus.
Worth Wilson, Pastor
Shalom Church, Wenatchee, WA
Our service had some very powerful things happen. I preached on Mark 16:1-18 and concluded by talking about the power of the resurrected Christ helping us to share the good news. When I gave the altar call, all but 3 people came forward asking for prayers for more courage and more power to share the good news with others. One man is being led to begin a street ministry and had several people approach him about getting it going. The Holy Spirit moving at Shalom was beyond all expectations.
Sam Detwiler, Pastor
Living Hope Baptist Church, Kittitas, WA
Easter weekend was a wonderful, God filled time. On Saturday morning New Life Assembly and our congregation did a community egg hunt at the ball park in Kittitas. We had face painting, a short play, hot dogs and drinks. We expected about 100 people but were very blessed with over 200. The three churches in Kittitas had a Son-rise Service at 7:00 am in the park attended by 77 people. All in all, God was working in Kittitas.
Herb Alvord, Pastor
Communidad De Esperanza, Bremerton, WA
We invited two other local Hispanic congregations (one from Bremerton, another from Belfair) to celebrate Easter Sunday with us at Evergreen Park in Bremerton. Eighty adults and twenty-five children were present at the 8:00 am service even though it was cold and raining. People faithfully came to worship and celebrate the Resurrection. Thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ, we will celebrate our first anniversary in June. Our vision is to start another congregation in the near future.
Oscar Vega, Pastor
Southside Church, Richland, WA
God blessed us with our biggest Easter ever at Southside. We served breakfast, supper, and dinner to over 250 people. We had 5 services with at least 400 people worshipping starting at SonRise and ending after dark. We worshipped in English, Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Contemporary and Traditional - and we baptized 5 new souls along the way! God is good!
Jim Amend, Pastor
The River Christian Church, Eagle, ID
Easter was awesome. God blessed in so many ways. I was praying for at least 200, which I thought would take a small miracle. I figured a medium miracle would be 250, and I thought that anything over that (like 268!) would be an incredible miracle and so far beyond us, that we would know without a shadow of a doubt, that God has blessed The River! Thank you Lord!
Dave Griewe, Pastor