There are few Sundays that are more exciting than Easter…Resurrection Sunday. This year Easter falls on April 8. This will be the one Sunday all year long that we have more opportunity to touch people who need Christ with the Gospel than any other Sunday. Why? The reason is because Easter will once again bring out all of the CEO’s. What is a CEO? It is a Christmas/Easter Only church attender.
Last year our total Easter attendance was 1,796. There seems to be little doubt that this Easter will be our first Sunday here at Grace that we break the 2,000 mark in attendance at a service held at our church. Now before some of you go down the, “There goes Pastor Scott, all about numbers” trail, please keep in mind that every one of those numbers represents a person that God loves and that Jesus died for. On April 8, we will have the opportunity to touch each of them with the Good News that Jesus came to seek and to save those who were lost. I can’t help but get excited.
We will use Easter this year to start a 3 week series called LOST which will be a spin-off of the current hit television show. On April 8 the message title will be The Lost Planet in which we will look at the story in Luke 19 where Jesus meets the short tax collector, Zaccheus, right where he was…up a sycamore tree. We will hone in on the words Jesus gives at the end where He says that He came to seek and to save those who were lost. After all, that is what Easter is all about. On April 15 we will look at Jesus parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin in a message entitled Lost and Found. Then on April 22 we will examine Jesus’ story of the lost son (better known as the prodigal son) in a message entitled, When Home Seems So Far Away.
On Easter morning (April 8) we will have 3 identical morning services (7:15; 9:00; and 10:45). We want to encourage those without kids and Senior Citizens to attend the 7:15 service in order to free up seats for the later services which will have many more guests. There will be no nursery or children’s ministry for the 7:15 service but there will be nursery and a children’s program for the 9:00 and 10:45 services.
There will be no youth group or Adult Bible Fellowship Classes on Easter. However, we will have a continental breakfast on Easter Sunday from 8:30-10:30. This will take place in two different locations the entire two hours. These locations will be the Youth Room and the Fellowship Hall.
This year our Children’s Ministry, in conjunction with Morningstar Daycare and Lititz Christian School, will be having a huge Easter Egg Hunt the weekend before Easter on Saturday, March 31st, in which they will be promoting our Easter services. This will be a great addition to using Easter to reach as many people as possible.
Nothing of eternal important happens apart from prayer so please be praying fervently now for our upcoming Resurrection Sunday!
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