Due to the popularity of the last blog post I did, I thought I'd continue that format for another blog and give you a glimpse at the last 48 hours and the incredible way things are unfolding here with Overflow! God truly has his hand on Overflow and we really appreciate all of your prayers and support…the last 48 has really been challenging and encouraging that we are heading in the right direction under His direction!

Saturday, 1/26: I arrived at the mall around 10 am and spent a couple of hours running errands in the area and setting up things for the weekend and serving project scheduled from 3-7pm. At 3 pm, 7 people from Overflow and 7 youth and adult leaders from New Carlisle Wesleyan Church in Indiana join us to serve here at Overflow and The Orchards Mall. I gave the group a short tour and shared the vision for Overflow and then we set them "loose" on the mall serving our stores and shoppers. Randy Willis (our serving director) did a great job coordinating the event and communicated with the store managers who were very excited to have the help. The serving team washed windows, cleaned jewelry cases, swept floors, cleaned rooms, labeled 600 water bottles with our launch and Overflow information, and passed out free water bottles to shoppers in the mall! It was a great night and afterwards, Randy and I enjoyed Chan's Garden, a local Chinese restaurant, that is top notch! After returning home just after 8pm, I realized that we had our first "rehearsal" Worship Celebration at Celebration Cinema the next morning! In all honesty, no worries consumed me in that moment because of the incredible team God is assembling here! I then reviewed my message and slept well Saturday night.

Sunday, 1/27: I arrived at our Overflow Office at 7:30 am to spend some time in prayer and then met with some of our team at 8 am to discuss the morning and move all of our equipment from the mall to the cinema. At 8:56 am, we arrived at Celebration Cinema and it was a moment of pure joy as I pulled into the parking lot to see cars parked representing our Overflow team members already in the cinema setting up and getting ready for the morning. We currently have 9 directors for our serving teams and almost 40 adults that are on our launch team (God has truly gone ahead of us and prepared people in advance to jump on board for this—Eph 2:10)! We experienced an incredible amount of technology difficulties throughout the morning, but our amazing tech director, Don Martin, and his team were able to get us started by 10:41 am (we normally start at 10:31) and the worship was excellent! Mark Ficks, our Music Director, and the band did an awesome job of leading us into worship before teaching on the DNA of Overflow and what it means to be a "church for the thirsty". Because of filling up a smaller theater we started in, we will be moving to a larger one for our first preview service on 2/10/08. It was exciting (and emotional) for all of us to see everything come together and to know we can start inviting friends and family to our previews (see below) and our public launch on 3/16/08. After service, we moved everything from the cinema to the mall (everyone pitched in and we were done by 12:30 pm with the transitions). I grabbed lunch with Mark and we celebrated the morning and then went home for a bit with our families. Our launch team came back together at 4 pm (directors at 3:30 pm) and shared a meal, received some training, and then split into serving teams until 6 pm. I left the mall at 7 pm and was ready for some down time at home!

Monday, 1/28: This morning, I arrived in the mall office around 8 am and will continue to work on administrative tasks, sermon prep, etc. Looking forward to a night of pizza and a game of Settler's of Catan with my family and a couple from our Overflow team.

I hope this gives you an idea of how God is working here and thank you so much for your prayers...we are going to be sure to slip away this coming weekend as a family and get some much needed "down time".

In Pursuit, Brian

Celebration Cinema Worship Celebrations
• Sundays @ 10:31 am
• SPLASH Children's Ministry available & concessions will be open (with a discount for Overflow)
• Our Preview Dates: 2/10, 2/24, 3/9
• Our Every Sunday Launch Date: 3/16 (and every Sunday after that)

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