I was reading in the Bible and one translation says that Jesus said that if you publicly will acknowledge me before people, I will acknowledge you before my Father in heaven. So that is a big part of these meetings like Night of Hope, giving people an opportunity to publicly say, "Jesus, I believe you are the messiah, you're Christ, you're my Lord."
Joel OsteenThere's pros and cons of a big church. Cons is I don't get to know everybody, I don't get to go to their ballgame, I don't get to marry everybody, but the pros are you get all this community, 800 ushers come in to serve, getting there at 7 in the morning on their day off and coming in on Saturday to make all those wafers.
Joel Osteen