14,000 attend, 700 baptized at church’s Rose Garden

Easter event

By RICHARD KOE
    PORTLAND — Easter at the Rose Garden arena, a first-time event, surpassed all expectations for Clark County-based Living Hope Church. Nearly 14,000 people attended the service and more than 700 of them were baptized in four pools.
    The headline in The Columbian the following day, April 9, said it all: “Clark County church makes a splash with its Easter service at the Rose Garden.”
    Turnout for the 11 a.m. service, which was free and open to the public, also caused a traffic back-up on Interstate 5 similar to those involving Portland Trail Blazers’ basketball games at the arena.
    Senior Pastor John Bishop told The Columbian that he had hoped to double the attendance at last year’s Easter service, held on five campuses in Clark County. He at least came close and may have accomplished his goal.
    Bishop said many people couldn’t find parking, which was free in the arena’s garages, and some didn’t want to sit in the 300-level top deck seats and chose not to stay around for the event.
    Most of those who decided to get baptized did so spontaneously, and many entered the pools in their finest Easter outfits. The Columbian noted that people don’t often — and probably never — see others getting baptized at the Rose Garden.
    It was the first time such a worship and baptismal service has been held in the arena, which usually hosts sports events and concerts in addition to the NBA Blazers.
    Missy Hannon, Living Hope’s co-executive pastor, said the Easter service was lavish in many ways, including use of the Rose Garden’s big screen and T-shirts shot from air guns for extra pop.
    As reported last month in Christian News Northwest, Bishop took up a special offering earlier in February to determine where this year’s Easter service would be celebrated. The collection reached $100,000, enough to rent the 19,000-seat Rose Garden.
    Prior to the service, the church purchased newspaper and television ads to promote the event, and it was announced on such programs as the Georgene Rice Show on KPDQ-FM.
    Some of Portland’s TV stations also followed up with film and reports of the Rose Garden Easter service on their Sunday evening newscasts.
    While Bishop is pleased with the turnout, he doesn’t know for sure whether Living Hope will hold an Easter service at the arena again.
    But he said the church might indeed do it again next year — and the Rose Garden is available at this point.