Tony Dungy attends Grace Family Church's Easter services in Raymond James Stadium

TAMPA, Fla. - Tailgaters filled the parking lots at Raymond James Stadium on Sunday morning. It wasn’t for a game, though. Instead, a crowd of 23,500 filled the seats of the stadium for an Easter Service.

Grace Family Church’s eight campuses held the service.

"It’s exciting because it's not just for our church," Lead Pastor Craig Altman said. "It’s for Tampa Bay. We're inviting all of Tampa Bay to come for our Easter service. Some people are kind of afraid to go to church. So, anybody will go to a stadium and have a tailgate party and hear Tony Dungy and hear some great music and hear a message of hope," he said.

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One of the church’s most familiar faces is pretty familiar with Raymond James Stadium himself.

"This is crazy for me," NFL Hall of Famer and former Bucs and Colts Head coach Tony Dungy said. "You know, with so many memories in this stadium playing games and everything, to come down here for an Easter service, we're going to have the whole city involved. But I'll tell you, it does bring back memories, because the first event ever in the stadium was the Billy Graham Crusade, and I got to introduce Dr. Graham that morning in 1998, and so 26 years later, this is really hard to believe," Dungy said.

Dungy shared his story with the crowd on Sunday.

"My mom was a Sunday school teacher, so I heard the word about Jesus. I accepted Christ into my life, but I was just living to be an athlete and a student," Dungy said.

"I got to the Steelers. I was 21-years-old and there were about 15 guys on the team that said, ‘You can't just do it this way. You can't just have a uniform and be on the sidelines. You got to get in the game. You got to play. You got to put God first in your life all the time.’ And that's when I kind of changed my life around. I started growing at 21-years-old, and then it became my mission to represent Christ in everything I did, whether it was playing, coaching, broadcasting, just being a member of the community," Dungy said.

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Altman said while they held the service in a pretty cool space on Sunday, the story of Easter is what’s most important.

"The greatest comeback was Jesus Christ was crucified and buried and for three days he was dead. They thought all hope was lost, but then God resurrected him from the dead. And that's symbolic for us, that God can raise us up into a new life and brings a lot of hope," Altman said.

This was the second Easter service the church has held in Raymond James Stadium. Altman said he’s not sure right now if it will be an annual event, but they hope one day it will be.

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