Big News! After being with Christian Challenge for 10 years we are stepping into a new role as lead church planter in Dewey, Arizona

Big News!  

            After being with Christian Challenge for 10 years we are stepping into a new role as lead church planter in Dewey, Arizona. God clearly called us to this area and it started ten years ago (when God called Bryan into church planting). One and a half years ago, we felt a call away from the city and then many seemingly “chance” incidences, which were clearly ordained by God, we were interviewed and called to start a church in Dewey.

            We are going to get to work with young families, which is overdue because we have been a young family for almost eleven years. This is a group that really isn’t being reached or targeted up in the town we are going to. One of the churches there sold their playground equipment because they wanted to focus their efforts fully on the retirement community, so although it is a smaller area than where we are now, there is still a great need as there are many young families.

            There are also colleges up there where our heart will inevitably lead us to do ministry. They will not be the single focus of our ministry, but we will have a balance of them. We are proud and excited to say that we have one student from Phoenix planning on coming with us to raise support in reaching youth and college in the new church plant! Praise God!

            In this new ministry we will continue to support raise. We feel so much security as support raisers and love seeing God’s provision for us. We trust God to provide through His faithful servants. We will be seeking out unchurched families, so there will not be much tithe until they are discipled. The only church members at the start will be our family and the student (we’re not sharing her name yet, so that she can be the one to share her news), so we really need support to begin this work. Yavapai and the ASBC will also be contributing to our health “insurance” (Christian sharing plan) and retirement and the church start up.

                        Support raising enables us to go to an area that the Yavapai association, which covers a large portion of Arizona, labeled as a high priority a decade ago (which is exactly when God called Bryan into church planting). There has not been growth in the churches, even though the area is growing and is projected to continue to grow.

                        We found this out for ourselves when we met a young family in Dewey right before a meeting about the church plant. They had three children, like us, and said that they didn’t have a church for their children in their city. By the end of a 15 minute conversation Jamie had their phone number and the kids were hugging her as they said goodbye. It was a God ordained “chance” meeting.

            Dewey is an amazing place and our boys have prayed every night for months that God would take our ministry there and God has answered their prayers. We are stepping into a new arena with new obstacles, but we are ready for this Fall to be a great time of ministry for our family and for the boys to get to be even more involved in inviting friends to their church and sharing the gospel, which they all do in the best way they can.  

After sitting hours during an interview/meeting in Dewey, we took the boys to nearby Mingus Mountain for some fun

One person in this picture has lived their whole life in the same square mile in Mesa, AZ, except for college! Do you think they'll be okay with the snow?! 

Our three boys climbing (can you see them?) when we were in Prescott, Prescott Valley and Dewey praying over where God was leading us.

At Quailwood (a new neighborhood on the Dewey, Prescott Valley border). This is where they told us to drive through because this area needs a church and as we were prayer walking, we heard God speak to us! This is a picture of our second time prayer walking this community area. 

What happens to everyone else?

Knowing that transition was coming, we have partnered with an amazing church planter, Jim Helman. We have been pulling back and letting him be more of the face of the ministry so that the downtown students will not be forgotten. We have been running a worship service together that is great for students and he has no intentions of leaving anytime soon. 

Sarah is also trained and ready to do everything that needs to be done to continue and help grow the ministry at ASU Downtown. She has grown so much as a staff member and it will be a really loss to not have here on my team, but I couldn’t take her from the students. 

February, 2016

Salvation!

            Early this semester I met Brandon while I was talking to another student. I felt a need to engage him as he had a fresh tattoo only days into his freshman year, while wearing camouflage, which he has wore in some way every day since. He just seemed like someone who I would enjoy connecting with.

            As we started talking over the next couple days, we connected on fishing, outdoors, similar senses of humor and I steered the conversation to the spiritual. He had a curiosity about it and I wasn’t sure where he stood, but I offered to meet with him one on one and discuss Scripture, whatever area he was most curious about.

            He seemed embarrassed to admit that he really didn’t know anything and had never really read the Bible, so I suggested that we go through John. As we started working our way through, he would ask questions like, “Is Gethsemane a place or a person?” This was really refreshing for me to walk through someone who was so new.

            By the time we got to chapter three, I talked about being born again as a new creation. After working through the chapter I told him the old creation is like a hammer, it’s designed to put a nail in the wall (sin nature). The new creation is like a saxophone, you can use it to put a nail in the wall, but that isn’t what it’s designed for, it’s meant for something different (serving Christ). Then I told him he should pray and figure out if he was a hammer who wanted to be a saxophone or a very new saxophone.


 

            He came back the next week after going through chapter four and said that he was a hammer who wanted to be a saxophone. He prayed to accept Christ right there in the ASU Downtown dining hall.

            We have now gone through sixteen chapters of John and he is preparing to go back to New Jersey for the spring semester because of his mom’s health. Please pray that he will be like the seed in the parable of the sower that produces 100 times what was sown. It’s a little scary the release him so soon knowing how common it is for birds to steal or the weeds to choke out the seeds, but we are working hard to get him into another ministry with his camouflage Bible we gave to him. 

A New Opportunity

     With Brandon leaving, we have another student who knows more about Scripture, but is less willing to follow Christ now. We have built a relationship with him over the course of this semester and as we were talking about Brandon leaving, I told him that my Fridays are opening up to disciple another guy now and told him that I would love to go through some Scripture one on one with him.

     He is thinking about it, but I’m pretty sure he will be the next Brandon. He needs Christ and prayer and discipleship. Pray that he will really desire a relationship with Christ because I think he is close and God has moved already. 

Powers Update

         

Giving that doesn’t cost a penny…

            AZ Partners: Instead of paying State Tax to the State, you can donate (for a dollar for dollar tax CREDIT) that money to be used for Christian education, specifically to benefit a missionary family (even if it was already taken out of your check). You can bless us tremendously by using some of your owed Arizona State income tax dollars to donate to ACSTO (Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, Inc.) designated for Dallas, Hendrix and Colton Powers at (Please email for school)____ school. for the Original Tax Credit and Hendrix and Colton Powers at (Please email for school) ____ school. For the Overflow Tax Credit (Dallas is not eligible). You will receive a tax credit dollar for dollar against AZ State income tax. Pls. call me for more information or there is lots of information on their website: ACSTO.org . Donations for 2015 tax year are not due until April 15, 2016!

            God has led us to send our children to Christian school and where He leads, He provides. Thanks to donors for us to ACSTO, Dallas’ kindergarten, first, second and third grade were paid in full and we praying for fourth to be as well! Praise the Lord, the twin’s Kindergarten is paid for! Thank you for your help. This school has been AMAZING! The boys are learning and growing academically and Spiritually. 

            So again, it’s money that has to be paid either way. It can be paid to the State or donated to a School Tuition Organization and used for Christian education. The tax form(s)  used to get the credit are available at ACSTO.org.

            Please tell us if you do, because we would like to thank you and they cannot tell us who donated (Taxpayer Privacy). 

March, 2015

How are my donations used in Christian Challenge?

- You are creating a position in ministry that would not be there without you. 

- You become part of a team that reaches students for Christ who are not being reached by a typical church. 

- You allow there to be light on five spiritually dark campuses of more than 70,000 students!  

What type of donations are the most helpful?

- A regular monthly donation helps provide a consistent salary for this huge ministry task.   

- One prompted by God. He is the Provider, and He does so through His people. 

         

- One which you want to see make a difference all over Arizona. 

WinterFresh

We now have another avenue for our college students to pour into and lead high school and jr. high srudents. We have been serving at Zona Youth Camp for a long time now, but we were blessed for the first year to help with WinterFresh. 

This is a youth camp held up in Prescott over a weekend and it blew me away. We were able to be a part of reaching out to the dozen students who gave their life to Christ, lead Bible studies, assist youth pastors… everything the camp was doing, we had our 20 Challenge students serving. 

Maybe the proudest moment I had was when the staff member who was going to do the game for 400+ people was unable to make it due to a car accident (he was okay) and a student of ours stepped up to lead the entire thing. He delegated out the jobs to his peers and the youth had no idea that we were on plan B (that was planned in just over an hour). 

He is one of our star students who will be coming on staff with us, but it was exciting to see how the years of discipleship and leadership development had paid off. I was waiting nearby to jump in and lead if there was a problem, but there never was. This will inevitably be an annual mission trip for our students. On a heavier note, one of the youth pastors who was there passed away only a couple of weeks after taking his kids to the camp and serving with us. He was a Godly man and leaves behind a wife and 20 month old son. We were able to collect over 500 dollars for them at the worship service following his passing. Please be praying for Raquel and Joshua.   

Baptism

We just wrapped up All Area Worship and had an amazing night. We had our first ever baptism where we were able to bring the whole ministry together. It was amazing to hear his testimony of salvation and how Christian Challenge had impacted his life.

  

It was a large gathering and the baptism was pretty high above the stage, so it was hard to get a good picture, but it left a lasting impact on our students. 

We were very excited to be featured in Portraits Magazine again! (Portraits: http://www.azsobaptist.org/portad_page.shtml )

Powers Update

Huge Support that doesn’t cost a penny…

AZ Partners: Instead of paying State Tax to the State, you can donate (for a dollar for dollar tax CREDIT) that money to be used for Christian education, specifically to benefit a missionary family. You can bless us tremendously by using some of your owed Arizona State income tax dollars to donate to ACSTO (Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, Inc.) designated for Dallas, Hendrix and Colton Powers (you can put all three) at ____ School. Please email jamiempowers@yahoo.com for school name.). You will receive a tax credit dollar for dollar against AZ State income tax. Pls. call me for more information or there is lots of information on their website: ACSTO.org . Donations for 2014 tax year are not due until April 15, 2015! 

God has led us to send our children to Christian school and where He leads, He provides. Thanks to donors for us to ACSTO, Dallas’ kindergarten, first and second grade were paid in full and we’re praying for third to be as well! We Praise and Thank God! Thank you for your help. This school has been AMAZING! Dallas is learning and growing academically and Spiritually.  Next year he will be in 4th and the twins will be in Kindergarten.

So again, it’s money that has to be paid either way. It can be paid to the State or donated to a School Tuition Organization and used for Christian education. The tax form(s)  used to get the credit are available at ACSTO.org.

Please tell us if you do, because we would like to thank you and they cannot tell us who donated (Taxpayer Privacy).  

“Bike Outreach” to invite students to Challenge

How God Used You; 

We could not do this ministry without our team:

- Making disciples who are making disciples  

- Great worship community

- Students’ roommates getting involved 

Thank You for Your Prayers!

Please pray…

- New Salvations!

- New freshman leadership 

- Hallams serving in Alaska

- The international athletes who need Christ.

- The rugby team

- Orphans in Mexico 

- Us to train our boys up in a Godly way. 

- Our support

- Challenge Church at GCU and at ASU Poly

- More salvations

How can we pray for you?