Newlife Easter 2008

Title : “Easter Outreach Touches 1,500!”

“There’s more to Easter than chocolate eggs.” That was the message Newlife Presbyterian Church shared with their community at Springfield Lakes this last Easter Saturday. With around twenty Newlife volunteers serving and well over 1,500 adults and children filling the park for the annual outreach event, Newlife has been overwhelmed with the impact that sharing the gospel combined with genuine service can have on people who are far from God.

Though the aim was simply to serve the community with God’s love and raise awareness that the church does care for the people in it’s community, Newlife has been blessed with visitors since and two new unchurched families have since started calling Newlife “home.” Melanie, a member of one of these new families said, “I haven’t been in a church for over eight years, but when I saw the people of this church sincerely love and serve their community, we said to ourselves, ‘That’s a church we could go to, THEY SEEM SO NORMAL.’”

The morning began with a delicious free pancake breakfast. After the crowd’s hunger was satisfied the families gathered around in the grassed amphitheater beside the lake to listen to a short evangelistic talk on the real reason for Easter by Rev Will Henderson. Following the talk the children were invited to join in an exciting Easter Egg Hunt.

“It’s humbling to see the sort of influence that a small, but Jesus centered church like Newlife can have on it’s community,” Rev. Henderson said. “This is the third year we’ve gifted our community with this free outreach event, and it’s now at the stage where the community feels it owns this gospel event as theirs. The local council wants us to do it, Delfin advertises it as the ‘Springfield Easter Event’ and most importantly the community comes to participate and listen because they know it’s genuine. It’s fantastic to see God at work as we serve and share about Jesus. Lives are being touched and changed by Him.”