An Easter thank you...from Revolution Church

I would like to say a humble thank you to the countless number of people who made Easter 2014 possible at Revolution Church, and all the praise and glory to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

A few specific things I would like to mention:

• The weather was incredible. God, that might have been the best Easter weather I have ever experienced, and all of us are giving praise after a very tough year in 2013 for weather during the Easter holiday.
• Two people followed Jesus Christ as their Savior. Four people were baptized to show public recognition of their faith. Over 30 hands were raised in our worship experiences to rise above their past. Life change is what this is all about. Every person, every hand, every story matters.
• There were well over 100 volunteers on various teams working together to make this possible. Many of them started early in the week, from stage design to stuffing Easter eggs, to decorating, mowing, cooking, cleaning, teaching, singing, playing (music and games!), ushering, greeting, parking, checking in, checking out, button pushing and camera moving. I probably left something out. I guarantee a nameless person even cleaned the toilets. It matters.
• Revolution Church experienced the largest single-day attendance in the history of our church, the second largest single-service attendance (only behind January 1, 2012 when we moved into the building) during our 10:30 a.m. service when we were at max capacity, and the largest combined weekend attendance for all events. Combined Easter worship attendance was 644, and it is estimated that over 400-plus people attended the event on Saturday with food, games, balloon launch and egg hunts. At one point, every single parking spot was full and we have a big lot.
• Our early service (9 a.m.) broke an attendance record for combined attendance, adults, and kids ministry.
• We stuffed over 9,000 eggs for Revolution and gave away almost 3,000 plus 10 volunteers to the community egg hunt at White House City Park on Saturday morning with our friends from other churches. There were 250 balloons launched in honor and memory of Casey Bush.
• We gave away a record number of items in first impressions, and served almost 400 food items on Saturday at the cookout. Wow!

It was inconvenient. You know it was crazy! And crazy good! Our volunteer teams rocked it for three services, some even staying from 7 a.m. to after 2 p.m. on Sunday, having also been there Friday night and all day Saturday. A few attendees in the 10:30 a.m. service had to stand up. Kids ministry was exploding. I know you're tired, and it is the good kind of tired.

Two final thoughts:

1. God gets all the glory, and the measure of our success is not in the numbers, it is in the process of moving people from first-time attendees to fully-devoted followers of Christ, growing in discipleship. Let's grow families, let's work hard to make every week as important as Easter. Let's continue to develop healthy systems which foster an environment of generational and transformational change for broken people who deserve a second chance. This is the Revolution to live, love, serve. Bragging on Jesus for one weekend is fleeting if we do not follow it up with the same effort and energy to lift up His name EVERY SINGLE DAY. EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND.
2. Thank you for doing what we asked of you. It is important for Revolution Church to make personal contacts to invite our friends and family to church. To maximize our budget, we did not place an emphasis on mass mailings or expensive advertisements to our community. We instead made the target audience a list of personal contacts by postcards, invite cards, social networking and face-to-face invitation. And you did it. It was such a blessing to see you make the simple invite. And best of all - we gave it all away. Food, games, gifts, eggs, candy, it's all possible because of your collective efforts. We are intentional about loving and serving people. PEOPLE MATTER. YOU MATTER. Don't ever believe what you do doesn't make a difference and that we do not appreciate it.

I know we ask much, so that's why the thank you is so important. Let's do it again this Sunday and prove to Jesus that we believe He is still alive and worthy of all we have.

I love you, and these are my thoughts.

Pastor K

P.S. If you're still reading, let's be humble about our successes in how we share with others. God has blessed our church to have grown from a kitchen table in three and a half years to what we have been blessed with now. Somewhere around us is a pastor, church, volunteers and team who worked just as hard and their numbers do not reflect it. Their 10 or 50 or 75 are just as important as what God did at Revolution Church, and what God did at Long Hollow Church, for example, because we could certainly look at the success of others above and beyond our reach.

We are in this together. And no one is greater than the other. It's all about Jesus, and don't forget it.