"Easter setup"
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 Filed in: daily photos
| my life
every year,
ROCKHARBOR
does Easter at the Orange County Fairgrounds. it's a
big deal. we basically advertise it all over the
county and invite anyone to come. (you can check out
the website at www.oceaster.com) we put it on though we don't
advertise it as a ROCKHARBOR
event. we offer newcomers a list of OC churches to
check out including ROCKHARBOR,
Newport Mesa, The Crossing, Mariners, Yorba Linda
Friends and others. anyway, this has been going on
for years now and has quite a few traditions
associated with it.
the first tradition is that our Wednesday staff meeting is held in the Pacific Amphitheater where the services will be held. the entire meeting consists of two things. the first is storytelling.
this was actually really cool. Todd (our Lead Pastor) opened up by asking people to share stories of Easter's past. however, he made a very intentional effort to say that "even for those of you who weren't here for these stories, you're part of the family now and our history is your history." and somehow, it was. even though i wasn't there for any of these stories, i felt like i was. i felt like i was apart of them. and one by one, people began sharing stories from Easter's past. some of them were hysterically funny. some of them were seriously moving. but it was a great time of storytelling and sharing.
the second part of the meeting consists of each staff member being assigned a seating section. then we were sent off to march around our section seven times (like Joshua at Jericho) all the while praying for the people who would be sitting there this weekend. at the end of that time, we all came back to the front of the amphitheater where Mike (our Teaching Pastor) read the story of Joshua. then Pete Shambrook (one of our pastors) blew on a trumpet and we all yelled at the top of our lungs for a good 30 seconds to a minute. (check out the video clip at the end of this entry.) maybe kinda dumb... but somehow, it was an awesome thing to be apart of.
the cool thing is, it's a shared experience. it's one that happens every year. so for the 10-15 of us who just joined the staff this year, we felt like we were a part of it even though we hadn't experienced it before.
the rest of the day was spent eating free Chick-Fil-A and setting up the children's tents. we had SO many volunteers show up to help put this on. our church really knows how important this outreach opportunity is and they were there in total support. so much so, that we actually were done by 8pm (way earlier than we thought or has ever been done before!) not only that, but the tents came out awesome!
it's crazy to think that so much work goes into one day... but i'm really excited about it. if you don't have a place to go for Easter, come to the fairgrounds at either 9 or 11 am. it's gonna be great!
- barnes
the first tradition is that our Wednesday staff meeting is held in the Pacific Amphitheater where the services will be held. the entire meeting consists of two things. the first is storytelling.
this was actually really cool. Todd (our Lead Pastor) opened up by asking people to share stories of Easter's past. however, he made a very intentional effort to say that "even for those of you who weren't here for these stories, you're part of the family now and our history is your history." and somehow, it was. even though i wasn't there for any of these stories, i felt like i was. i felt like i was apart of them. and one by one, people began sharing stories from Easter's past. some of them were hysterically funny. some of them were seriously moving. but it was a great time of storytelling and sharing.
the second part of the meeting consists of each staff member being assigned a seating section. then we were sent off to march around our section seven times (like Joshua at Jericho) all the while praying for the people who would be sitting there this weekend. at the end of that time, we all came back to the front of the amphitheater where Mike (our Teaching Pastor) read the story of Joshua. then Pete Shambrook (one of our pastors) blew on a trumpet and we all yelled at the top of our lungs for a good 30 seconds to a minute. (check out the video clip at the end of this entry.) maybe kinda dumb... but somehow, it was an awesome thing to be apart of.
the cool thing is, it's a shared experience. it's one that happens every year. so for the 10-15 of us who just joined the staff this year, we felt like we were a part of it even though we hadn't experienced it before.
the rest of the day was spent eating free Chick-Fil-A and setting up the children's tents. we had SO many volunteers show up to help put this on. our church really knows how important this outreach opportunity is and they were there in total support. so much so, that we actually were done by 8pm (way earlier than we thought or has ever been done before!) not only that, but the tents came out awesome!
it's crazy to think that so much work goes into one day... but i'm really excited about it. if you don't have a place to go for Easter, come to the fairgrounds at either 9 or 11 am. it's gonna be great!
- barnes