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.

Thanks to our Incredible Launch Team

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Grateful

It's Thanksgiving and there's so much we have to be grateful for.

Last Sunday was our seventh week of holding our worship gatherings. The spirit has been great and it is apparent by both the new faces that we’re seeing and the comments we are receiving that God is moving and building His church. A week ago, we had 82 people (our highest attendance) so far. We have had 30 new visitors and several have asked how they can get involved.

Last Saturday, we delivered 27 Thanksgiving meals to 27 different needy families living near our meeting place. It was amazing the opportunities we had to build relationships and share God’s love with these people.

Last Friday, I had the final meeting with our finance team and we put together a working budget. Money is going to be extremely tight! We still have several items that we need to have donated or purchased before we can move forward with our public launch that we are tentatively planning for March. Yet God, shows His faithfulness as a couple of weeks ago, a church planter that I didn’t even know, happened to “by chance” look at my website and saw that we were trying to find a trailer. As it turns out they are no longer in need of their 16-foot trailer come January. They told us we are welcome to use it. I was moved by their generosity and Kingdom-mindedness! God is so Amazing and continues to show His faithfulness!

I’m currently in the process of thinking through starting small groups. I want to be wise about doing this right. Please pray for me that I will do this in God’s timing and with His wisdom. Also that all of the components and people needed would come together to make this happen.

On December 6^th, I’m excited to have Jennie Kintner, one of our launch team members share her first message with Epic. Jennie is a very gifted communicator and I'm looking forward to hearing her share! We are planning to have her join the speaking rotation once a month. On December 13^th we are planning to have a special Christmas Worship Gathering and this should be a really wonderful time.

Prayer Requests:

· God’s Financial Provision and Wisdom in Stewardship. We need about $50,000 worth of capital expenditures.

· God will continue to use us and expand our impact in our community.

· I need God’s Wisdom and Strength as I lead the church.

· I need God’s wisdom, timing and effectiveness as I look to start small groups.

· God will continue to build His church and that we wont get in the way.

· God’s provision and protection will be on our families.

· Endurance as we recognize that this is a marathon.

This Sunday!

The time is finally here! This Sunday evening we will officially begin holding our first worship gathering. This is our first stage of our 2 stage launch. We are so grateful for the people of First United Methodist Church who allowing us to use their facility. They have been an incredible blessing to work with and they really have heart for the Kingdom. We will be meeting in their Fellowship Hall on Sunday evenings starting this Sunday...YEAH! They are also allowing us to use their equipment and children's ministry space. Thanks for all of you who have been praying with us to find this place. God is Faithful!

Below are some other praises and prayer requests:

Praises:

• We have a place to store our trailer (when we get a trailer). Answer to prayer!
• We have a great location to meet for our services. Thanks for praying about this.
• We have an incredibly committed launch team!

Prayer Requests:

• We have our first official worship gathering (Soft launch) this Sunday Night! Please pray that God will move in a mighty way and that He will Glorified and the lives will be changed.
• Pray that we will remain wise stewards with our resources and time.
• That people who are far from God, will become fully devoted followers of Jesus as a result of this ministry.
• God will continue to protect our hearts, bodies and minds.
• That more and more of the right people will come to join our team over the next several weeks.
• God will give me His words this Sunday as I preach.
• We need people with a passion for children to come and help us out (like most churches:)
• That we will continue to build relationships and meet needs of those living in and around South Mishawaka.

Thank you for all of your prayerful support!

God's Hands

I want to give you an encouraging update.

We are really close to declaring our official meeting sight for our October 11th launch. This Wednesday I will be able to officially make that location known. Please pray as we make this final decision.

This morning I met with a local business man and he knows of someone that may have a place that could work for an office space for us. It is not currently being used and would need some handy work done on it, but it would have three rooms and a conference room space. It would be an ideal location if it works out. Please join with us and pray that this would work out for us.

This is a portion of an e-mail sent out to our launch team from Kim Selis one of our launch team members and local outreach coordinator at Epic:

“We were able to deliver 24 packs of groceries to families in need. Each "pack" contained one bag of frozen food, one bag of non-perishable items, one bag of bread items and one gallon of milk! It was truly amazing to see!

Many opened their doors to us and shared prayer requests, some, while it seemed they had need, felt that their neighbors needed the food more and sent us there, some were just thankful for the food.

There were doors opened for us to return. We were able to take prayer requests from these homes and we prayed together as a team for those requests and will continue to pray and follow up with them.

The group also loaded up, after the delivery and went to one of the homes to help a woman, who had fire damage. The men worked to unhook her stove and get it out to the trash and the women (and children) wiped down walls and the bathroom.”

I drove away from this neighborhood overwhelmed with emotion as I was just so proud of our team and the way they are allowing God to use them to “get their hands dirty” and Live Out His love to this community.

From there I drove to one of our other outreaches that one of our launch team members was leading that afternoon. Peter Metzger who is a senior at Bethel College was hosting the Epic Skate Invitational at Bethel College. People from all over drove in and were able to take part in this event and then were made aware of a new church coming to South Mishawaka. They were given our information and it turned out to be a great day.

The details are coming together in God's timing and we are remaining dependent on His leading. Please continue to pray with us for the following:

• God would use us to meet needs in our community and develop ongoing relationships.
• God would give us discernment on a location for our stage 1 launch this Oct.
• God would would provide us with an office space and storage space for our trailer.
• God will protect our hearts and minds and that we will continue to abide in Him!

I remain humbled to reflect on God holding us in His hands, while inviting us to be His hands.

Abiding in Him!

After much prayer and counsel we have decided to go with a 2 stage launch. Our first launch will take place in a church and we are still targeting that to take place on Oct. 11th. However, this will be more of a word of mouth launch that will be intended to help us build up the launch team and save up finances for a few months (we are trying to save up close to $60,000 to purchase portable equipment). On March 7th we are planning to do our public launch which will take place at Meadow's Edge Elementary School.

Last night I met with our launch team and it seemed important for us to stop and use our meeting time for prayer. We took time to remind ourselves that it is God who must build His church and that all of our strategies and planning are meaningless without His empowerment. John 15:5 has been in my mind all week long. "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." I challenged the team to double their prayer focus in the coming weeks prior to our launch. I shared with them that in order for us to be fruitful we have to be tapped in and know HIS power.

Despite the enemy's attempts to thwart us from the mission we continue to see God's Hand. Our team remains committed and we are continuing to grow. We now have 33 adults and 31 children on our launch team (and we are still seeking more)! We had $16,000 come in last month despite having several of our families struggling to find work. We are so grateful for our outside partnerships (churches and friends) that are faithfully giving towards this church plant. We can't thank you enough!

God is amazing and it is our deep desire to abide in Him and to walk in accordance to His leading. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Below are some ongoing prayer requests:

• God will protect our hearts and minds.
• We will remain steadfast on our mission of living in and living out God's love as we seek to reach people that are far from God.
• God will provide us with the right meeting space for our Oct. 11th launch.
• God will continue to meet our financial needs (both for Epic and our individual families).
• Physical and relational protection on our families.
• That we will abide in Him and as a result He will make us fruitful.
• That we will have victory over the ongoing attacks from the enemy.