The beachfront Flora-Bama Lounge, Package and Oyster Bar on the Florida-Alabama state line, home to the famous mullet toss, drew more than 10,000 worshippers to its annual Easter service on the Gulf.

The Flora-Bama opened in 1964. The church service, called Worship on the Water, started in 2011 as a small gathering.

By 2013, more than 2,000 attended the Easter service.

The Flora-Bama now hosts services every Sunday in the tent stage at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., averaging about 1,000 people weekly.

There were three services on the beach on Easter Sunday, April 20, drawing a combined 10,203 people. Sixty people were baptized in the Gulf immediately following the services.

“What God has done and continues to do with the ministry is amazing,” said Flora-Bama owner John McInnis. “God is meeting people right where they are and wants them to know his love, grace, forgiveness, and blessings. One of the many things God and Jesus have done with this church and ministry is to show us all how to be the church, instead of trying to build a church. To think thousands and thousands have been saved and baptized because of a service at a world-famous honky-tonk beach bar is wild. But God’s love for us is wild and there is no place we can escape his love.”

Worship on the Water at Flora-Bama is a non-profit, 501c3 ministry that organizes the weekly services.

“It’s just so amazing to me how God chooses to use uncommon people to spread His love in uncommon places,” said Worship on the Water Pastor Ben Ragsdale. “So many come from all over, every single week, just to see how does this whole church in a bar thing work. And every single week, people leave different than the way they were when they arrived. God meets people here every week and it’s beautiful. Easter was no exception. Thousands came to celebrate and thousands left changed forever.”

For more information on the ministry, go to www.worshiponthewater.com.