20 Apr Easter Eggs and God’s Provision

John Christophel, pastor, Brooklyn Park UB, Baltimore, Md.

We are coming up on two years since we first broke ground on a new addition that will house and expand our after-school ministry. We called it “Faith that Moves Dirt.”  As of today we have received enough in donations to purchase all that we need to complete the building and re-open our program.

That is not the greatest reason to praise God. The best reason is the spiritual lessons of faith God taught us during this process.

Last week I was faced with a difficult choice. Funds were given two weeks ago to help the church or the after-school program. It was made my choice by the person who gave the donation. I held the funds, knowing we had to pay for the roof shingle work to be.

When an emergency need arose, I faced a difficult choice. Giving the $500 toward the emergency meant I would have to hold off on paying the roofer. I felt God telling me to take care of the emergency. God would just have to take care of the kids then, because we were down to our last $90 in the bank. That was last Thursday.

Saturday I receive a call from a couple who read about our program, our need of raising $4000 more for the project, and of our chocolate peanut butter Easter Egg fund-raiser. They want to use the purchase of a couple of eggs as a excuse to make a donation. Once I looked at the checks they gave for the eggs/donation, I realized they donated $1,000. Another couple wrote me an email after they read the same story. I received their donation of $4000 today. A local hospital called me today and said they read the same story in the paper and wanted to donate a grant of between $200 to $300 to the after-school program.

I believe my obedience allowed God to bless our after-school program more than ten times what I gave. We are a struggling church just like many others, but God continues to bless our efforts to better care for our community children. In the past month we have seen two teen deaths 100 feet from our center. One was hit by a car and the other was a gang shooting. Since then we have had two other evenings with gunfire within blocks of our church.

People are amazed that a small congregation of 40-50 people can not only attempt, but complete such a large task. It is succeeding because of our resolve and the combined efforts, love, prayers, and support of hundreds of people.

20 Apr Easter Story: Fowlerville, Mich.

For several years, Fowlerville has rented the high school auditorium for its Easter service. But this year, they decided to stay in their own facility, but to add a service. So in addition to the three Sunday morning services, they added a Saturday night service. Altogether, about 1,040 people attended services at Fowlerville over the weekend.

20 Apr Easter Story: Heidlersburg, Pa.

Craig Loewen, senior pastor, Heidlersburg/Mt. Olivet charge (Pennsylvania)

Our Easter Sunday began with our Easter Sunrise Service at 7:00 a.m. and was shared with St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. St. Mark’s and Mt. Olivet (Adams County) are small churches, but our attendance was 87, which is the best we’ve ever had.

Afterward, we all enjoyed a communal breakfast at the Heidlersburg Fire Hall with food provided by the Heidlersburg UB Church and prepared by Fire Hall volunteers.

Mt. Olivet enjoyed a full church with lots of special music in a service that combined both the worship and sunday school hour.

Heidlersburg also enjoyed special music provided by the congregation and a special dramatic monologue provided by Cindy Conley of York Springs. The attendance broke all previous records with 144 people present.

It is my personal goal to use the Easter services and the upcoming Christmas services with even more of a directed, proactive purpose fulfilling each of the five strategies as expressed in Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Church.

18 Apr Easter Story: Ashley, Mich.

Jerry Drummond, pastor of East Washington UB (Ashley, Mich.), reports the following numbers for Easter:

• 123 at the Sunrise Service
• 141 at the breakfast
• 234 in the two worship services.

He says, “The sunrise service was the most encouraging, because we had several families from our community attend. Most of them stayed for the breakfast. I was encouraged by the results, but I know it was an Easter crowd. The next few weeks will tell if we made any lasting effects.”

18 Apr Easter Story: Findlay, Ohio

Darwin Dunten, senior pastor, Findlay First UB (Findlay, Ohio)

Findlay First UB and the Rock Church participated in a joint Good Friday Service with over 100 people in attendance.

Findlay First UB had it highest attendance in five years with 271 in both services. The church has been seeing new faces since August. The exciting part is that the new faces are pitching in and helping. Many participated in the choir and helped with the Easter breakfast.

The most memorable event was when two little girls from the community that we invited to attend showed up wearing Easter dresses that their mother gave them. (The mother worked at a laundromat and those were unclaimed dresses.) The two little girls sat by themselves until a family noticed them and asked them to sit with them. They ate breakfast and enjoyed the Easter Egg Hunt. Then their mother and father came and picked them up.

17 Apr Easter Story: Orrstown, Pa.

Milt Herrold, senior pastor, Orrstown UB (Orrstown, Pa.)

We held a round-the-clock prayer vigil from Thursday evening until the Sunrise service on Sunday. People could come and pray, read Scripture, or worship through music in the sanctuary. We tried to have a host and co-host available as well.

While only about 25% of the congregation participated, some beautiful things happened. We had two people participate long distance from Idaho. Several people gave eight or more hours over the course of the four days, even some people who don’t participate in many of the other functions outside of Sunday.

Every church leader participated. Two church leaders insisted on taking my 1:30 am to 6 am shift on Easter morning. When I went over to the church at 5:30 am, I found that a third leader had also spent the night there praying.

17 Apr Easter Story: Willshire, Ohio

Mark Rutledge, senior pastor, Praise Point (Willshire, Ohio)

We began our Easter observance with the cantata “Easter Song” on Friday and Saturday nights. The church was almost full on Friday, as it was the Good Friday Service for the Parkway Ministerial Association. There was also a good attendance on Saturday night. The cantata was open to singers from the community, along with our own congregation.

Saturday afternoon we hosted an Easter Egg hunt for community children. There were games, crafts, and Bible stories for the different age children followed by the egg hunt. There were 69 youngsters registered to find the 1000+ eggs.

Our Sunrise service began the Sunday schedule, and a powerful presentation was witnessed by over 100 people. Vicki Smith put the service together featuring singers and narrators in costume and film clips.

The breakfast was sponsored by the Camp Committee. All donations will go toward sending children to Camp Cotubic this summer. They are raising $12,000 to help send over 50 children from the church and community to Camp Cotubic.

The weekend concluded with the worship Service on sunday morning, which saw an attendance of 236.

16 Apr Break-in at Fowlerville UB

Fowlerville UB church (Fowlerville, Mich.) was broken into Wednesday night, April 15. The pastors gathered t the church that morning to travel together to a cluster meeting, and noticed that a door was ajar. They found the locked doors of the various offices busted open, kicked in, and offices ransacked.

However, not much was taken. Laptops remained on desks. A couple LCD TVs and a video player, all purchased by the youth, were taken. So was some cash. Associate Pastor Jeff Reser says it looked like someone was mainly looking for cash, and also took anything else that sounded interesting.

“It’s more of a mess and a nuisance than anything,” he said.