What a Night!

Tonight was the first official service of the Fullerton campus, and what a night it was! A lot of unexpected surprises happened. For one, close to 800 people came to support us and the auditorium fits only 350 people in it. After giving the staff at FJC a heart attack, the leadership at Rock Harbor made a split decision to add a second service for those who could not find a seat. We had put together an "overflow" area outside of the auditorium where somewhere around 300 people were crammed onto the patio for the first service. Needless to say, we were very under-prepared for massive number of people who came last night.

Part of the reason was that the initial vision for this campus was to create a more intimate environment aside from the main campus. We wanted to start with a single 7 p.m. service with a core group of attendees. The idea was that as this group becomes closer to each other and reaching out to the community, more people would gradually be interested in attending the church. We were planning on adding the second service once the number of people grew large enough. We had no idea that all of this was going to fast-forward and play out all within the first night! Even after factoring out a few hundred people who were there to support our inaugural service, we surpassed the capacity the auditorium could hold for just one service.

I had the privilege of mixing for both services last night; and, for me, it was an amazing to be a part of this experience. There was nothing more rewarding than seeing everything come together. I had my concerns after last week's trial run about how smoothly things were going to move on the production end of things. But my concerns were put to rest after successfully setting up all the sound and stage equipment within the allotted hour. It was as if we had all been doing this for months already! Everything came together so smoothly that I couldn't help but think that God was somehow pouring out an extra dose of His blessing on this night.

I left excited to see what God has in store for this Fullerton campus and the people who will be a part of it. There is definitely a sense of excitement in the air, and I hope as the weeks continue that this excitement will turn into a lasting commitment for serving the Fullerton community as followers of Christ and proclaimers of His good news.