It’s Monday. Easter weekend is behind us. The most anticipated weekend of the entire year for pastors and church leaders is in the rear view mirror for 2013. So now what?
Well, For Oasis Church, we witnessed an amazing weekend in 4 Easter Experiences. We started with A Friday night Good Friday experience, a Saturday night Easter Celebration and 2 Sunday morning Easter Celebrations! All I can really say is WOW!
We witnessed record attendances with ushers having to pull chairs from storage to make room for seating and our parking team having to transport people from the parking lot of a local grocery store a block away because our parking lot was at Max Capacity! What a great weekend! To sum it all up, we witnessed between 30-40 decisions to accept Jesus and that my friend, never gets old! A HUGE THANK YOU to all the Dream Team, staff and key leaders for an amazing job from parking, connection, higher grounds, ushers, worship, children’s dept personnel, production team and media! Over 200 people served making it all happen this weekend and I couldn’t be more thankful in serving alongside you guys!
So Now what? Well, to start things off, I give all of our staff the week off after Easter for Spring Break. So Oasis offices will be closed all week and there will be no mid-week Experiences this week for adults or students. Community Groups will still be meeting throughout the region. Next weekend we begin a new series I am basing off of a mentor and friend’s new book called “Altar Ego” by Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv. We are super excited about this new series and look forward to April.
Also we have staff traveling out of state and going on vacation this week to spend time with their families being that they all worked 60+ hours last week to make Easter happen! Nathan Sam, our worship leader, will be recording his next live album in Lafayette, LA Friday night that many of us will be attending. I encourage you if you are in the area or can take a day and go over for that, you will be greatly blessed as we are expecting to have a great night of worship! The event will be held at Family Life Church and will begin at 7:00 Friday night.
Also this week, the construction and renovations will continue on the new Administrative offices building to get it completed so we can begin all the new renovations in the main facility to open up more space for our children’s dept as we had over 250 children on campus this past weekend in the children’s dept! Higher Grounds will be moved to the main lobby once the offices are relocated to make access easier and to create more Commons space for everyone with the expansion of our lobby area.
Last, but not least, where do we go from here? Now what? Now we pray with expectation and prepare for the next time we all get to gather together for worship experiences next weekend. Every Sunday should be treated as and approached with the same expectation and the same excitement as Easter because Jesus lives and Resurrection Power and life-change is available to everyone everyday! We don’t attend church, WE ARE THE CHURCH!
My heart is full from this weekend. I can’t describe how thankful Toni and I are to serve such an amazing church family in reaching people along the Gulf Coast for Jesus! Thank you to all who are a part of the Oasis family… We love you and pray you all have a great spring break and look forward to seeing you all next Sunday!
Eric Camp for MS House District 111 
Pastor Eric, you must know that what we saw this weekend is the harvest from all the rain we prepared for. Through all the “challenges” that are thrown are way, our faith is in the strength given to us by the almighty God . He is an awesome God and has blessed us through His son Jesus Christ. Oasis Church, the people not the building, see this and it strengthens their hearts. The strength and faith to reach the religious and the unreligious. To peel away the scales man has put on their eyes and become the church of the faithful not the religious. Your blessings and shared visions have equipped those around you to reach out in ministry far beyond the walls of our buildings. Oasis church must keep our faith in what God has in store for us. God is blessing us daily to reach the churched and unchurched. Praise God and His son Jesus Christ !