Calvary Family,
Wow! What an "amazing" celebration we had last Sunday! I'm praising God for the joyful and passionate worship that was offered up to the Lord during our Easter services on Sunday morning. I thank God for all the time, energy, love, creativity and prayers that went into making Easter Sunday a memorable day in the life of Calvary Church.
I want to encourage and thank you for reaching out to your friends and neighbors in our Each One Reach One mission together. We know of 17 people who indicated that they received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior for the first time. There were another 80 people who desired to renew their faith. We also had over 3,300 people here for our Easter Sunday services which was over 400 more than last year.
As a pastor, I honestly don't like to focus on numbers except for when those numbers show us something about people and what God is doing in us. I believe these numbers show us that God is truly moving in our church to reach out to the people with whom we live, work and play to share the good news of Jesus. And it's already happening! Let's be praying for all these wonderful people who came to Calvary Church last Sunday. We are pursuing each of them with love and welcome this week.
Finally, I want to thank all of you who give so faithfully and generously to support the local and global ministries of Calvary. Your participation has allowed us to reach more people and improve our ministries and campus in incredible ways. We also wanted to let you know about our transition to a new online giving system. You can discover how to create your account in the new system, move your recurring gift schedule over, and give online today at calvarylife.org/give
As the apostle Paul said in Philippians 1:3 - "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."
Let's all continue to pray and consider who God is placing on our hearts this year to share the good news of Jesus Christ.
God is blessing each of us in so many ways! I can't wait to share with you more about the prayer of blessing we pray at the end of each service. This series called The Blessing will show you more about how God wants to bless you and what the blessing of God is really all about. See you this Sunday at 9:30am!
May the Lord bless you and keep you,
Eric
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