In an interview with ChurchLeaders, Pastor Mike Signorelli reflected on his church’s Easter gathering in Times Square. During the service, Signorelli wore a bulletproof vest due to high-risk threats that were made against him and his church.
Signorelli, who leads V1 Church—one of Outreach Magazine’s 100 Fastest-Growing Churches in 2025—believes the service might have been the first officially approved Easter Sunday service ever held in Times Square.
“I’ve had news media actually telling me that it was the first official Easter Sunday in Times Square ever done, which I didn’t know that,” Signorelli said. “Apparently, there’s been parades and various other auxiliary events, but no one’s actually done an official, you know, mayor’s office-approved Easter Sunday event.”
The pastor said the moment was not about making history but about reaching people outside the church walls. “I wanted to do an event where, [the] church goes out instead of waiting for people to come to us,” he said.
The pastor shared that his journey to New York began with modest expectations.
“We had 18 people when we first started. I thought my wife and I would just faithfully pastor maybe a couple hundred people and then we would die and go to heaven,” he said. “You don’t move to New York City to start a megachurch.”
However, over time the church grew into a multi-campus ministry, something Signorelli said he attributes to preaching “the unapologetic gospel.”
“We have had atheists and Hindus and agnostics and Muslims all getting saved, making disciples that make disciples,” he said. “So we end up becoming a seven-campus church in the last 10 years, which blew my mind.”
The vision for holding an Easter service in Times Square was also shaped by what Signorelli described as a desire to publicly express faith in a city where other religions are visibly practiced.
“If they’re going to bring their loudspeakers out into my city, I’m just going to get a bigger sound system,” he said. “I believe in freedom of religion.”
“They have their right to do this, but I also have my right to do mine,” he added. “So, if we’re just going to have the war of sound systems, I’m just going to bring the biggest sound system to New York City and we’re going to do a Christian call to prayer.”
