New Sermon Series & New Bently Posted
Monday, February 23, 2009






Friends,

We have just posted our new Bently for February, 2009 as a PDF file.
There are many updates on what is happening here with Overflow and how God is transforming lives here in the Benton Harbor/St. Joseph region! God has done so much in the past couple of months that we are celebrating and we want to invite you to save the date for our 1 year Birthday Party and Baptisms on Sunday, March 15 @ 6:30pm! All praise is His!

The Bently is posted on right side of our blog. Enjoy and
thank you so much for your support, prayers, and sharing in this
journey with us! We are so blessed by all of you....

*The image at the top is our new sermon series that starts next week and explores who Jesus is....please pray that people will discover more about Jesus and take their next steps forward with Him! Thank you for everything.

In Pursuit,

Brian & Cindy (Hannah & Dawson, too)


Here is a powerful video and song by Todd Agnew called "My Jesus" and reminds us who are Lord is and what He was about:

posted by Brian @ 10:22 AM, ,




Turning the World Upside Down.....God at Work!
Monday, February 16, 2009





Acts 17:6-"Paul and Silas have turned the rest of the world upside down, and now they are here disturbing our city"





The past week was one of the most difficult weeks that Cindy and I have experienced personally, and at Overflow, in our time planting the church. There were many things that went seemingly wrong last week, and in ways that we did not expect, and yet through it all we did have a peace that God was still at work. We know that many of you were praying for us, and Overflow, and we cannot thank you enough! While some of those issues from last week are still on the table I wanted to share with you how God worked over the weekend as we are celebrating God "turning our world and city" upside down one life at a time here in the Benton Harbor/St. Joseph region!

Here are 4 Quick Stories of "How God has been at Work" the past couple of days:

1) Saturday we partnered with 2 of our sister churches (Allendale Wesleyan Church and Light House Community Church-Kalamazoo) to do Valentine's Party Outreaches at Berrien Homes (our friends at a local housing project) and Benton Harbor St. Ministry. Amazingly, we had 46 volunteers come from these 2 churches to spend the day with us here in Benton Harbor serving and they brought everything with them. The parties were for students and their families and included a meal, cookies, and other activities that centered the kids on the message of God's love. It was an amazing picture of a group of people banding together to flip a world upside with God's love! We were able to serve more than 50 kids between the 2 parties and drop off a couple hundred extra valentine cookies to our local emergency shelter afterward! A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALLENDALE WESLEYAN, LIGHT HOUSE, AND RANDY WILLIS for coordinating this great event. The girl picture here shared with us that this was the first time she had ever decorated cookies in her life and she now felt like a pro (notice the cool designs)! Seeds of love were planted!





2) After we returned from the parties we heard this great story from Carolyn O'Connor (one of our Overflow leaders) who was in charge of our office/lounge outreach in Orchards Mall while we were gone. Here is what she shared in her words:

"A young woman stopped in the entry to the mall office, looking at the flyer on the table. She looked kind of upset about something, so I greeted her and asked her how she was doing. Her reply was "As OK as I am likely to be". When I asked if she wanted to talk, tears began to flow down her cheeks, and she came and sat down at the desk where I was working. As she began to share her story, I could sense the pain and hurt that she was carrying and the desperation she was feeling. I asked her "Do you know Jesus?". She replied that she did because she had gone to church, etc. I replied that I didn't ask if she knew of Jesus, but if she knew him personally. As she cried and replied she really didn't, I invited her to accept Christ as He is willing and waiting for her. A couple minutes later, she repeated the Sinner's Prayer and accepted Christ. While I sense there is still a lot of healing that must occur from past hurts, she left with a smile on her face."


3) Sunday during our Overflow Worship Celebration in the cinema I shared a message on working through the bitterness and resentments in our life and used an analogy of how we tend to put duct tape over our heart in an effort to heal ourselves of hurt. At the end I asked people to consider that Christ in fact wanted to help release them from this and to help them to forgive those that had hurt them in the past (Heb 12:12-15; Eph 4:31-32). People were able to come forward to get rid of their duct tape (each person had a piece) in prayer and to pick up a handout that guided them through a "Prayer of Forgiveness" by Dr. Neil Anderson. Here is a picture of the amazing response (that is a lot of duct tape...please pray for each of these people and the hurt that is represented):




4) At the close of Worship on Sunday we invited people to come to a separate movie theater (we worship in Celebration Cinema) that we had set aside for prayer and communion. It was a very moving time of renewal, healing, and refreshing for many. A young man that had come for the first time through our outreach to Berrien Homes and our bus ministry came in for prayer and communion with the others. Our Community Life Pastor Todd Johns was able to connect with him and lead Him to the Lord right then and there as God worked in his life! It was an awesome moment as we have known this young man and been investing in him for more than a year now!

God is so good and we are so thankful for this incredible weekend at the end of a very hard and draining week and to chance to welcome two new members of God's family!

It was just a reminder that although we may not see it just yet...God is always at work and He is over everything!

In Pursuit,

Brian
Phil 1:21

*God is the God of our City. If you have time here is the worship song by Chris Tomlin that is one of our anthems here at Overflow:


posted by Brian @ 11:45 AM, ,




The Power of "Constant" Prayer....
Tuesday, February 3, 2009




Overflow Friends,

Thank you for your many prayers and for continuing to stay involved in what God is doing here in Benton Harbor/St. Joseph! As a church this year we are focused on "prayer saturation" in all we do and we are continuing to see God move in amazing ways. Recently, we have seen attendance increasing, and more importantly the new families and individuals are truly connecting as they are jumping into Life Groups and other areas of service. We have had a number of people enter into discipleship for the first time and have had a few more decide to enter into a personal relationship with Christ! It is awesome to be a part of what God is doing!

The I3 image above was just shared 2 Sundays ago as we have asked people to identify 5 people that they will do I3 with in 2009: Intercede (pray for them regularly), Invest (spend time loving and serving them), Inviting (share Christ and/or invite to Overflow).

As I was reading in my quiet time this morning I came across Acts 12 and Psalm 3. I would like to just briefly share a couple of thoughts as I think these passage show us what is possible through prayer and hopefully encourage us to continue praying for those in our lives (I3)!

Acts 12:1-4: Peter is thrown in prison as King Herod attacks and kills individuals in the early church and attempts to make a scene of them during a busy Passover scene in Jerusalem.

Acts 12:5-11: The early church/believers were in "constant prayer" for Peter and God sends an angel to literally walk Peter out of bondage and out of prison! He can still do this today in answering our prayers for friends and family that are still in bondage to sin!

Acts 12:12-17:: Interesting here as Peter goes to find those that were praying and they do not believe it is Him at first! God answered their prayer, even though, they would have trouble believing it was possible. We know God answers prayer and he does it even when we may not feel it can happen....the point is to persist in "constant prayer" trusting that God will do it in His way and in His timing!

So let's keep praying and know that God will move in our lives! What are you praying for? Share your prayer requests and have our prayer team join you in praying by sending your requests to: bbennett@overflowchurch.org

A closing prayer from Psalm 3 (NLT):

O LORD, I have so many enemies;
so many are against me.
2 So many are saying,
“God will never rescue him!”
Interlude ◙
3 But you, O LORD, are a shield around me,
my glory, and the one who lifts my head high.
4 I cried out to the LORD,
and he answered me from his holy mountain.
Interlude
5 I lay down and slept.
I woke up in safety,
for the LORD was watching over me.
6 I am not afraid of ten thousand enemies
who surround me on every side.
7 Arise, O LORD!
Rescue me, my God!
Slap all my enemies in the face!
Shatter the teeth of the wicked!
8 Victory comes from you, O LORD.
May your blessings rest on your people.
Interlude



In Pursuit,


Brian




posted by Brian @ 6:43 AM, ,