By RaeAnn Slaybaugh
As Overflow Church navigates explosive growth, like-minded, like-hearted partnerships prove essential for project success.
By his own admission, Pastor Brandon Teachey was an unconventional choice to take over as lead pastor at Overflow Church in Angier, N.C. In fact, he was as surprised as anyone when he accepted the role!
At just 26, Teachey declined when, in 2016, Overflow’s board of directors asked if he’d like to interview to be the new lead pastor. For Teachey, the 94-year-old church appeared much more traditional than he felt comfortable leading.
But you know what they say about judging a book by its cover.
So, despite his reservations, Teachey agreed six months later to preach for Overflow, which still hadn’t hired a full-time replacement.
“When I pulled into the parking lot, I sat and prayed before I went in,” Teachey recalls. “I said something along the lines of, Lord, thank you for the opportunity. I’m going to pour my heart out because that’s what You called me to do — but I’m not going to pastor this church.”
What happened next surprised everyone involved.
He went inside and met 150 people who “grabbed his heart” — individuals and families who were willing to grow and change. Case in point: whether they expected to or not, they saw a world of potential in Teachey, too.
“When I left, I was encouraged,” he recalls. “I just felt like the Lord had done a work in my heart.”
Three interviews later, Teachey accepted the pastorship at Overflow.
“I found out years later that they were interviewing several other pastors — pastors who were married, pastors who were seasoned,” he says. “I was single — I’m still single — which just shows that the Lord gives it to you if it’s meant to be for you.
“I also learned never to tell God what you’re not going to do,” he laughs.
They all chose wisely
It wasn’t long before growth started to explode at Overflow Church. By the end of October 2018 — just a year and a half into Teachey’s tenure — the church went to two services. By November 2022, it was running three services. Now, since last Easter, Teachey has preached four services every Sunday.
“That sounds awesome, but it doesn’t feel awesome,” he asserts with a laugh.
Amazingly, all this expansion is happening in spite of some daunting (literal and figurative) hurdles.
For one thing, people park in a gravel lot on one side of a 55-mile-per-hour highway and then walk across it. Fortunately, there is an excellent parking team in place.
“We joke and say that we have them there because we want to get you saved in the parking lot, just in case you don’t make it into the church,” Teachey shares. “We have to laugh to keep from crying, because even though it’s a good problem to have, it’s still a problem.”
Additionally, the now-104-year-old church still meets in its original facility, which was rebuilt once after a fire. The newest building was finished in 1991, the same year Teachey was born. Inside were burgundy carpets and old-fashioned chandeliers (since replaced).
Still, Overflow has a lot of factors working for it, too. First, from a practical perspective: its location. Situated in a suburb of Raleigh, the church resides in Johnston County — at one point (and possibly still) the fastest-growing county in North Carolina.
On the spiritual side of the equation, Teachey says authenticity plays the largest role in the church’s anomalous growth. “Our look does not give a good representation of how the church feels whenever you walk inside and you see the people,” he points out. “We’ve heard people say that they can feel the Holy Spirit here. There’s a tangible presence. I just think that we’re a life-giving church, which is something the community wants and desires. People are hungry for the real deal.”
These sentiments speak to the main reason why Overflow Church is building a new building: to make it all uniform.
“We want the look to match the vision,” Teachey explains. “Our ability to do that shows God’s faithfulness, I think. It’s just crazy that the people will always go to where the fire burns.”
Entering unfamiliar territory
As mentioned, Overflow’s leadership hasn’t undertaken a building project since the early ‘90s, when they added a brick extension to the original building. So, they had their work cut out for them when deciding who to hire to make it all happen.
The vetting process started online, with one important criterium: a focus on church projects.
“If you work with a church, you know what you’re getting into,” Teachey explains. “At the end of the day, it’s not about a sound system or a church building; it’s about the people those things are going to help you reach.”
With this priority in mind, they chose Churches by Daniels, a nationwide design-build firm, to be their partner through the scope of the project. In turn, Churches by Daniels began to build a team around the project and reached out one of their trusted A/V/L (audio/video/lighting) integrators, AE Global Media, to come in and discuss the A/V/L objectives of the project, the two companies having successfully collaborated for years on many church facility projects.
For Churches by Daniels’ part, Teachey says, Overflow leaders appreciated seeing itself in some of the firm’s ground-up projects and renovations alike.
“Some of what we’re doing is renovations, and some is phased out, but another part is from the ground up,” he explains. “We wanted to preserve that heritage and that legacy — to make sure that what’s been there for so long will tie in with the new. It should be a beautiful picture of who the church is.”
As he and his team vetted both firms, they began to see commonalities — ones they really liked. For instance, professionalism.
“It was like a courting thing; they asked us questions, we asked them questions, and we were impressed with what they had to offer,” Teachey says. “Now that we’ve gotten behind the veil, all of that has proven to be true. They have their ducks in a row, their I’s dotted, and their T’s crossed.”
He also credits both firms for their ability to visualize the vision, so to speak. “They put a picture to what we had in our mind,” Teachey says. “We got it on paper.”
Along the way, Teachey came to appreciate another common element of the two providers: good stewardship of the church’s funds.
“Both promised us out of the gate that they wouldn’t show us something we couldn’t afford, that they wouldn’t get our hopes up,” he explains. Instead, Churches by Daniels and AE Global Media took ballpark figures and created packages to meet those budgets.
“And if we needed to make adjustments to accommodate growth later on, they were happy to do that,” Teachey adds.
Room to maneuver
With the right players in place, they all got to work on the first phase of expansion: more than 25,000 square feet, including a new sanctuary with more than 800 seats, a new gathering space — including a kids’ play area and coffee bar — and a new parking lot.
Once completed, the new, larger sanctuary will let Overflow not only get back to fewer services but also bring everyone together in worship.
“The exciting part of something new and bigger is that we serve a big God, and we don’t want to put Him in a box,” Teachey says.
For this same reason, he says, the new A/V/L setup is highly anticipated.
“Having new aesthetics, acoustics — it’s just really going to take everything to the next level, including our worship, our level of excellence, our reach, how many people we can reach with the gospel.”
In this respect, Overflow has a great starting place: it is blessed with a tried-and-true volunteer A/V/L team, led by Worship Director CK Harris. As such, a primary goal is to provide excellence in audio, video and lighting with the right suite of user-friendly equipment and services for the new worship space.
“We wanted a good sound system that could deliver good worship, because the atmosphere and the environment make a difference,” Teachey says. “If something doesn’t sound good or look good, it can be distracting. You don’t want anything to be a distraction.”
The team also wanted flexibility built into these new systems.
“When it comes to our A/V/L, it’s like anything else: we should always be growing and stretching,” Teachey adds. To this end, the new setup in the sanctuary is decentralized to include a dedicated room for audio and video and another for sound mixing.
“When we move up to this level, not only is the church growing, but so is the need for people to step up and serve and use their gifts,” he points out.
Outside the sanctuary, the new lobby prioritizes and accommodates fellowship.
“There’s something about coming together; the Bible speaks about that,” Teachey says. “ And now, instead of bottlenecking, people have a nice, big lobby where they can hang out, mingle, and meet new friends. Having some connection in community is what it’s all about.”
Last but certainly not least, the new paved parking lot keeps everyone safe.
“These were all priorities because it’s what we want for our people and whoever might be coming for the first time,” Teachey says.
In the second phase, the current and new office space will be remodeled.
In good company
As the project progresses, Teachey will no doubt draw upon the lessons learned in the first phase of the project — particularly, the importance of choosing like-minded, like-hearted partners.
“It always helps when people are on the same page in sharing that passion for the Kingdom,” Teachey says. “The Bible talks a lot about that: there’s power and there’s a blessing commanded on unity. I feel like we’ve had that pretty good from the beginning.”
To this end, he credits the Churches by Daniels team with bringing Overflow’s vision to life as beautifully and quickly as possible and AE Global with stellar collaboration on communication.
“I think we all know why we come to the table and why we’re doing this,” Teachey shares. “It’s bigger than just bands and budgets and buildings. The end goal is reaching the lost for Jesus and souls. It always has been, and it always will be.”
