Jeff and Natalie Overstreet

Faithful Leadership and the Power of Community: A Conversation with Pastors Jeff & Natalie Overstreet

In this episode of the Good News Gossip podcast, hosts welcome the pastors of Faith Outreach, Jeff and Natalie Overstreet, to discuss the importance of church attendance, faith leadership, and the vision for their community. They share personal testimonies, the journey of starting their church, and how being part of a church family can positively impact one's spiritual life. They encourage listeners to seek a relationship with God and provide guidance on accepting Christ as a savior. The episode also announces an upcoming launch party for the podcast, emphasizing the mission of spreading hope and connecting with the community.

00:00 Jeff and Natalie Overstreet

00:19 Welcome and Introduction

03:25 The Importance of Church Attendance and Community

05:57 Faith Outreach Small Group/Bible Study

07:13 Raising Children To Be Christians

10:19 How Faith Outreach Started And Where It's Going

12:35 Reach Out To Us/Church Events

14:15 Faith Outreach Doctrine

Transcript

0:00

Gather around God's and move them all over town. Good news, gossip, spreading hope and life. Good news, gossip, making, dark day. Every testimony, every story. True God's do. Hey friends. Welcome back to the Good News. Gossip, the podcast where we share the stories that build faith, spark joy, and remind us that God is always moving. Today is extra special because we're sitting down with some of the wisest, kindest, and most spirit filled leaders that we know the pastors of our very own church. Get ready for some powerful truth, heartfelt laughter, and behind the scenes stories you won't want to miss. We're talking faith leadership and what it really looks like to shepherd a community in today's world. Grab your coffee, continue working out, keep cleaning whatever it is you're doing while you're listening to this podcast. I'm so excited to introduce our guest today, Jeff and Natalie Overstreet. it's so good to have Pastor Jeff and Natalie Overstreet here at Faith Outreach. On good news, gossip podcast. Thank you. And, it is trust. It's a be a blessing to you. Amen? Yes. Yeah. We wanted to let our audience get to know y'all, talk about the church, and just, get the invitation out there for people to listen to the podcast and check out the church and be a part of what faith outreach is. Yes, we want to invite everybody, if you don't have a church that you already attend. Now, if you call a place your church, but you don't attend, then we'd still like you to come because you really need to be in the house of God and we'd love for you to come. We're just. People that love God and will love you if you come hang out with us and listen to Pastor Jeff bring the word. Well, we also have, wing and I service where my, our son teaches, and it's a good class. So we imagine that also in, the name county puts out our mission statement at the same time. You know, you can't really please God without faith. He says in Hebrew. 11th chapter. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. So we would definitely wanna operate in faith and we also want to have an outreach in our community and to extended families and people that you know, friends of the people that are already here. So if you know somebody that needs a home church over some fellowship, come and see and pray about it and see if it is a fit for you. You can be blessed and be a blessing. Here we have meals before church. Sunday morning we have donuts and coffee. And Wednesday night, six o'clock we do, like a theme night tonight is barbecue and I've made up some barbecue chicken in a skillet and a blackberry moose pie. Micah, our son, will bring the word y'all, come fellowship with us. Back to, attendance, I was looking up like what are the most, asked questions to pastors and one of like, the top 20 was like, well, what is the importance of even showing up in like your attendance to church? Like why is that important? Well, evidently if Jesus spent his ministry from town to town teaching, he knew that for people to overcome the unbelief, it was in their hearts and to be exposed to the gospel, they had to hear it. Yes. And therefore, God calls certain people to preach. It doesn't make them better, it doesn't make them more important to the body of Christ, but they have a mission to, share the word. And when you come. And you hear the word taught and the Holy Ghost anoints it and owes it to your heart, you can grow as a Christian. And that for therefore it is very important. Not like, oh my gosh, I hope the Lord don't come back today. I'm not in church. You know, I might miss the rapture thing, but just the desire to be there for the right reason and also. Fellowship with other people who are like-minded, headed it the right way. Mm-hmm. Yes, I agree. Yeah as someone who was kind of out for a few weeks and then coming back was such a blessing and especially the message you preached, pastor Jeff, was so much needed for my spirit. I was so blessed by it.'cause it, you specifically talked about procrastination and I was like, okay. Yeah, hits hole with me too. I needed to hear that. And as soon as I got, like I was taking notes during the message and then it just got the ball rolling for me to be more, productive with the podcast, it's definitely a calling. God arranged it all so perfectly and I would be doing a disservice. To you guys and to charity and the church. If and and the Holy Spirit. If I didn't, we didn't go through. Amen. Well, you go talking about procrastination. I heard about a guy, he actually had a, bought a book on procrastination. He said he's gonna read it next morning. That is my lawyer. Another reason to reason to come is he's very funny. Y'all, on the fellowship note, I just want to say. You know, the Bible says forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. But anyway, like Felicia said, you're going to gain strength and fellowship and y'all, I do a every third Thursday. Ladies in love class. And, we just have had some of the best classes and the men have class on typically Monday night at six. And, you know, we just can break it down to everybody's personal need and we pray together and everybody gets a chance to say what's on their heart. And that's very needful. 100% yes. The last, women's meeting, it's just, it's called Ladies in Love, but it's just all the women from our church. Just talking about being in love with the Lord, most of all, and then loving your husbands. And if you're not, married yet, then just prepare for that. Right. It's a great class for sure. I also want to brag on the kids part of the church Eli has, plenty of kids to play with. All the toys are so nice and he loves coming. The children's church class is very good. We have a dedicated woman that loves to make it very fun, kids are gonna come home and tell you what they learned. Yeah, same man. Another reason to really be. Consistent with your church attendance, wherever God leads you Yes. Is you're actually teaching your children the importance of church work? Yes. When, when you don't show up, you're actually telling that child, you might not say it verbally, but you're telling that child church is optional. Go when you feel like it. If you ever start going, you feel like it, the devil will say like, you don't feel like it. I just wanna set forth the standard stop thinking about it. How many kids would go to school, is left up to them. 100%. I agree with that. That was on one of the top 20 questions asked for pastors is how do I raise my kids up, to be Christians? And to me that was pretty plain and clear. Like Yes, you have to show them by example. Yes. I think it's Proverbs 22: 6. Train up a child in the way he should go when he is old. He'll not depart from it. So you cut the ruts for your kids. Yes. You know, if you're kind of half-hearted, don't be surprised if your kids are less in class, even less, even less than you are. And there's exceptions. I've seen kids come outta homes where no one went to church except them. And then I've seen kids come out of where they were raised in church and still went the wrong way. But you at least wanna give that child the exposure to the gospel. Yes. And I think they're more inclined to come back to those things, even if they go astray. Yes. Than they are if they've never heard'em. So it's important to get you, and now don't let church replace your parenting at home. That's not meant to do that. should be breaking out your Bible, your study. Your prayer time at home, if you're serious. About getting your child the education that they need, not just math and all that that's good and necessary, but if you want to give them a strong foundation for a successful Christian life. And I think if everybody, if you ask people, they'd say, the most important thing would be for my child to grow up and do something that made a difference for the kingdom of heaven than making all kinds of money. Or being a sports hero or. American Idol or anything like that. They'd say that, but their actions don't always say that. Their actions say, man, we need the money. You know, it's easy to get involved in your work and just get kindly absorbed in it.'cause you feel like, well, you know, even a Christian has to provide and you do. But, trust God. Yes, trust God and, you honor him and you sow some seed out there. God, I'm, I can come back to you. Amen. Amen. Amen. I kind of have a testimony, my son Clay is the reason, you know, part of the, the way that God worked in us being here is'cause he was on fire for the Lord and he knew that he needed to be in church on Wednesdays. And so his idea For us to finally find another church home. Amen. Do y'all have anything y'all wanna add in about, how the church started or just anything that you feel like's important Well. We met in a, in a small country church and felt like, God had brought us together And through the years we felt a call started, started to work and it. It, it didn't, it didn't do as much as we had hoped, but you know what? You can't get discouraged with things. Don't go as quick as you want. No. And then we met in a home. We met in a lot. We met in a diner and you know, we're believing this is phase one of what God's brought us to. Yes. You know, we can see probably a hundred people or so, and we're hoping to grow and. Get to the place, where we can add on and add small facilities and a gym and some things for the people to use. You know, if you don't have any kind of a vision. And, we are certainly not against small churches because that's where we're at right now. But we're on the road We've had, uh, quite a few people come through and we realize it's not going to, be a fit for everybody. Right. And we don't think we're the only people teaching truth. But we do believe we are a fit for a lot of people. They just come with an open heart and open mind, I think they'll really find some fellowship and you know, everybody that's teaching or ministering, I feel real common that they're trying with all that's within them. To bring what God would have him say. Yes. Now it won't be perfect. No church is. I said, you find the perfect church, please don't join it'cause you'll mess'em up. Well I just want to say, you know, God has given me vision. Like Pastor Jeff said, right out of the gate before we even married, he told me God has a call on my life. And, I said, well, he does mine too. And neither one of us really knew what it was, but. I remember at the time I told him I'd love to be a pastor's wife. So evidently I was prophesying. But, I, I, I've had vision of, starting a children's choir and all of the children have a little robe that they wear. We've got several children in the church that love to sing We love the children around here, y'all, we, the children are just precious to us. Also, you know, we want people to know we're here in Kensett. We have people come from other places than Kensett, but we would really, love to minister and help the people that are, you know, around here in our if for some reason you were to. Would want to come and you need some assistance. If you'll get ahold of somebody from the church. We'll see what we can do to help you because Yes, and you can reach out to any, social media, for the podcast as well because we are part of the church. We'd be happy to help you get connected for, I think, you know, I'm not gonna tell you, but I think our events and stuff are kept posted on our Facebook type. Yes. Yes. We pay church page. If you go to Faith Outreach on the Facebook page, you can kind of see what we're doing. We've actually got a Sandbar church service once or twice a year, according to the river cooperates. So we've got one coming up. You can kind of look and see. Yeah. On Father's Day. On Father's Day, we're doing our first one of this year. Sandbar Church, that's a lot of fun and it's an outreach, if the water's too high that there's no sandbars out, then we're just going to. Fall back on just doing it there at the boat ramp there at Georgetown. So, right. Bring your dad. Either way it's gonna be an outdoor either way. It's gonna be an outdoor service. And if you come wanna be baptized, there'll be a river. There you go. Some people still like that old time dunk'em in the river and we've never lost anybody. But we did have a couple baptisms last year. Yeah. We did. And, it was a blessing, you know? Yes. I think if, Jesus got baptized, that kind of set the bar that, hey, baptism, you know, he hadn't been baptized, you just come sambar service, go to another church. You going to, and we'll see that you're baptized. That's right. Amen. Pastor Jeff, do you want to say anything to him about kind what we believe. Well, yeah. The Bible, Even though we're non-denominational, we hold fast. The doctors taught in the New Testament Church as much as we know now, we're consistently praying for more revelation. Yes, because, the Bible said Paul said. We know in part. Well, if you know in part, what does that tell you? You don't know it all. So we're not know it all. We don't know everything, but we're trying to minister'em what we do know. And most people probably know more than what they're doing already. Amen. Amen. One question I had for you, pastor Jeff, was what would you say to a person to encourage them to come to church? I'm not against inviting folks to church. I still do that. Sometimes I think we need to go past just inviting the church and say, do you know the Lord? And try to locate'em. Because if they're saying, well, I don't even believe there is a God, well, why would they want to come to church? And then your answer would be, well, let me tell you why I believe in God and share that with you. Not in a pushy way, but share, this was what God's done in my life. The Bible says, the heavens declare the glory of God, the firm to show this handwork. When you look up at the night sky and they keep getting these telescopes and see further and further in his face, they can find no end. The way to do it is they can't find no end. There's not one. No. God is so big and so vast, and so I would encourage them people, and you know God, if God puts somebody on your heart, you don't just have to ask them to church and hope that the preacher can give'em to the altar. Talk to'em. Do you know the Lord? Have you ever accepted Christ as your savior? Uh, I've had a lot of things, well, I got, I got saved when I was a kid and, uh, I, I know I did'cause I went down with alter and cried. Well, that's not really a foundation for salvation. So I think every Christian needs to prepare theirself to be a soul winner. And as God opens up a door, you don't need to be trying to kick'em down.'cause if they're not ready for the gospel, they won't receive it. That's right. And if God opens up a door for you to talk to somebody, talk to'em in a very kind way. Well, I just want you to know. Whether you believe in him or not, he believes in you. And he loves you. Yep. You know, if you ever got any questions, I'll be there for you. If you need a prayer, we'll pray. Pray with you. If everybody in the body of Christ would take that approach, I think the church would really grow. Yes. I mean, we really grow, we've got a lot of complacency in the body of crime. Just everybody's busy trying to make money and, well, I'm definitely not against making money.'cause if your wife spends money, you gotta make some more. Well, it's kind of like nice clothes, I like good food in a nice home. And those things are fine. But when here comes your time to be done here and you're through with your life, those things will not count. And the things you've done for Christ is, like he said, left with treasures in heaven. And I think those treasures are the people that you influence towards Christ. I have been able to influence people that I worked for and been around to. Eventually they did come around and get saved and it was, good because, you know, you get around people that you, you like'em, you care for'em. You don't wanna see'em spend eternity in the wrong place. You know, pastor Jeff, a scripture come to me. My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. You know, we need to ask ourself, does Jesus know us? You know, we, we say all the time, we know him, but does he know us? We hear his voice and we follow him. And, I think it's very important that we realize that, we need to have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, pray to the Father in Jesus' name, and, just build a relationship where you can go to the Father and let the Holy Spirit comfort you and know that he knows you and you know him. Amen. I wanna touch on something you said, about, just telling others what God has done in their lives that's really what this podcast is all about. So, I wanna know individually, what you feel like the biggest thing God has done in your life. In my life? Yeah. Well, the biggest thing was. He became my savior. Mm-hmm. When I was a child, I went to the altar on my own. I was at a Baptist church. My parents attended a Baptist church then, but my mother took me to a Baptist revival. And the Reverend Roach was the guest speaker, but he preached on hell, fire and brimstone. If you don't accept Jesus, you're going to hell. And you know, we don't hear enough of that these days. I'm 64, so that was nearly, you know, that was 55 plus years ago. But, I went to the altar and I accepted Jesus as my savior, and that began my journey. My daddy pastored in the Baptist church and then he got baptized with the Holy Spirit and with the evidence of speaking in tongues. So they put him outta the Baptist Church and he started going to a Church of God and then he got his license in the Church of God and started pastoring. So that's how I met Jeff. My father took the little church where he was attending to pastor when I was 16 years old. And I just believed that God led me to Jeff. And it didn't take long for us to both realize that God put us together, you know? And then when we married but before Pastor Jeff married me, he said, I believe God wants to give me a lot of children. I really believe. And, we'd been married a few years and. I had miscarried my third pregnancy But it was during that time I began to seek the Lord and he told me. I caught the vision for a big family. The vision that Jeff had, God gave it to me. It wasn't something I did just because he felt led. He gave us that vision together and he gave us 13 children together. And, we've got two in heaven. One was stillborn, but we raised 11 children and I know that God led us to do that. Somewhere along the way, there's been several times Jeff would say, honey, I know God is calling me. I'm not sure just yet what he wants me to do. Long, about 1990, we had a newborn, or I think she was our seventh child, he said. God told me to tell the church I've been called into the ministry. Well, he had already been lay minister and we'd been working in churches teaching Sunday school children, church ministering wherever we could to help people, but that's when he actually was called into the ministry. But it wasn't until 2002, he came to me and he said, I think now's the time. Now's the time. God wants us to look for a building. He wants us to start a church. And we, named the church. Faith Fellowship Community Church. And then time went on, you know, as pastor told you, we had a, you know, what looked like the vision was Dwin. But we knew it was the enemy. We knew it was the enemy coming against us. We sold the church building we had and began to have home meetings, God led us to the perfect property. The church paid for the property, then he led us to the perfect. Building that we needed to put up a new church. And now we're sitting in a new church, in a beautiful podcast room. Mm-hmm. And it's all because we would not give up on the vision God gave us. Amen. And he's got so much more for us. We've got more property. Want to build a big sanctuary. God's got a lot more in store. We want you to be a part of it. Amen. Amen. Well, when you talk about this, none that's ever going to be more important to anyone than their salvation experience. That's right. And I being raised in church, you know, you hear a lot of preaching and stuff, but then even as a young person, I remember an advantage of being there and I realized, I'm not really saved. I can't even remember how old I was, but I was really young. But I remember thinking, I need to do something about that. And so I didn't make a big fanfare about it'cause I was already going to altar and prayed because there no old Pentecostal churches, everybody went down to altar and prayed. Yes they did. Because if you didn't go down to the altar to pray, people might think you're a bad person. Right. They weren saved. Now people rush out the door. But people used to go down there and pray. So I was praying, so I'm thinking. Well, I've already been praying, but I, God's so gracious, he don't try to make things hard. And through that, I got that took care of and, you know, knew I was saved and knew things were right with me and the Lord. And so, that happened to me as a child. That hasn't happened to a lot of adults yet they haven't even realized they need Christ That's true. So hopefully that's why we continue to share the gospel. And this is just another outreach is that somebody would come across this and listen to this. And if we speak to their heart and they realize I need you, ask God and accept him as my savior. And so there's no higher mission than that. But the only reason for the facility is to present the gospel Yes. To other people who have it. And help Christians grow, help'em get their families settled and on the right track. And so we believe God's doing that here. We're certainly not the only place God's doing that. Amen. One of the places, I feel like God's doing that If you're a Christian, you're not in church. Pray about where God wants you. Amen. He may not be here, but he wants you somewhere. That's right. And if you're lost, really pray because, right. What would someone on your listening to that doesn't, you know, what could y'all say real quick to, so they could lead their self to Christ if they were alone? Well, you could just accept Christ. Christ is already. Made provision for your salvation, but until you accept it by faith, you're still lost. And so you can go to Romans, the 10th chapter about everybody probably has a Bible, even on your phone you can Romans 10, nine, and 10. And it talks about confessing God. If from your heart are wanting to be saved, God is going to meet you there. Amen. And if you need information on that or you're unsure or you're unclear, you can get a hold of some of us or any of the pastors here in this area. Somebody will help you and assist you to make sure that you got things right between you and the Lord. Even if you're terminally ill, you're thinking, well, what would God want with me now? God still wants you. Yes, he does. And he's so merciful. He saved a fee. On a cross. Yes he did. That thief had no way of repaying him with anything. No money, no service. It was just the pure mercy of God to save a thief that was being crucified.'cause he asked me to put trust in himself. That's right. If you're out there you're uncertain of your salvation. To God or get a hold of one of us or somebody that you trust and get that took care of.'cause the rest of it someday won't matter. But that that'll matter for all attorney. Yes, it will. All right. I ain't well, thank y'all for having us on today yep. I appreciate you guys so much. This podcast would not be possible if not for the creation of faith outreach and the church letting us use this room. Know God gave us this blessing to be able to bless others, that's the beauty of podcasting. I'm obsessed with podcasts because you can listen to it anywhere and during anything you're doing. Cleaning, cooking, working out, whatever, doing dishes. Yeah, exactly. And, and it's, so accessible. And there's people listening in South Africa. There's people who have downloaded our podcast in like 50 Uganda. It's crazy. Like so different. How many different countries? Like 13 different countries. 13. Okay. Oh, it was a lot. But like, how many downloads do we have in, I mean, it's like one person in every country, right? How many do we have here? Oh. Oh, okay. So there's like 200 close to like 270 I believe now downloads. Awesome. Yeah. There you go. I, I just wanted to say one more thing that keeps coming to me. If you don't, if you don't believe that you've ever asked Jesus, come in your heart and be your savior. You can actually do that right now. You can just close your eyes and say, God, I believe you're real. I believe Jesus. Your son came to earth, born of a virgin and grew up and was, was killed, and hung on the cross for the forgiveness of my sins, that his blood was shed, and I just. Accept you, Jesus. Now I believe, and I receive you into my heart, and I believe by faith that you've forgiven me of my sins. And then you, you find you a church to go to after you ask Jesus in your heart. Amen. Amen. Amen. What an incredible conversation. We're so thankful to our pastors for sharing their hearts and reminding us what it means to lead with faith and humility. Also, we've got some exciting news. The good news gossip is throwing a launch party. If you're listening, you're invited. It's our way of celebrating this community, praising God for what he's doing, and connecting with you all in person. It's gonna be a night of joy, testimonies, worship in a whole lot of Jesus. So keep an eye on our socials for the date, location and how you can RSVP and if you or someone you know would like to sponsor the podcast, this is your moment. We've been looking for partners who believe in the mission of spreading hope through real stories of faith. Sponsorship helps us keep this ministry going strong so we can continue to share the good news and pointing people to the one who makes it all possible. Thanks for tuning in. Don't forget to share this episode. Leave a review and let someone know that God is still in the business of changing lives. Until next time, keep spreading the good news. Gather around God's and move them all over town. Good news, gossip, spreading hope and life. Good news, gossip, making, dark day. Every testimony, every story. True God's do.