BRISTOL, Va. — I confess that when I first heard that Highlands Fellowship, a Virginia Baptist multi-site congregation based in Abingdon, Va., was planning to drop Easter eggs from a helicopter in nearby Bristol and then to fill the city’s civic center, Viking Hall, with worshippers, I was not surprised.
Bristol’s Viking Hall was overflowing on Easter Sunday morning. (Photo/Earl Neikirk/Bristol Herald Courier)
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But I did have doubts. In my mind, I could see the Bristol Herald Courier headlines the following day: “Scores of children injured by plummeting eggs.” My fears, however, were unfounded.
According to a press release issued by the church’s communications specialist, Barry Myers, “Highlands Fellowship combined all four of its campus locations at Viking Hall in Bristol, Tenn. An estimated 8,200 people turned out to the 6,500-seat arena, forcing the crowd to spill out into overflow areas in the parking lot and setting an all-time attendance record for the nearly 30-year-old Civic Center.
“During the worship experience, almost 500 people accepted Christ, worshiping and celebrating his resurrection and the 15th anniversary of the church,” he added.
In a phone conversation, founding pastor Jimmie Davidson expressed to me his feelings about the Easter service and the incredible growth of Highlands Fellowship, which meets in three Virginia cities — Abingdon, Bristol, Marion — and in Johnson City, Tenn. What follows is a faithful report of that conversation although in some cases his responses may not appear word-for-word because I could not write as fast as he could talk!
White: Were you surprised by the number who attended and by how many were drawn by the helicopter egg drop?
Davidson: We began to get indicators from media people that it was going to be a big event, but you still have the anxiety about whether it might be a big flop. Talk about an egg drop, this would be egg on your face! The service started at 10, but when I got there at 8:20 all the volunteers in their yellow shirts were already in their places and the Viking Hall was beginning to fill up.
When I tried to park, it was like a NASCAR race with all the people walking to Viking Hall. The fire marshal had to close the doors and hundreds of people were in the parking lot with hundreds more at the egg drop site.
The police estimated that 10,000 to 15,000 were at the egg drop field. When you think about it, that is more people in that worship service than the entire population of Abingdon.
One of the things we didn’t really expect was the good will this has generated with the media. Thursday on the front page of the Bristol paper there was a story about our church collecting 6,000 shoes for Haitians. You just can’t buy that kind of publicity.
White: I understand that nearly 500 people accepted Christ. Such numbers are almost mind-boggling. What are your own thoughts about this?
Davidson: I just feel so much joy. Any pastor or follower of Jesus feels joy when people take that first step in deciding to follow Christ. You might expect that kind of response in Charlotte or major cities of America, but this was in Southwest Virginia. We had amazing singers and worship leaders, and visitors asked, “Who were those people? Will we see them again if we come to church?” These were our own people. We just let people do what they are good at doing.
There were hundreds of people who made decisions but did not fill out anything. Some were scared. One of the cool things is we went out and asked Highlanders to give up their seats so other people would have a place to sit. A lot of Highland people were the ones outside. We had 1,500 to 1,600 first-time guests. We gave out 1,000 coffee mugs and pamphlets called “What on Earth Am I Here For?” which is a smaller version of Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life.
So many of these people had no relationship to a church. The prayer requests they turned in will just make you cry. Everybody [on] the staff knows it was a God thing. The peace of God was incredible. It was like a carnival outside. Before the service even started, we had teenagers giving their hearts to Christ. They wanted to be baptized before the service started. We worked on this for about six weeks. It was an incredible effort, but in the end, you have to say that it simply was something God did.
White: I know you are currently engaged in follow-up, but how will you manage to follow-up with so many?
Davidson: We did the first-time guest thing and asked them to fill out cards. Volunteers sent personal notes to first-time guests and I sent a letter. People who made decisions to trust Christ got information there, and they will get a lot of correspondence. Our maturity team will call them all. We all came together on Monday to get started because the response was so massive.
White: In addition to Easter, the event also marked the 15th anniversary of the church. Could you have imagined at that time that more than 8,000 people representing four different locations of the church would gather on Easter of 2010?
Davidson: I’m the pastor, but just hearing you say that I get cold chills. I feel like a spectator just watching God work. God gave me the vision, and I shared the vision with our church, but nobody could have believed it would be like this. I gave the vision, and we began to put the wheels on it. Fifteen years ago in our first service we had 152. When I first started talking about what I envisioned for Highlands, I didn’t know whether it was God or the Mexican food I had last night! Even though you have that impression, when it happens you are just stunned. I think that’s how God is. You know, just so much more than we can hope or imagine.
White: Let’s talk about the egg drop for a moment. What would you say to people who might look upon such an event as sensationalizing a sacred day?
Davidson: We had a lot of criticism from other believers. But that’s normal for us, so we expect that. A lot of people said their church would not allow Easter egg hunts. But Paul said, “I have become all things to all people that I might by all means win some.” The Easter egg hunt draws people together.
Thousands of Easter eggs dropped from a helicopter caught the attention of Bristol’s residents. (Photo/Ivan Scott/Bristol Herald Courier)
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One writer was trying to help me out by saying the egg symbolizes life, but I just laughed. An egg is just an egg. The Easter egg is a tradition in our country. People came thinking they were going to get an egg and a prize, and they got much more than they ever bargained for. In his time, people came to Jesus because they were sick, blind, lame, or wanted Jesus to take care of them in some way. The cool thing about Christ is he didn’t put them down, but took them to the place they needed to be.
People who come to Highlands are not there because they have it all together. They come because they have needs, and Jesus meets their needs in the church. The egg drop was a way we could share our love with our community. We need to use our creativity to reach out and reach the world. We are to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. You can’t be salt and light if you go hide out someplace. Most churches, honestly, have a fortress mentality. They get intimidated by the world. It’s like they say, “Let’s hide out and wait for Jesus to come back.” What we want to do is embody the Great Commandment and Great Commission.
White: Did the idea for the egg drop just fall out of the sky, so to speak?
Davidson: We have groups that get together in teams who just sit around thinking what to do. They try to learn what has worked in other places all across America. We are not the first church to do an egg drop. It came out of a creative session when we were just sitting around.
White: Were you worried about children getting hurt by falling eggs?
Davidson: Ha! Yes, we thought about it. It can be dangerous. Anybody who thinks about doing this should call us. We can share what we did. We had a perimeter set up for the egg drop with security all around it keeping people from getting in the drop area. But, the eggs were light and wouldn’t hurt. In fact, a few did fall in the crowd but nobody was hurt.
We had different sections for different aged children. Our teams planned every detail, and the cool thing was that they didn’t always know what the other teams were doing. When every group did its part, it was beautiful when it all came together. That’s a picture of the church, each member doing its part for the benefit of the whole body.
We partnered with local businesses. Pal’s, a local hamburger place, provided prizes and next year they plan to do even more. McDonald’s participated with coupons, and Food City, a local grocery chain, also was fantastic.
The pilot of the helicopter was great and his fiancé was the one dressed as the Easter bunny dropping eggs. One of our church members who weighed less than 130 pounds also rode in the copter. Weight was an issue so they could only drop 10,000 eggs. The rest were already placed on the ground. All together we had 25,000 eggs, but if I had to do it over again, we would do 50,000 eggs.
White: I would like to hear about the four locations, but I am most curious about the branch of the church meeting in Afghanistan.
Davidson: Yeah, we have a site in Afghanistan. The café is really big there and is based on what we do here. We reach a lot of people through our café here in Abingdon. Besides coffee, they get a DVD of the message from the previous Sunday. Women of the church make goodies to serve. We’ve had a lot of people come to Christ. I had a guy come up to me a few weeks ago, “You know how I found about Highlands? In Afghanistan! I heard about the café and since we couldn’t get there because we were too far away, I got my platoon together and we logged in to your message every week.”
Crowds swarm a Bristol field as eggs drop from the sky. (Photo/Ivan Scott/Bristol Herald Courier)
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We want to open seven more campuses. The good thing about not having any money is it forces you to become creative. We have a guy working on that — how we plant campuses in other places.
There is a church in Marion that dwindled down to about 16. They approached us and said, “We want to be a part of Highlands,” so they have given their church building to Highlands. The only hold-up is even though the building is paid off, there were still legal issues that had to be handled. But the judge has already approved the transfer, so that will happen soon.
White: How do you handle preaching in different places at the same time?
Davidson: What we do is project onto a 16 by 9 foot screen, so it’s like I’m actually standing in front of the people. In fact, after a few minutes they forget all about its not being the real person there. I tape the sermon every week on Thursday in an empty studio. That was hard getting used to because I am used to interacting with the congregation. Ninety-nine percent of the time I feel horrible about the taping, but the people who attend don’t feel that way. They feel like you are talking directly to them because you are looking into the camera. It works really well.
White: Jimmie, I have to ask you this: The same God seeks to reconcile all people around every church, and the same Christ is the head of every local body of believers, and the same Holy Spirit seeks to empower each church. So why does a church like Highlands Fellowship after 15 years have four locations with branches meeting in nursing centers and one in a café on a military base in Afghanistan when many other churches all around the country are plateaued or declining?
Davidson: Two or three thoughts here. Of course size gets a lot of attention, but size is not necessarily better. We all have our assignments. There are a lot of incredible smaller churches out there. We are all members of one body. The success of one church is the success of all churches. A church in Virginia Beach or Richmond or southwest Virginia is all part of one body.
This is a lesson God has taught me. We think of the parable of the sower. We sow a lot of seeds and some of them are not going to come up. Jesus talked about it. Some people are like those who fall on the hard ground. They start strong but then they fall away. But there are the other seeds that fall on the good soil and yield the fruit.
I would challenge any church — if it is not reaching people, it needs to take a step back and evaluate. In order to follow Jesus it requires change. You have to give up control. Every time we hit a lid at Highlands, we asked, “What is going on here?” I have to look at myself. I’m the pastoral leader. I’ve discovered that every time we hit the lid at Highlands, it’s because we have taken control, and we need to give up control. I’m probably the greatest hindrance at Highlands, and I don’t even realize I am! But God is so patient with us.
If there is no fruit, the leaders need to sit down and say, “What is wrong here?” If nobody were coming to Christ, it would scare me to death. Jesus said, “If you abide in me and I abide in you, you will bear much fruit.”
We have to be willing to go out there and love these people where they are. It’s messy. It’s uncomfortable. But that’s our assignment. Don’t grow weary in well doing. Persevere. There is a harvest for those who will persevere. A lot of times what causes us the greatest problem can become our greatest asset.
Next Sunday we’re expecting more decisions than we’ve ever had at Highlands. Thousands of people will decide not to come back!
Jim White is editor of the Religious Herald.