Easter Setup @ Qwest Field

Uploaded after the Easter event...

On Friday April 22nd, I got to the stadium at 8am and joined up with team "Ops-Elite". (Say it out loud several times fast and you'll see why we changed the name to the "Blackhawks") My team was composed of 8 "trusted" Mars Hill interns who had to be able to operate independent of central control and direction.

We started by setting up all 5 Connect Desks for the Event. These desks were places where visitors could go and ask any questions, get free Bibles, get the Mars Hill Annual Report, and get one of these amazing handouts:

We were treated fantastically by Mars Hill. As an Mars Hill intern, I am unpaid and have given months to God's work with no expectation of any blessing. Yet we were lavished with food at Qwest. We had like 7 meals all provided. For those of you who don't know my love language is food. ("love language" is a reference to this book that Dr. Gary Chapman wrote a while ago that says that men and women feel loved in one of 5 ways: acts of service, quality time, physical touch, gifts, and words of affirmation)

After completing the first tier of prep work, I jumped teams to the lighting team. I have worked for ERM a Seattle area event staffing service as a lighting tech/stage hand. So I knew how to do this job well. Here is what the stage looked like with our fancy lights up:

Here are some additional shots from Saturday as the work progressed:

(In the foreground you can see one of the 20 baptismals dwarfed by one of the two huge Led Jumbo-trons)

(Here are the faithful volunteers who put in thousands of hours to make this happen)

(From the 300 level North: On the top and bottom we see the Baptism tents. The far left tent is the men's changing tent, the center tent is the women's changing tent and the right tent is the prayer tent where people who want to get dunked will be prayed with and interviewed to see if they understand who Jesus is. The stage is flanked by two 35 foot jumbo-trons and a 40 foot stage where Pastor Mark will preach)

(From the Southwest 300 level of Qwest Field: Here you can see the 20 Baptismals that are pipping hot 100 deg F)

A funny story: Back in January when the Executive Elders of Mars Hill decided to do a massive Easter service they called up the people who organize events for Luis Palau (an evangelist), Greg Laurie (an evangelist), and others to see how to do baptisms in a mass-meeting like this (a perennial tradition at all Easter Services for Mars Hill). EVERY single organization said "Don't do baptisms!" its too crazy, you can't cope with the masses of people, keep things organized, and logistically keep up. They do them out in the parking lots all afternoon. Well guess what we are planning for...500 Baptisms in 40 minutes... That means that each Baptismal must accommodate 25 people in 40 minutes. That means 25 baptisms every 1.6 minutes must be completed for us to not run over time. Fou n'est-ce pas?

(Here is the Choir getting set for sound check on Saturday. Since the theme for the event is a happy sunny country fair the choir in their fancy robes act as the golden backdrop for the sermon)