Freedom celebrations continue in Mt. Pleasant

MT. PLEASANT — The Fourth of July was Monday, but Faith Christian Outreach Church chose to continue the celebration of American Freedom with a free community event the following Wednesday.

Despite persistent sprinkles, over 200 hundred people showed up to enjoy the event.

Families enjoyed four different bounce houses, cornhole, and human bowling.

Children and teens climbed inside a large inflatable ball and threw themselves down a hill at inflatable bowling pins and produced copious amounts of laughter.

Six food trucks were available with food such as BBQ, American, woodfire pizza, doughnuts, and ice cream.

While attendees enjoyed the activities and food, the worship team performed songs from Blake Shelton, The Greatest Showman, and Louis Armstrong.

“Alright, yeah, that was fun,” the keyboardist Aaron Lotzow said after a lively rendition of “What a Wonderful World.”

This same man enjoyed singing “A Million Dreams,” with his son, Silas, daughter, Rosie, and wife, Jade, filling out the quartet for the song.

“There's a house we can build / Every room inside is filled / With things from far away / The special things I compile / Each one there to make you smile / On a rainy day,” Silas sang as a few remaining raindrops fell from the sky.

The family sang the lyrics of the song speaking of dreaming big and hoping to make change in the world confidently.

This event took the place of the church’s usual Wednesday night service which is commonly held in the E3 center.

The E3 center is a youth center that the church started in 2004.

E3 also houses Cradle of Hope Pregnancy Center whose goal, according to their website, is “encouraging girls, women, men and families with a pregnancy or pregnancy loss by providing personal and practical help for their physical, emotional and spiritual needs.

Danika Cox, a participant in Cradle of Hope, says the program has been a great resource to her as a first time mom.

They provide education not only for abortion, adoption, but also parenting.

“Many families stay in the program through their kids turning 10, because we have education all the way through,” Senior Pastor Monte Knudsen said.

“We came for the doughnuts and pizza,” Cox, who is not a member of Faith Christian Outreach Church, said. “We’re pleasantly surprised at the amount of people and stuff going on, though.”

Toward the end of the evening, the worship team led a change in atmosphere.

“We went to all this trouble of setting up outside tonight, so why not give it our all?” Jade Lotzow said. “You [Jesus] gave us your all, we want to give you our all.”

Jade Lotzow began leading the crowd in worship as more people filled the seats in front of the stage, and the 200 plus people sang with arms raised to God.

According to Knudsen, the church aims to provide three outdoor events throughout the summer. The first event was simply a service held outside, and this event focused more on community involvement.

Instead of a staff pastor leading a lesson for the service portion of the evening, Faith Christian Outreach Church brought in guest speaker Rob McCoy from Godspeak Calvary Chapel of Thousand Oaks, California.

McCoy made headlines as he led his church in defying stay-at-home orders from the pandemic in April 2020 and remained open.

They were sued by the state and county which have since been dropped.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled early in 2021 that no governor could impose mandates on houses of worship that were not also imposed on secular establishments.

California Governor Gavin Newsom were reprimanded from Supreme Court justices for not following their many rulings on religious liberty cases they first issued on Thanksgiving 2020 in New York.

“They [the local government] said that abortion clinics, liquor stores, and Costco were essential, but church wasn’t,” McCoy said on stage in Mt. Pleasant Wednesday. “Church is essential and watching it online is like watching a fire on a screen. There is no warmth.”

"I was impressed with your governor,“ McCoy said. ”She fought for you.“

McCoy spoke on America being a nation meant to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion, and circled back to the current topic of abortion rights.

“We are a nation of life,” McCoy said.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” He quoted from memory. “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government …”

McCoy ended his presentation with encouragement to stand up for convictions even in the face of adversity, and to hold the government accountable.

Fireworks shot into the sky lighting up the whole area, and after the finale, Pastor Knudsen led the event attendees in singing “God Bless America” to wrap up the event.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com