BIG God uses people: Church Plant Update

Dear Friends, Family, and Ministry Partners:

I am so excited to write to you and update you as to the great move of God that we are seeing take place at Bridges of Hope Fellowship!  Please allow me to bring you up to date as a church plant.

Since January 1^st of this year, we have been blessed to see over 60 professions of faith for our Lord Jesus Christ.  Praise God!  We have been able to baptize just over half of those already, with more on the way.  If the weather holds out, I’ll be baptizing 10 in the creek this Wednesday night.  Since Easter, we started an 8:30 a.m. service on Sundays and it’s growing.  During this time, we’ve seen our attendance rise to just over 100, most weeks.  We are experiencing more and more people stepping up to serve in ministry roles, as well as leadership roles.  Our children’s and youth ministries are growing rapidly and reaching lots of fatherless children.  We’ve had lots of singles come into the church and find their mates, therefore, preparing us for lots of weddings this Summer and Fall. We are very engaged in missions through our Acts 1:8 Global Plan of Serving strategy that helps us to take the gospel to the ends of the world. 

As you can see, God is moving mightily at Bridges of Hope Fellowship.  We are pressing forward in faith and believing God to move even greater in the days and months to come.  We are believing God for over 100 salvations by the end of 2011, and two thirds of those being baptized.

In order for us to reach our goal for this year, we need you and others like you to partner with us in this ministry of church planting.  There are lots of ways that you could partner with us.  Below is just a few.

·         PRAY.  We always need people to stand in prayer with us as we seek to win the lost at any cost.

·         GIVE.  Consider giving a one-time gift or a monthly partnership gift to help us make an impact in McMinnville and around the world.

·         GO.  Bring a group to serve with us in community outreach through servant evangelism, putting out door-hangers, event evangelism, feeding project, etc

Many have also asked for me to share the current needs of our church for you to help pray about and ask God to meet them.

·         BAPTISTRY  -  We had to return the baptistry that we have borrowed for over a year.  Now, we need one.  We are needing a baptistry that doubles as a communion table and it has an inline heater system.  It’s portable and costs $2800.  Not having one for us is like having a car with no tires.  We really need this!

·         NKJV Bibles  -  We need 25 New King James Version Bibles for our student ministry.  Preferably the hard back type of pew Bible.

·         CD/DVD Duplicator  -  We put out over 50 Cds & DVDs every week of our services and are currently burning them one at a time on a laptop, which is very time consuming.

·         REFRIGERATOR/FREEZER  -  We’re needing a good refrigerator with a freezer to keep drinks, food, etc. cool for the nursery, youth, etc.

·         LAPTOP  -  We are in need of a good laptop to use in the sound booth for our service PowerPoint/videos/ect. 

Also, I will be in the East Tennessee area (Morristown/Knoxville areas) on the weekend of July 9^th & 10^th and August 14^th.  I will be available for preaching during any of these weekends.  If you’d be open to me worshipping with you and preaching for you, please feel free to call me at 931-815-8870 or email me at pastor@gethope.info.

Thank you for all of your prayer and financial support to help us impact a world through planting new churches!  May God bless you as you have blessed us.

Building Bridges of Hope,

DeWayne Howard, Pastor
Bridges of Hope Fellowship
4023 Smithville Hwy.
McMinnville, TN 37110

The Attack

Today has been an odd day.  I woke up extremely tired and exhausted.  However, I pushed myself to make visits and then head to the office to work.

This afternoon, my blood pressure increased greatly.  It left me feeling dizzy, confused, vision blurred, and a bad headache.  I did good to make it home for dinner.  I knew that it was getting time for prayer meeting at Bridges of Hope Fellowship and I really didn't even want to go.  I went anyway, even though I had no intentions on staying for the service.

When the service began, I sat on a stool and laid my Bible on a music stand beside me.  I felt horrible and couldn't get my words to come out right.  I wanted to just leave.  That's when one of our men, Tim Mears, spoke up and stated that they needed to pray over me first before we started.  So, everyone gathered around me at the altar and anointed me with oil.  Afterwards, I sat back down on the stool and noticed that my strength was increasing rapidly and I immediately began to feel much better.

The service continued with me reading Philipians 4 and leading the people to think on praise worthy things in our lives.  We shared lots of praise reports and the fact that there have been 60 professions of faith since January 1st of this year.  It was truly a celebration!  Afterwards, we began different seasons of prayer led by different lay people in the church.  After a moment of silence, the Holy Spirit instructed me to begin praying for and asking God for the nations, so I did.

As I began praying for the nations, I begin to speak to the strong man and the strongholds to be broken and come down when, immediately, it was as if someone grabbed me by the throat and cut my prayer off.  I couldn't speak at all.  I knew immediately that I was under a strong demonic attack.  I then felt pain all over my upper body and knew that I had to get to my Bible and I laid my hand upon it.  Natalie, Dewayne Summers, and David Clayton rushed to my aid and immediately began praying over me and for me.  Others in our body said they literally saw a handlike figure around my throat and said that my face was blood red and that I was struggling.  Finally, I was able to break through the attack and pull down those strongholds and cast out the powers of darkness.  Following the breakthrough, came a holy boldness to speak the Word to our people.  Then, to close out the service, we all gathered in a circle, held hands, and we all prayed together in one accord.  It was both, beautiful and powerful.  The Holy Spirit of God fell upon us during that prayertime in a most powerful way.  Praise God!

Church, get ready for God to do some amazing things in our midst as we're about to see the Spirit of God move like we've never experienced Him before.  God has BIG plans for Bridges of Hope Fellowship and the people of Warren County.  It's time to rejoice and blow the trumpets as we march into the thick of battle!