Easter at Saddleback Fills God’s House

As part of our Daring Faith initiative to fill God’s house with 40,000 worshipers by the year 2020, we saw incredible results during our Easter services.

Over 54,000 people attended our services, and amazingly, over 22,000 of those were at our regional and international campuses.

Another 18,866 people watched the Easter service via our online campus. That means over 72,000 people heard the Good News — that because of Jesus, we have hope for a new day!

Each of our campuses experienced tremendous growth this past Easter, demonstrating that God is moving locally and globally to build his kingdom.

Saddleback Aliso Viejo Pastor, Phillip Congelliere:  “It was our first Easter service at Aliso Viejo. We had 168 prayer cards filled out, and our attendance jumped by 48%. There were 11 salvations and 14 new people who attended CLASS. It’s all about reaching that one person. Their story matters. We have no idea what it can do to focus on just that one person and show them who Jesus really is.”

Saddleback Anaheim Pastor, Jeremiah Goley:  “We started hosting Easter service at Angel stadium as a common ground for the community. This year, 650 people came to celebrate.”

 Saddleback Berlin Pastor, David Schnitter:  “There were over 200 people at our Easter service and eight people made a decision to follow Jesus. We had quite a few refugee families coming from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We even had a group of teenagers that traveled there by themselves to celebrate their first Easter. We combined our Easter service with a family fun day and handed out children’s Bibles. Many refugees had never had a Bible in their hands and were so grateful.”

Saddleback Buenos Aires Pastor, Sebastian Ojeda:  “It was the best Easter of my entire life and the best Easter we’ve had at our campus. We started on Thursday with a massive egg hunt just three blocks from the church. Hundreds of people from the community came to be part of it, and we were able to share with them the joy of what God is doing. On the weekend, we had five meetings and they were all full. Our attendance grew by 114%.”

 Saddleback Corona Pastor, Rob Fultz:  “We had the highest attendance since the inception of our campus. There were 50 salvations and 10 baptisms.”

 Saddleback Hong Kong Pastor, Stephen Lee:  “This was the first time we had a sunrise service, which is not traditional for us in Hong Kong. But people came to pray together, which was great. We had 30% more people attending at Easter than our normal services. We are experiencing miracles everyday and are seeing how people’s lives are being changed.”

 Saddleback Irvine North Pastor, DJ Crawford: “Easter was great! This was our second Easter at Irvine North, and we had a 50% increase in attendance this year. It was all word of mouth, with people reaching out to their friends and family. There were four times as many baptisms as last year, 6,000 Easter eggs for the kids, and 34 salvations—the most important statistic of them all.”

Saddleback Irvine South Pastor, Kevin Nguyen:  “This year, the Irvine North and Irvine South campuses had separate services, which led to 25% more growth. By having more services, we had more hooks in the water!”

Saddleback Laguna Woods Pastor, Rick Bradford: “Like the other campuses, we grew by 35% this Easter. We had 25 people come to know Christ, which is a great number for us.”

Saddleback Los Angeles Pastor, Kyung Lee: “We had an amazing Easter. There were 135 people at our sunrise service, 1,200 people total, and nine who were baptized. The number that excited us most was the 44 people that decided to choose Jesus and change their eternal destination.”

Saddleback Newport Mesa Pastor, Randy Craft: “We had 1,800 people attend, 39 give their lives to Christ, and 10 people were baptized.”

 Saddleback Rancho Capistrano Pastor, James Valencia: “We had a great collection of servant-hearted leaders. We saw people give their lives to Christ and then show up to Celebrate Recovery the next week. It was the biggest weekend we’ve ever had, and it really got our volunteers excited. The following weekend, we had 50 brand-new small groups start up, so it was great to see the fruit.”

Saddleback San Clemente Pastor, Phil Shinners: “On a normal weekend, we have about 1,000 people, but on Easter weekend, we had over 2,000. I’m really proud of our people. Over 100 people joined with Pastor Rick in saying the ‘getting started prayer’.”

Saddleback South Bay Pastor, Leo Galarza:  “We had our very first Easter service, and over 600 people were there. There were more than 70 kids, which is triple what we normally have. What was really awesome was that 39 people accepted Jesus.”

Saddleback South Manila Pastor, Narry Santos: “On a normal weekend we have about 350 people. But on Easter, we had 750 people, and 38 accepted Christ. We also had two screenings of the film Son of God at a local mall, which was in addition to our Easter services.”

Weekend Children’s Pastor, Shawn Hyde: “We had 3,031 kids at the Lake Forest Easter services. Over 200 children attended Saddleback Kids for the very first time, and 128 kids between Grades 3–6 made a decision to put their faith and trust in Jesus.”

Saddleback Small Groups Pastor, Steve Gladen: “Over 30,000 unique visitors checked out the service online, and 148 accepted Christ. We also saw 654 people step out to host a group.”

 Saddleback Pastor, Tom Holladay: “What a privilege to see all these changed lives. At Saddleback, we are an orphanage of new believers, and it is our responsibility to get them into families—and that family is the church.”

 Our desire to reach one more for Christ led to a total of 1,821 new believers making a commitment to follow God. Thank you for being part of this mighty Daring Faith step to fill God’s house.