Since we didn't meet as a core group this past Sunday night, I thought I'd take a moment to recap our journey thus far. It's truly amazing what God has done so far to prepare this group to reach people for the glory of Christ!
In August of last year, God began revealing the vision of The Overflow to Jennifer and I mostly through the study of John chapter 4. Over the next several months, we engaged in dozens of conversations with many different friends and family members seeking prayer and wisdom.
In November, I shared with my pastor at the time, God's call upon our family, and we together began praying through the transition process and the potential support we may receive from the church.
In February, I endured one of the hardest days of my life when I shared with the students and people of Meridian that God was leading us to transition away from Meridian and begin a new church. Towards the end of the month, 3 families, met with Jennifer and me for the first time to begin discussing plans for The Overflow Church.
In March, we continued our planning to begin our Sunday night core group meetings. We added 2 more people to our meetings that month to bring our total officially to 10 adults and 2 kids. By the end of March, we had 2 supporting churches: OneLife Church and Meridian Baptist. I also was receiving some mentoring and prayer support from Pastor Mark Caldwell and New Providence Baptist.
April was a month of transition. Easter Sunday was my last day at Meridian. The following Sunday night, April 11th, we had our first core team gathering where I shared the basic vision of our church with our group, which had grown to 14 adults and 2 kids. Throughout April and May we took an in-depth look at our core values, which are the key elements that will help us be The Overflow.
As May rolled around, we had ran out of room at the home where we were meeting, and God opened the door for us to move our gatherings to the BCM on the UT campus. This transition has allowed us to begin using our band to create a better atmosphere of worship and to make room for more people. We've averaged 22 people since our move the BCM with a high of 29. However, the numbers really aren't overly important at this point since we are building our core. We currently have 19 people (18 adults and 1 student) who are committed to our core team. God has more than doubled our core group since the very first meeting of 8 people in late February. We currently have several people praying about their involvement with The Overflow and within the next month, our core team could be closing in on 30 people. May concluded with our first outreach to the community through our participation in an event at The Rush Fitness Complex.
God continued to place His hand upon us during the month of June. It began with the good news of our funding support from the Tennessee Baptist Convention. We'll be receiving $25,000 over the next 12 months with $18,750 available to us before our launch. We also used the OnePrayer initiative as a way to introduce our strategy to the core group. We reached out to the community by giving out free bottles of water to UT students on a hot, hot Tuesday afternoon and by taking gift boxes to all the staff at Children's Hospital. God blessed us with another supporting church: Arrowhead Church in Morristown, TN. We also introduced our core group to our first 3 partnerships with the community: Knox Area Rescue Ministries, Children's Hospital, and South-Doyle Middle School. Through these partnerships we'll seek to allow God's love to overflow from our church through our volunteer efforts and financial giving.
I can't wait to see what God has in store in the months ahead. Our core group has been so generous by giving roughly $10,000 in our first 3 months. We know God will continue to provide not only the right vision, but the right people and resources we need to launch this church to our community so that through the overflow of God's love out of our lives and church Jesus will be exalted and lives will be changed!
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