Christmas at Hope Pres in Cordova



Update: Over 20,000 attend Xmas Eve (and eve-eve-eve) Services. I took some of these inside shots in the afternoon when no one was around. One shows the sound booth and seating on the south side at Cordova's Hope Presbyterian and the other is the seating on the north side of the stage as people were exiting after a service. The stage area is open to both sides. The giant Jumbotron screens in all 4 corners help everyone to see all the 'action' all the time. Hope has tried to reach the unchurched in the Cordova area and the Lord has really blessed Hope these last few years. It is REAL hard to be satisfied with anything less once you have been a part of Hope Pres. (even when it was a small church)




I am late getting these photos up due to laptop+dial-up and not-so-hot software. And add to that the fact that, like everyone else, we had out of town company, family dinners, etc...

The photos of the Christmas services were taken without a flash, in a descrete manner by me from one of the 3 services i attended. Hope did the same Christmas service 8 times--and then --on Christmas day had two more !! Senior Pastor Craig Strickland did an outstanding job--from start to finish as did the entire music team and all the hundreds of volunteers too.

I'll be curious to know what the total attendance was this year. (Got the word--over 20,000) We had pretty good weather--some drizzle but no big deal--and a big turn-out for the Memphis Music Christmas service.

Harry was in charge of the luminary effort on Thursday. The luminarie volunteers at Hope Pres had nice weather on Thursday to put out the many little white paper sacks with sand and a candle in each. Hope has become a big church. It wasn't always that way. Things have changed pretty fast. Unfortunately it rained the next couple of days, so the luminaries didn't get used but one night, but they looked great that first night.

And can you believe that even with all this building, there is not the 'official' sancutary yet.

The round thing you can see, sorta in the middle is a small chapel. It is good for little weddings and such. It has nicely tiered stadium seating so everyone can see really well. We went to 'piped in' church there for a time when there was a big crunch in regular church before the wall was busted out behind the stage area and tons of new seating was added in a big double north gym. Now the stage is open on both sides--like church-in-the-round. Sounds strange but works really well., I think.

One thing everyone loves is the coffee bar in the foyer. Both the north and south side have them. All sorts of flavored coffees & tea and you can take it into the service. Big hit !


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