VERVE Happs

Our attendance was up, but not astronomically, maybe by about 30%.  I know there are churches where attendance doubles on Easter, but I don’t think that will ever be us.  Why?  Couple reasons: (1) Almost all of the people who go to Verve WANT to go to Verve. We don’t have people who come because they have to, or are supposed to. So the number of infrequent attenders, or Easter/Christmas only people is very slim. (2) We don’t appeal to people who have a compunction to go to church. (And there are also way less of those people in Vegas than probably anywhere else.) We’re church for people who don’t like church, and those people don’t feel like they should go on Easter any more than any other day. In fact, we had one Verver who invited 70 (!) of her unchurched friends, and every single one of them said, “No thanks, I’m not interested in church.” In most towns, and with most churches, you’re going to get a bunch of yeses for Easter invites.

Fortunately, numbers aren’t our big issue – Jesus is, and the service celebrated that Jesus came and gave us an exact picture of what God looks like, and that Jesus overcame death so we have hope.

The other big issue for us is changed lives – and I hope the service helped our people to take a step towards a transformed life, with the understanding that we can believe in God even in difficult times IF we have already decided what we believe about God, and we can do that because of Jesus. And, because of Jesus, even when we’re stuck in Friday, even when hope seems lost, we never lose hope, because … Sunday’s comin’!