Easter 2010 ... a great service with a new attendance record!

The Easter Services at The Creek were wonderful! I want to say "thanks" to all of our volunteers who worked extra to make the weekend memorable. I also deeply appreciate all of the people that attended the 8:30 AM service.  As you know, we asked for 500 people to sign up and attend 8:30AM ... you responded and exceeded our expectations.  Yes, we had over 600 people at 8:30 AM!!! This may seem trivial to some, but it's not. Moving that many people to the earlier time slot opened up more seats for our guests in the other services. In other words, more people were able to hear that God does not care what they have done; He does not care what they have become; He just wants them to come home.

From start to finish the service communicated grace and forgivness. Scores of people checked that they were ready for a relationship with Jesus Christ and that makes Easter even more special. I am so pleased to be a part of a life-giving, generous and let me say again nice church.

When you add our Grovetown Campus to the mix, we had four services on Sunday morning. Our combined attendance was ..... drum roll.... 2,330.  That's a new record.  Thanks for what you do to make The Creek what it is. We are a blessed congregation.

Sincerely,

Marty

Management Policies at the EVANS, GA Target Store ... Cannot believe it!

Patty and I love shopping at Target in Evans, GA. It's a clean store with a lot of style.  They have great products, but policies that are opposite of their advertised image.  Yes, I am shocked at what they have done.

Let me explain.  A few weeks ago, we challenged the folks at Stevens Creek Church to random acts of kindness. Like always, the people at The Creek responded.  One of our members went to Target and gave the cashier a card and a twenty dollar bill and told her to put it on the tab of the next person in line.  The Creeker left the store.

Today, we received a call from the mother of the person that received the card.  She explained that her daughter was having a very rough time and this random act of kindness greatly encouraged her. It encouraged her, but she did not benefit from the twenty dollar gift because the TARGET cashier said that this had never been done before and questioned the daughter if she knew the stranger that had given the money. Well, she did not know the person.  She turned it over to the Team Leader and they filled out an incident report and treated this discouraged recipient of the act of kindness as a criminal.

Then, they took the twenty dollar bill and supposedly put it in their safe and if it goes without being claimed for six months, then the cashier will get the money.  What's up with that? 

Target...what are you thinking?  I thought that you were working for our community.  This policy must be changed. I can't say it any stronger.

How did the church find out about it?  The recipient who was supposed to receive this blessing was so shocked that she told her mother what happened. Her mother called the church and told us the details of how she was treated in this case.

TARGET needs a serious review of their policies.

One more thing: We contacted the Manager at the Evans, GA TARGET and his response was: We are not use to people being nice.


We, at Stevens Creek Church, have a passion to be nice to people and we will continue to be nice even when corporate policies work against us.

Marty Baker, D.Min.
Lead Pastor
Stevens Creek Church
600 Stevens Creek Road
Augusta, GA 30907

martybaker@stevenscreekchurch.com
706-863-7002