Pre-Launch...

Last Sunday night was our final worship gathering at First United Methodist Church. We are so grateful to the leadership and people of FUMC for graciously allowing us to use their facilities over the last 5 months. Our final worship gathering was special as we had several guests from some of the partnering churches along with the 5 senior pastors and their spouses from the 5 lead team churches (which have supplied us with people and finances) came to pray a prayer of commissioning over our launch team. It was a very inspiring night and we're excited to begin this next phase.

I've been in several meetings trying to nail down all the final details before our public launch on March 7th. We are in the midst of a marketing campaign that Josh Yoder is heading up. Josh and the team are doing a great job with the marketing and have been really creative in this effort. Our different ministry teams are working endless hours to get prepared but everything seems to be coming together and I'm being constantly reminded of how grateful I am for the people that God brought to this team. It's so evident that we have the right people with the right gifts and He has continued to meet our needs.

Please be in prayer for our us as we begin this next phase of our church plant:

• Please pray that God move in the hearts of the people within our community and that they will come out to Epic and that we will be faithful in doing our part in their lives as God does His part.
• Please pray for God’s provision and blessing upon us.
• Please pray for God’s protection on our team (spiritual, emotional, physical).
• Please pray that God would go before us and that we would follow His lead.
• Please pray that people who are far from God will be reconciled to Him through this ministry.

Countdown!

I just met with our launch team last night and there is a general sense of anxious anticipation. We are looking forward to our public launch on March 7th at Meadows Edge Elementary School. Our Worship gathering time will be at 10:30 on Sunday mornings. We are calling this "Stage 2" of our launch. With our Stage 2 launch we have re-invited our previous launch team members to re-up their commitment to be a part of this second stage and I'm excited to tell you that everyone has decided to do so and we have the privilege of having new people joining the team.

We are getting ready to start our Home Groups. Currently we have three homes that we will be launching in the next week and there are more that we are prepared to start after we begin our public gatherings. The home groups will be a significant part our spiritual formation process and helping people get connected to Epic.

It's so amazing to see how God is continuing to go before us and meet our needs. When we initially put our plan together in October, we had a goal of raising $50,000 in order to purchase everything we needed to do our launch. As of January we had raised/saved up $24,000 and this seemed significantly off pace for where we needed to be by March. Once again God reminded us that He is building His church and that He is our provider in both resources and people. We have so many talented and gifted individuals on our launch team that God brought and they have been able to be creative and resourceful to the point that it now appears that we are only going to have to spend $10,000 to launch (and still do our ministry with excellence). From God having another church allow us to use their trailer to being able to build things at cost, we are seeing everything come together for way under the initial estimated start price. God is so amazing! What's most exciting is that this allows us to use the additional money to continue in other forms of outreach to our community. Yea God!

Currently we're really heavy into the public marketing stage of our launch. Please pray that this will be effective and that we will have wisdom in this area. Once again, I feel good about my marketing team since I'm working with two young business majors/graduates who have some expertise and creativity in this.

Please pray that everything will come together for our preview services and then for our public launch on March 7th. Please pray that we wont lose sight of what we're about and why we're doing this...that we will remain focused on the vision and the mission!

Finally, please pray for God's hand to move in several ways:

• To touch people's hearts and lives in our community through Epic.
• To protect the hearts, minds and families of those who are a part of this team/church.
• To continue to provide.
• To continue to lead us (and that we wont let go of his hand).

Thank you for your prayerful support.