Easter Highlights

Celebrating the Resurrection of our Savior for the first time as a new church was special to say the least. Over the past few weeks, God has been doing some remarkable things that led us to believe that even greater things were in store during Easter. Here are some highlights:

-On Saturday, we held our first annual Easter Egg Drop. We realize that there are very few churches in our community that do outreach events at Easter for children in the community, so we dropped thousands of prize filled eggs out of a hot air balloon onto the football field of Berea High School. We had a goal of having 500 people show up, and God multiply that by having over 1,000 people in attendance! Check out the video.
-We gave away over 600 drinks, 20 pizzas, 500 bags of chips, and 450 packs of Chicfila nuggets.
- We had 62 volunteers from OTHER churches come to help serve our community. A HUGE thank you to our partners at Renewal Church, Tapestry Church, Revolution Church, and Anderson Mill Road Baptist Church. It is awesome to see churches work TOGETHER as ONE BODY instead of competing against each other! When we become Kingdom-minded, we see Kingdom differences!
-We had 7 new families attend service at Radiant as a result of the Egg Drop.
- Easter Sunday was our highest attendance in the adult service with a total of 232. While that is a great number for a church that is only 7 months old, that still means that thousands of people in the 29617 zip code were not there. Keep inviting!
- We broke through our 60 barrier and finally had over 70 in Radiant Kids!
- More LIFE CHANGE took place! It is always good to see the prodigal son come home!
- We had baptism to celebrate the transformation of 4 more people!

Can you imagine what Easter 2011 will be like?

A New Home

As you read back on the blog from last summer, we had prayers about a specific piece of land that we wanted to purchase. (The property was not even for sale!) Our dream was that we would have a place to build a home for Radiant Church in the northwest area of Greenville between Berea and Travelers Rest. After our launch this fall, we were notified that the property had a "for sale" sign up. Our Senior Pastor told the leadership team that if the land was still for sale at the beginning of this year, we were going to pursue making the purchase. In January, Ricky and our CFO began meeting with the realtor. It was clear that God had His hand in this situation with the series of events that took place and this property was to be the home of our permanent facilities.

On Feb. 7th, we launched our Reality Campaign by announcing the location to our people, and we showed our dream. We needed $18,000 immediately for the down payment. Radiant Church showed their commitment to reaching our community through the work of our local church by giving sacrificially to raise that within two weeks! Needless to say, the 18.6 acres on N. Hwy 25 Bypass is currently under contract and will soon be owned by Radiant Church. We have met with the architects for the intial process of the building masterplan.

WHY BUILD A BUILDING?

We are blessed to have the facilities that we have at Berea High School. We have a wonderful relationship with the principal, and are truly thankful for his support and prayers. Because of state budget cuts and the need for additonal funding, the school district will be doubling the rent within the next year. There are many portable churches that reach thousands of people each week successfully, but being portable also has many challenges. We are 100% sure of the area to which we are called, and there are not many other options in the community where we need to serve.

This will not be just another church building that is non-functional six days a week. Our dream is to have a place that provides children, teenagers, and families an environment they can enjoy any day of the week while growing together. This will include meeting facilities and a fully operating café open to the public seven days a week. We believe in this dream, and hope you can help us make it a reality!

Year in Review

At the beginning of 2009, no one knew what God had in store for the people that make up Radiant Church. While the "idea" of Radiant Church was being formed, the vision was not alive and active as it is today. Only the Creator of the Universe could have designed the journey this year has been! Just looking back on all of the unbelievable events that have taken place since our launch on September 13, 2009 makes me stand in awe of His Power, Grace, and Mercy!
Here are some highlights of 2009-
-Our Vision meetings- looking back, those were precious moments in the development of our church. Gathering around with our core team and getting to form those bonds will forever be special memories!
-Launching with over 200 people and having the feeling of anticipation of dreams coming true.
- The salvation and/or baptisms of Liz, Kayla, John, John Walker, Jewell, James, Haley, Chandler, Chase, Steven, Brandi, Melanie, Cody, and Austin.

- Watching lives being changed and people recommitting their lives to the Lord week after week. - Forming the Life Group for Radiant Students and having Jonathan Garrett come on board as our Student Pastor. Having students SERVE at our church is such a blessing!
-Our first Fall Festival- even if it was rained out on the original date, it was awesome to get to have some of the neighbors from our community join us in the fun. Our games look AMAZING thanks to one of our awesome members.

-Our 1st Baby Dedication and committing to teach these precious children about Jesus.

-Having Radiant Kids beg to stay at church longer- we have AWESOME children that we get to love on, have fun with, and teach each week!
- Experiencing the miracle of Chris Hall's kidney transplant and how He has perfect timing.
- Radiant's 1st Wedding- having the privilege of seeing a man who was saved and baptized at our church remarry the mother of his children. A divorced couple restoring their marriage shows God's idea of Love!

-Giving away a car- Having a couple donate a car, repairmen donate labor to fix it up, being able to buy new brakes and tires, & see the appreciation from the wonderful couple who received it.
-Having a man visit Radiant from an invite card in his mailbox.
-Having a woman begin coming to Radiant because of a newspaper article on our Senior Pastor.
-Christmas Giveaways- being able to see TEENAGERS work and give their money to buy Christmas for a little boy that Santa wouldn't have been able to visit, giving gift cards to single moms, and helping families who were facing hard times reminded us of the root of Christmas.
-Donations from wonderful people who gave sacrificially and for God's provisions. God is faithful! -Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon- We have over 70 volunteers that serve in our various areas of ministry. We were able to honor them by going out to eat and giving away Walmart cards of $25, $50, and $100.
-Realizing that THE BEST IS YET TO COME!
Thank you Jesus for this incredible opportunity to make a difference in lives by being relevant, relational, and radical! If God can do all of this in 16 weeks of Radiant's existence, IMAGINE what He wants to do in the next 52 weeks! COME JOIN US!

A Week of Praise

Psalm 115: 1 says "Not to us, O LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness." We often sing about this great proclaimation, but over the past week, it has been the heartbeat of Radiant Church. God has blessed in ways that ONLY HE CAN!

It started last Thursday morning when many of us were awakened with the amazing news that during the night, our guitarist Chris Hall had gotten a phone call that he had a kidney donor. He and his wife Cheyenne (pictured) serve faithfully each week at our church and this has been a long trial for them. They went to Charleston for his transplant, and he is on the road to recovery. OUR GOD PROVIDES ALL OUR NEEDS!

Sunday morning was an incredible service where we once again saw so many new faces. It is awesome to see people from every walk of life come together and love on each other. The service closed with the salvation of Jewell Garst, someone that many of our leadership members have prayed for over a decade! OUR GOD IS MIGHTY TO SAVE!

We had our first membership class on Sunday night. New families are being brought to Radiant, and it was great to get to hang out with them. After the class, a little 8 year old girl asked Jesus into her heart!

And if all that wasn't enough to show His Glory, we had another amazing night at the student Life Group on Wednesday. A teenage boy that was brought by his friends met Jesus as his Lord and Savior. We can't wait to see how God wants to USE these teenagers as many of them are answering His call to serve.

ISN'T HE AMAZING? We could never plan or orchestrate this. It is His fame that we want to spread. We boast in Him alone! As Pastor Ricky says, this is only a glimpse of what God wants to do in His people. We are ready to see what is in store!

Please continue to pray for our mission partners, Zach and Noelle Slagel, while overseas on a vision trip. They have finished their time in Cambodia and part of Indonesia, but are currently in Bali. They have had some warfare raging through visa issues and sickness, but pray they receive the clarity they are seeking.

Kaleo

This week, we kicked off our new series, "Kaleo." The word means "called," and as we are laying the foundations of Radiant Church, we must obey our callings. Pastor Ricky shared what it was all about to CARE! Jesus was moved with compassion, and we are to follow that example as we are called to care about our neighbors. The people of Radiant Church are GETTING IT! New faces are there each week because we are loving RADICALLY and inviting lost people to show how we care! Yesterday was our highest attendance in adults, and it is only going to get better!

Our volunteers are incredible! We have over 40 quality, passionate volunteers on rotation that are working with our children. That is AWESOME for a church of our size! A big thanks to the extra teenagers who are showing up at 8 am to unload. If you are not on a volunteer team yet, but want to get plugged in- we need extra help with clean up in the cafe and packing up the trailers. Just hang around after the service and we will get you a place to serve! To God be the glory for the great things He is doing at Radiant!

Wednesday night will be the first Life Group for students in middle school and high school. We will have worship, bible study, food, obstacle course, corn hole, ladderball, and basketball. Invite every student you know to come and experience Radiant Student Ministry!

The First Offical Services of Radiant Church

Words cannot explain the feeling at the launch service! God was in our midst as we began weekly services at Berea High School. We had around 200 people total for our first time, and there was such excitement! We kicked off our new series "UNSTOPPABLE." We believe in an UNSTOPPABLE God, who gave us an UNSTOPPABLE Vision, with UNSTOPPABLE Partners, and we are expecting UNSTOPPABLE Results!
At our second service, our volunteers showed their devotion by experiencing portable church in the rain. It was all worth it when we had 3 salvations! PRAISE THE LORD! Seeing lives changed is what Radiant is all about, and that is happening already. We get to have baptism next week and it is going to be awesome! As we now look forward to meeting every Sunday, we pray that you would join us. We serve an awesome God and want to share His love with you in a Relevant, Relational, and Radical way every Sunday!

Exciting Times

Exciting things have been happening in the life of Radiant Church over the past few weeks, and we believe it is only a taste of what is in store.

1. Our worship pastor and his awesome wife were blessed with the birth of their beautiful twin daughters on May 31st. Zoe Noelle and Kara Ashlen are now part of the Radiant family! The girls are still in NICU, but are improving each day. Pray for them, as well as Corey and Carrie, as the babies get stronger. We can't wait for them to come home!

2. Just as exciting as a physical birth, we celebrated the symbol of spiritual birth as well. Our first baptism service was AWESOME! We got to see Liz Meloche take a step of faith and publicly show that Jesus is Lord of her life. The decision to follow Christ was made long ago, and Liz has walked as an example of a disciple. Now, she has followed through with baptism to represent the change in her life. It was very special to have so many friends come support Liz on that day!

3. Our second Vision Meeting was UNBELIEVEABLE! We have had so many people show interest in the church plant, but it was time to see who was willing to commit to serving. Our Launch team now has over 40 committed members who will be serving at Radiant! Please pray as we meet with others who may be coming on board. We are looking for people who are ready to be Relevant, Relational, and Radical!