SEATTLE - Easter draws thousands of people to churches all around Puget Sound. But now a Ballard church is taking its Easter service to the people on every continent by streaming live online via the Internet.

Evening services here at Mars Hill Church draw a large local crowd. But thousands more are participating in the service from afar via their home computers or laptops.

This Easter, Pastor Mark Driscoll's sermon was streamed live online from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

"Our goal is to get the message about Jesus out to as many people as we can. So we use Facebook, blogging and Twittering - and we use live steaming on the internet as well as television satellite," Driscoll says.

Sunday services by the youthful nondenominational church are estimated to reach some 10,000 in-person churchgoers, plus another 50,000 online in nearly 200 countries.

"Earlier we had people from South America, China, so to the ends of the earth," says one of the church's technicians.

Carol and Bill Ludwick have viewed Sunday services at Ballard's Mars Hill Church from their current home in Texas many times before. This Sunday they were in Ballard as part of a house-hunting trip and they went to the church in person for the first time.

But they already feel part of the congregation they've attended via previous webcasts.

"Even though this is our first Sunday here, we feel like we are part of this church. We love it here. We're very connected here," Ludwick says.

Explains Rev. Driscoll: "Our church started when the Internet went live so we've grown with it."

The use of Twitter gets praises from the tech-savvy congregation - not just here but churches in New York, too.

The draw of the Internet brings a higher power to high technology - and stretches the reach of religion.

Says Driscoll: "Jesus didn't expect people to come him, and we shouldn't expect people to come to us."