Oh my, that was a lot of people

Oh my that was a lot of people....

I have said that alot this week. Thursday , we went to Busch Gardens. I think everyone in this metro area went there that day too. I also think everyone played hookie from work. We were in one of 10 lines to get in the park for over 30 minutes. Seven of these lines were backed to the interstate and the other three were backed up to the highway. It was unbelievable. I won't even tell you about how busy the new Sesame Street area was. Just trust me when I say, " Oh my."

Then this evening we went to a night time Easter Egg hunt at a local church. They were advertising over 20,000 eggs. Yes, 20,000. I was astounded on the number of kids and adults at this function. It really was not a hunt but a pick up because there were so many eggs. There is another church doing a 30,000 egg drop tomorrow.

Now for my deep thoughts. Our church had an Easter Egg hunt this morning. We did not have a lot of eggs. We did not have a lot of people, maybe 50 with adults. We offered a free pancake and bacon breakfast. We only advertised it to our own church and the apartments across the street. We use every opportunity to build relationships with the apartment community in our church neighborhood. At first when I went to the evening hunt with so many people, I was thinking our egg hunt was pitiful compared to this one. We did have a storytime before our hunt and this one had an object lesson. This one had big prizes and we only had cd's. The one this evening the guy had to keep telling everyone to shush so that people would hear the object lesson. We did not have that problem. The kids this evening did not listen to object lesson, their minds were on the 20,000 eggs. Our kids today listened and enjoyed the story. Our kids had to actually hunt for eggs not just walk in the field and pick them up because there were so many that they could not be hidden. The staff and members of our church were able to interact, mingle and get acquainted with the guests. This other hunt they were concerned about registration not interaction. As I really pondered the differences, I pondered is bigger really better. Have we lost our focus from evangelism and outreach to just trying to be the church that had the biggest turnout or have the biggest event of the holiday?

I really do not know where my thoughts are going now with this subject. Some may say I am being hypocritical because our own church had an hunt but it was just to our immediate community. We can not get them to come to church so we have events such as this because they will come. This is our opportunity to build a bridge. We did not use gimmicks such as 20-30,000 eggs to entice people. Would more people be impacted if all the churches focused on smaller events with the opportunity to interact with the guests on a more personal level. At the same time I realize if one soul was impacted then the whole event was worth it but are these events a distraction for others and actually hinder their decision. Then I think about the time it took to stuff these eggs, 20,000 eggs is a lot of stuffing. Could this time have been used for other things such as witnessing or helping others?

As I continue pondering these thoughts....Let's not forget that Easter is about the death and resurrection of our Saviour not about the number of eggs we have to hunt.