Kickoff Sunday, Oct. 4th, 2009

Three years ago God tugged on my heart to leave a very secure and exciting college pastorate and move to Seattle to start a church. This past Sunday, after three years of listening to and following after God, Epic Life Church was officially opened.

And it was awesome!

We began the morning pulling the trailer to the theater and starting to set up a half hour late at 7:30am, but things started coming together and we broke at 9 am to pray and asked God to give us peace and let us enjoy the morning, no matter what happens.

Ten sandwich boards and an eight foot banner set out on the streets and outside the theater and then with the lights down on the house, lights up on the stage and a great atmosphere creating screen behind, D-Vic and the band cranked up the amps and worship ensued with 110 people in the main auditorium and twenty some kids in the children’s theater. The worship music ended with a hiphop hymn and Nathan rapping to bring it home. It was sweet.

I spoke on John 1:1, The Word/Logos with painted black boxes with white letters painted on them, “LOGOS” and explained the Epic Life vision and what God is doing in North Seattle and on Aurora.

We ended out with David’s own song, Your Words.  Then it was off to talk to people and encourage them and answer questions.  It was excellent!

By 12:30 pm we had the trailer packed back up and exited the theater clean and ready for the next movie.

Later that night we met to celebrate at our home with ample celebratory ice cream and toppings.

Thank you God for letting us be in the midst of your Story here in North Seattle.

Stand in the Gap

Ezekiel 22:30 (New International Version)

“I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land…”

Epic Life Church is at a major crossroads. We are publicly bringing the Church to the attention of thousands in North Seattle and we need your help! I wish I could sit down and share everything God has been doing over the past year, because it has been amazing. He has allowed us to reach inside a community and see a lot of transformation, and many open doors.

Would you please “Stand in the Gap” and pray for us as we travel through the next two weeks? These are very important days and we need the protection that prayer brings. Also would you please “Stand in the Gap” and provide the financial covering we are in need of at this very moment. If each person who reads this blog would give Epic Life a one time gift of just $25 you would pay for every piece of advertising, the sound equipment and children’s ministry supplies. Many of you already are partnering with us; Thank you!

We just need to cross this one bridge financially, will you “Stand in the Gap for us? The power of many is great.

To give online go to the following link..http://www.seattlechurchplanting.com/index.cfm?pageID=3606

To give with a check you can mail it to:        Epic Life Church

Stand in the Gap Gift

10002 Aurora Ave. N

#36 PMB 5501

Seattle, WA 98133

Thank you so much for “Standing in the Gap” for Epic Life Church and for the thousands who will be touched because of this ministry.

Stand Strong, Live Epic,

Keith Carpenter

Lead Pastor Epic Life Church

Another Wow

We are quickly approaching the official Epic Life Church public kickoff and God moving in extraordinary ways. I wish I could tell you everything but some things have to wait because we don’t the know the full impact these things could have.  But there are many things we can share, like…

The Block Party…Last Saturday after passing out thousands of cards on windshields and thousands of door hangers throughout North Seattle we opened up a block party for our neighbors at 1 pm. No one showed up.

But then at 1:10 a family timidly walked onto the Epic Life Northgate Property and for the next three and a half hours we met some three hundred of our North Seattle community. It was fabulous, absolutely wonderful. The right amount of people came and played on the three inflatable and two sand volleyball courts and children’s games and enjoyed the espresso stand and snow cones, popcorn and Azteca Mexican tacos.  We were able to talk to everyone, so many great conversations. Many who thanked us for doing something good in the neighborhood.

Sunday at the Epic service we had such a great time worshipping and thanking God together with more new people and then tacos and drinks in the parking lot, together as a family.

Then this week started…Lots of work, long days, many meetings about the collegiate ministries at the UW with the Purple Door and at Shoreline Community College with the CRU crew, also got to speak at the area wide Campus Crusade for Christ leadership retreat. We have been working hard getting the trailer ready for transporting the sound and children’s ministry to the Theater come Oct. 4th and planning and meeting with the leaders and other leaders in Seattle and business owners. It’s been such a great week.

Then…today.

Chuck and I got ready to take a drive to Home Depot to purchase a bunch of plywood to make the traveling boxes for all the sound equipment. Planning on spending a few hundred dollars, but as we went outside the contractor who is finishing the condos across the street from the church was dumping three sheets of plywood. By the time I finished speaking with the company owner he had given us 15 sheets of plywood, a 36″ door (which we need in the church) and lumber saving us hundreds of dollars and get this…

The name of the construction company…Epic Construction.

After unloading the left over construction materials Kristine came out of the office and told me to go hear the awesome news Averi had. So I slid into the Epic Life office and Averi told me that the half page advertisement we are running in the Seattle Times to advertise the kickoff, thanks to Tom Thompson and the Cornerstone Church in Winona, MN, is going to be run twice because the sales rep at the Seattle Times wants to do something great for Epic Life. Thank you Seattle Times, I hope your readership rises that week.

Oh, just so you know, that’s a free $4500 half page add in the Seattle Times, for Jesus.

Its been another Wow week!

The Light is not overtaken by the dark.

The past couple of weeks have been pretty amazing. Spiritual Wars are happening all around us, but we know who the Victor is.  Here is a quick synopsis.  It started a few months ago and came to a head Monday night, August 3rd.  A young lady who has been feeling God’s call on her life over the past few months came to a place of running away from God’s arms to being embraced by the love of Jesus Christ.  Casey Ties was blessed with many opportunities to listen, guide, and share the love of Christ with her, and at 12:34 AM, she prayed a prayer turning her life over to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  You can read more about it here:
www.twelvethirtyfour.wordpress.com

Even after such a beautiful representation of the love of Christ, she experienced the enemy’s attacks of darkness and confusion (prayer and the Word dispersed the darkness).  The next day our team felt Satan come against all of us.  The manager at the movie theater, where Epic Life will be publicly launching, told me that he was pretty sure the company wasn’t going to rent to us when he said bluntly, “They don’t do that anymore.”  This really confused me as I felt so strongly that the theater was exactly where God wanted us to be for our launch.  Later that evening, I went to Northgate Baptist Church where the members were taking the final vote that would turn the property over to Epic Life.  The fifteen minute meeting turned into a three-hour business brawl. And on top of it all the church planting director of the PSBA, who was supposed to facilitate the meeting, barely made it on the account of his wife being in an auto accident.  At the same time, our leadership team was in our weekly meeting and struggling through issues of low confidence, confusion, and fear.  Clearly, a darkness was trying to extinguish the light on Aurora.

That same afternoon, I was sitting in Twins Gardens Restaurant eating chicken fried rice and writing in my journal, telling God that if He gave me the steps, I would follow.  I looked up and noticed two men walking into the restaurant.  One was blind.  I realized my mistake… so I wrote to God again.  This time I told him that even if I couldn’t see the steps to travel, I would still follow.  I didn’t have to know how or what the path looks like.  I just needed to follow.

That night, God showed His power over the forces that fight against us: Gary’s wife is alright (just a damaged car), the vote on the church came out 6-4; it is now Epic Life Property; we found out there is a national contract with the AMC Theaters allowing us use of the theater at about 1/3 of the cost I expected;  our team left tore down, but being built up stronger; and on Sunday, August 9th, we conducted our first Baptism service at Richmond Beach in the Puget Sound.

Friends, we know the Victor.

“The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it.”
John 1:5