This Easter:  Six New Campuses, TV, and Home Services at Living Hope

Orginally published on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 8:38 AM
by Todd Rhoades

Living Hope Church and Pastor John Bishop recently announced that they will be starting six new campuses this Easter Sunday (along with a couple of house churches in Florida and Tennessee). What would cause a church to expand this quickly? Vision and Necessity! Living Hope's main campus is mostly full for 7 weekend services right now (yes, I said 7!). Also, they are broadcasting their Easter service on the local FOX affiliate. Here's a little of what John shared on his blog with his church family...

Our vision is to see the message of Christ go out to as many people as possible.  Big vision, but even a bigger God. Although the Rose Garden arena was available, we thought it wasn’t what God had.  If I were Paul Allen I think I would invite us in.  Isn’t it the best B-Ball season with the youngest team in the NBA in 10 years???? COULD there be any connection to what happened last Easter and this season?.........  Just a thought.

As we contemplated Easter 2008 and thought responsibly about the last few years (7600 total attendance and close to 15,000 in 2007 at the Rose Garden), we needed to not only GET OUT OF THE BOX, but think out of the box.  Our building only holds 500, so we are proverbially ‘stuck’ from a building standpoint. But can I point out that GOD IS NEVER STUCK. 

Funny thing about God.  He never is.  We limit what ONLY GOD can do because we approach problems as problems with lame human solutions instead of God ordained opportunities.

Last week, in simply thinking “How can we get the message out to the most amount of people for Easter 2008”?  We are starting six new campuses this Easter, along with a couple house churches in the states of Florida and Tennessee.  Each church will launch on Easter 2008.  They will hopefully become campuses within a short amount of time. 

That helps in many areas, but our Brush Prairie campus is beyond capacity, with 7 mostly FULL services each weekend.  How can we continue to do the mission with what God has given us? 

As we brainstormed, we thought why not TV? Last week we contacted the major networks (2, 6, 8, 12) to see the availability for Easter Sunday morning.  Check it out, all but one said either no religious programming, or no good time slot.  Only Channel 12 got right back to us and are making available the 10am-11am time slot on FOX Channel 12. 

I talked with them today.  One, it is a fluke (I say ONLY GOD) that it is available.  She told me that they normally run NASCAR, sports or ??  It changes every quarter.  This is open, perfect and will in effect (GET THIS) have a potential audience in the millions (SW Washington, Portland, Central and Eastern Oregon and Southern Oregon as well as all coastal regions).  The possibilities are beyond what I can comprehend.

We are asking homes to open up and host an Easter service in THEIR home or wherever?

We will support you, give you bulletins, church information, etc.  There will be numbers people can call following the one hour Easter service that can connect them to Christ first, and then a local church.  We will need hundreds of people to help with this ONLY GOD Easter vision.  The impact will (I believe) change the landscape of the spiritual condition of the Pacific Northwest. I am excited and TODAY we begin the 40 day challenge.  Our 41st day is on Easter weekend.

We will need everyone.  Our goal is to reach as many people on Easter Sunday 2008 that we can.  The potential audience is in the millions.  We need your prayers, your homes and your ideas.

Here’s a link to John’s blog...

I’m very excited to be working with Living Hope for an upcoming Multi-site Exposed Conference that we’ll be doing in Seattle on April 14/15.  Also partnering with Leadership Network on this conference is Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church; and Dave Browning at Christ the King Church.  All three of these churches have TREMENDOUS multi-site ministry stories to share.  You can find out more information here on the conference.

In the meantime, let’s pray for John and Living Hope as they really tackle reaching their community for Christ this Easter!

Todd

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Hi... I'm Todd Rhoades. I'm a Christ-follower, husband, father and I love to connect leaders with other leaders. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step on Twitter.

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