How was your Easter Sunday experience? Now for follow-up!

[James Nored]

Hi guys. How was your Easter Sunday experience? Our Easter Sunday went great. We had an early service at 8:30 AM outside, facing the East (though it was cloudy). There was group and congregational singing, Scripture reading, and prayer. Then we had a breakfast in our gym and family communion at 9:00 AM. Everyone seemed to really enjoy this.

Our 10 AM service was great. I decided to forego the usual sermon on Resurrection--people have heard that before--and instead spoke on where Cain got his wife. Just kidding! I used the text from Luke 24 of Jesus' resurrection appearance to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. I sought to give a message of hope to people, and applied the resurrection to daily living and struggles. The sermon title was "How the Resurrection Impacts Your Daily Life." I asked people to think about how the Resurrection impacts:

• The fearful?
• Those with depression?
• Those with addiction?
• Those suffering from sickness or near death?
• Those struggling in marriage?
• Those who are worn out?
• Those who feel far away from God?

We held off collecting response cards (I'm renaming attendance cards response cards) until the end of the sermon. I spoke, we had a reflective song in which I encouraged them to fill out their response cards. I then got back up and gave several different ways that they could respond to the message--say a "breath prayer" throughout the day reminding them of some resurrection passage, sign up for a Bible study, place membership, be baptized, go to our Intro to High Pointe class (which is next week). Then we sang an invitation song. During the invitation song, we passed around the plates again to collect the cards.

We got a ton of visitor cards, and now we will seek to follow-up with those that filled these out with cards, emails, baptisms, and personal invitations to study and our Intro to High Pointe class.

So, how was your Easter experience? What will you do to follow-up?

[James Nored]

It was hard to get a firm count on Sunday, as most of those who went to our early service (which was short) went to the main service. But it looks like we had about 1100 on Sunday.

[Katherine Gould]

We had an awesome day here in Beijing! I wasn't actually in the service part, but I heard it was the most encouraging service we have had. We had 10 adult visitors and several kids, including 12 from the local orphanage. We were actually in charge of teaching the kids, and we taught them the story of the resurrection with object lessons, resurrection rolls, and a fun time of easter egg hunting. The kids from the orphanage were all aglow from this experience!

Then, afterwards we had a baptism. It was the husband of a lady who had been suffering with cancer and unfortunately took her life about a month ago. Thankfully, God worked through that tragedy to bring He Bu closer to Christ and it was his own "resurrection" day! We also had another baptism on Saturday evening, who is the sister of the Chinese brother who works for the church. Our sister churches here in Beijing also had good attendance and 2 baptisms! Praise God for what He is doing here and all over the world!!

It was a really great weekend! I am exhausted, so I am heading to bed over here! ;) Hope you all had wonderful and blessed Easter Sundays. May we remember the hope we have every day because He arose and we have life in Him!! :)

[James Nored]

Katherine, this is wonderful news. What a great day for God's people in China! What kind of room do you guys meet in? Did you have room? Any thought of multiplying churches out of this growth? Also, what is your relationship with the government there? 10 adult visitors and 12 visitors from the local orphanage is incredible! And what joy in the baptisms!

We are so glad to hear about your work, Katherine. Please keep sharing.

[Katherine Gould]

Thanks, James! Yes, it was a really great day! I think I am still recovering ;)

We meet in the upstairs of a nice cafeteria/restaurant in a university. We just move the tables out of the way, set up the chairs, and then afterwards we all eat together. It is a rather large area with many rooms, so we have plenty of room. Last year when I came, they were meeting in a dumpling restaurant with a very small room, but they grew out of that!

Well, there have already been one church plant (which just had it's 1 year anniversary) in Jinsong, which is in the southern part of Beijing, and they also had a great Sunday with 2 baptisms. There is also another church that meets in Haidian, which is in the university district.

We have had no problems with the government, nor have the missionaries who have been here for over 5 years. However, they began calling around on Saturday and asked the place where we have been having church if there were any churches that meet there, but they only told them of a registered church that meets there on Saturdays. They made the same phone call to the place where the Jinsong church has been meeting, and they had to scramble around to find a new place for Sunday, but thankfully they found a good place. That is definitely a different and interesting dynamic!!

God has really blessed us with open doors & protection, and I pray He continues to do so

Thanks for your interest!! I love sharing about what God is doing here and pray that more are able to come experience it for themselves!!

On that note, please pray that God will provide more financial assistance soon as I am facing some pretty large financial hurdles this month to be able to stay here longer. I just paid for school, a new visa, and will have to pay up front for rent at the end of this month. If you know of anyone who would be willing to help, please pass them my info!! Thanks! :)

Blessings~


James Nored said:

Katherine, this is wonderful news. What a great day for God's people in China! What kind of room do you guys meet in? Did you have room? Any thought of multiplying churches out of this growth? Also, what is your relationship with the government there? 10 adult visitors and 12 visitors from the local orphanage is incredible! And what joy in the baptisms!

We are so glad to hear about your work, Katherine. Please keep sharing.