Helicopter, video feed link 2 congregations with their pastors

Pastors Casey and Wendy Treat bantered as they welcomed their congregations to a recent Sunday morning services.

Casey Treat preached the first service at the SeaTac campus — and it was projected on giant screens in Everett at the service hosted by his wife, Wendy. Before the next service began at 11:30 a.m., the two switched places, flying back and forth in a helicopter.

The Treats have turned a group of 30 founding members into a flock of about 8,000 since starting the Christian Faith Center in SeaTac in 1981. The Sunday-morning services are televised to thousands more.

Casey Treat's sermons, often with practical themes to promote success in everyday life, are popular with a range of people, from jeans-clad children with backpacks to businessmen and women in designer suits.

"I try to keep it personal and simple and make it seem as though we're all in this together," Treat said. "We're all connected, we're all studying the Bible, praying and living life together. The goal is to feel like a family."

Because of the popularity of Treat's messages, the Christian Faith Center in April began holding two services at each of its two campuses.

Between 1,300 and 1,500 seats are put out for each service, said Kris Hillstrom, the church's media director.

"We've increased by a couple hundred in both locations in just the two weeks since we changed our service times," Hillstrom said.

The Kent couple, who met at a Bible college and married at the Everett church they later bought to create a second campus for their church, employ computer feeds, giant video screens and a even a helicopter to simultaneously bring their message to growing congregations in SeaTac and Everett.

"When you have one pastor and two locations, you have to either have more services ... or you have to best use your resource, which is your pastor," said Brent Seavey, a volunteer and security coordinator. "And the best use of our best resource is to have him available in two places."

In September, the church will open a new South King County campus in Federal Way, a 218,500-square-foot building that will replace the SeaTac building.

Message of success

The Treats' success is about, among other things, hard work, Casey Treat said. In his sermons, he is open about his failures and mistakes, including drug abuse as a teenager. He entered a Christian rehab center, where he found his calling. He alludes to that, and the message is clear:

"Look how my life has changed. Yours can, too."

Seavey, a real-estate agent, and his wife left their jobs in Chicago in 2002 and moved to Seattle to join the Christian Faith Center after seeing Treat on cable TV.

"Week after week, it was something I could use," Seavey said. "It was something that I could put in my hand, put in my life, and use."

The multicultural church conducts services in other languages, including a Samoan service on Sunday afternoons.

"We really go to great lengths to break [cultural] barriers," said Hillstrom, 23, who grew up in the church. "We want everybody, from all different backgrounds, all different races, and that really, I think, is the culture of Christian Faith Center. It's made us who we are."

Over the years, the Treats have mentored others going into the ministry.

Moses Katina, 19, has been here since September participating in Dominion College, a leadership-training program the Treats founded. Katina's goal is to become a praise-and-worship leader in Hawaii, where his father is a pastor.

"What gets me going is the zeal and the passion that I see everyone have," Katina said. "It pushes me to do my best, 'excel in excellence,' as Pastor Casey Treat teaches."

Casey Treat is 53; his wife, 50, and "oftentimes as a pastor ages, the church ages, and then the church can die," said Debbie Willis, one of the church's original founding members.

"We on purpose attract young people," she said. "We want to give young people a place and an opportunity because we were very young when we started the Christian Faith Center — we were in our 20s."

Coming together

The Treats met in 1976 at Seattle Bible College.

"I heard him teach his first lesson," Wendy Treat said.

They married in 1978 and started their church in 1980 with 30 members.

The congregation starting meeting in the gymnasium foyer of the former Seattle Christian School and bought its current south-campus property on 24th Avenue South the following year. In 2003, it bought the north-campus site, where the Treats were married.

In September, the south campus will move to the new complex in Federal Way.

The Treats have three children — ages 21, 20 and 18 — but Wendy Treat says the couple has kept their kids out of the limelight.

"Casey and I have worked to let our children feel safe that they're not on display," she said. "My mom had the same thing in a very positive way. We always lived right next to the church, so our door was open to people ... but we weren't owned by it. There was a really good balance. We worked really hard at that with our kids."

Feeling of community

Creating a sense of community in such a large congregation is actually pretty simple, Casey Treat said.

"We don't do anything extraordinary or amazing," he said. "We try to use the technology, and it's got to be simple and easy for the congregation to relate to.

"It's Wendy and I talking back and forth and teaching. Our church has been built on true Christianity as a practical lifestyle rather than a religious doctrine."

To maintain a small-church experience within the big church, they create small-group environments including the youth ministry, choir, discipleship and Connect groups, which consist of about 500 people who meet in members' homes.

"Whether you're in a small church or a large church, you have to live out your faith with friends and relationships," he said.

Even those close to the Treats are amazed at what their ministry has become.

"We were part of the foundation of Christian Faith Center, and even though we've been here all these many years, I still look around and think, 'How'd this happen?' " Willis said. "I've lived it, I've worked it, and I'm still in awe of what goes on."

Diane Wright: 425-745-7815 or dwright@seattletimes.com