The Journey of Power In Praise Ministries! Written by Pastor Kevin Meadows
Day 1
This journey begin with three adults and two teenagers having Bible study, for the first three months and see teenagers being added to the Numbers first, who invited their parents to join, this is the beginning of Power In Praise Ministries of Deltona, along the way it was many trials but thank God for all the tests he laid in front of us to bring us to 14 years.
Day 2
Beginning to build a strong foundation.
Bishop Turner and Pastor Trena came to Florida to discuss the vision and prayed about it, and begin to establish the paperwork for the ministry and the choosing of the name Power In Praise ministries of Deltona. Also we was lead as a group to go out and look at buildings which we found a building that just had been remodeled that was a community center on California Street, how ironic. We was just looking to have Bible study but the building was available front and back at that time and very reasonable rental. So without hesitation, we signed a contract with the City of Deltona even before we receive our first offering. This was truly a step of faith. On April 2006, we received a Certificate of Exemption from State of Florida, to operate as a house of worship!
Day 3
For the next two years, we will come to realize what the term means by Dr. Vernon McGee when he say where the rubber meets the road. Being 2785 miles away from our home church we had to truly rely on the Holy Spirit in the training. We received great mentoring pastor Pastor Elizabeth Powell and Pastor Eleanor and deacon Joe B. Felder ,Pastor Henry Ingram and also Pastor Amelia Adams to build upon in establishing this ministry. We also got a little bit of ministry help from Elder Faynell Wallace who came to help for about two years along with Minister Tony Velasquez. So our Bible study grew to about 30 then40 as we have both Bible study and church service in the same building for the first two years. At this time, Bishop Turner and Pastor Trena return to Florida and we became Pastor and First Lady. We had a packed house, thanks to Friends and family. Our next move was to begin to work on our 501 (c) (3). It was once said if you see a turtle on top of a fence pole one thing you can be for sure he did not get there by him self so this is a thanks you to all! 1 Peter 1:7 NLT
[7] These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold-though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.
Day 4
For the next two years things seem to be gone as planned. Here, we went from around 50 families back down to 10 in just a couple months and was wondering what had happened. Then we sat down and begin to talk with people and and ask questions. We was beginning to hear questions like what denomination are you because in the south they are three major denominations; Baptist, Pentecostal, and Catholic. Shen we said nondenominational people seem like they were confused. They said they never heard of it and their families have been asking questions and trying to figure out what we are; a cult or a fake religion. Although everything they read about this lined it up with scripture. at that time we had about 70% Spanish and maybe 20% African American and 10% Caucasian. Knowing that we planted the church in The community that was considered little Puerto Rico in Deltona, Florida and since I’m African-American and my wife is Puerto Rican, so it did not seem odd for us to work with both Spanish, African-American. So who did we go to for advice? For I grew up in a dominantly African-American church and my wife grew up in a Puerto Rican church. Now God has thrust us into a situation where we have no knowledge about so the only thing we can do is depend on his Holy Spirit to teach us what how to communicate because we was totally different from the other churches in our community and the way that we conducted service. But as it reads In Job, he got through it and was blessed and we feel the same way as we come into our 14 year.
Day 5
The truth about divine appointment,
So on April 2010 we receive a 501 (c)(3). So after going through so many ups and downs and even though God is still working things out we have to give a thanks to God. A brother named Carl who had at that time work for a law office, took our 501 (c) (3) and had it analyze and finalize for us at no charge. At this time we had a great struggle because the ministry has suffered so many different financial hits we had to really dig deep and see that this was an appointment by God. First it started with the rental of the property. We thank Bishop Turner for supplying the first six months but now all the surplus we had was running very low. So we prayed about it but I took it upon myself because I adopted a slogan that failure is not an option. So I felt that me and Miss Wanda had to fix this. We have done crazy things like taking out payday loans to make the rent but then God stepped in and chastise us because we was trying to use world means to solve what he had appointed. After that God came through in a mighty way. One of our members ministers Alexandria Meadows who became a manager at McDonald’s receive information of a program that they had that they wanted to fund different nonprofit organization with 501 (c) (3). We receive around $500 dollars a month from organization. We started being involved in the restaurant on games nite and talking and also sharing with people our ministry. Which we participate in all the way up to the present day until the pandemic. God will make away.
Now our next challenge was that we decide to host a conference with VPE which did not go all that well but it was because our lack of experience. But we thank God that he got us through it and we just feel that the lack of information was our biggest problem. But as the Scriptures tell us all things work for good, so this is another curve on our learning experience. Now we have moved to another location in our last three years which has been a blessing because it’s more open to us to do things, because we ran into a great issue with the center. We know every so often Christmas falls on a Sunday and was given the option if we wanted to stay that we would have to close down on that Sunday and then New Year’s and would not be able to have any service because without a custodian, we could not enter the building.
So we prayed about it and God lead us to a Presbyterian pastor who we had met so we moved our bible study and church service to a Presbyterian church building, which we took mornings and Thursdays and we have been working it out successfully. We thought at first it was kind of strange when we started service at 8:15 AM that we will see a drop off but we have seen an increase of participation and so had chance to change. So we asked “Do you want to move to 12 pm”, everybody agreed they love coming first thing in the morning with their families. So this is where we are at today, but it was a lot more that we did not say but we can truly say God had to guide us through the storm even when we was ready to bail out the boat! So be encouraged and we thank everyone who has been praying for us and giving us words of courage along this journey. It’s time to celebrate what God has done and what he is doing!
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