We are very blessed to have a staff full of people who believe in the vision of OneLife so much that they are willing to be volunteer staff, verrrrrry part-time staff, or bare-bones-living-on-love full-time staff. In fact, talking with a larger church a couple months ago it was discovered that our entire staff gets paid barely more than one pastor at a church they planted.

Now don’t get me wrong. We don’t always want to stay here!

But for now it’s amazing to see people willing to do whatever it takes to see us reach our dreams and goals of being the church God has called us to be. This week we added two more people in official roles. Once again, they are either doing it for free or next-to-nothing!

Dylan Martin – Student Ministry

Dylan started attending OneLife a few months ago and quickly hit the ground running. He has a heart for students like none I have ever seen and over the past couple of weeks has taken this opportunity to run wild with his passion. Dylan has served at several other churches in the role of student pastor and brings that experience to OneLife.

What got me excited about Dylan is his shared passion that he has to lead a ministry that fits what OneLife is already doing. He has no desire to create a “church-within-a-church” kind of student ministry that happens at so many churches. Our student ministry will be small groups based and encourage students to volunteer and serve with other OneLifers.

I don’t think I’ve been this excited since we launched 8 months ago! Contact Dylan at students@onelifeknox.com or call the church office at 865.238.4242.

Natalie Dixon – Assistant to Lead Pastor

Natalie is a life saver! Her job is to protect me from myself. One thing I didn’t anticipate when we launched this church is just how much time I would end up spending on administrative duties and tasks. Things like returning emails, scheduling meetings, tracking expenses, returning phone calls, answering basic questions, etc. that kept me from focusing on studying for Sundays, leading the staff, and doing what only I could do as pastor.

So enter Natalie. She is now managing my calendar, email (which all of you who have waited weeks for a response – if you ever got one – are excited about!), answering basic questions, tracking my credit card receipts (which will also make our bookkeeper very happy…since 3 months of statements are on my desk!) and setting up any meetings that are needed along the way. So basically, if you need me – she is the one to go to! I won’t have a clue otherwise To do just that, email her at pastor@onelifeknox.com or call the church office at 865.238.4242.

I am so thankful for the staff God has brought together at OneLife and their heart to reach the disconnected and unchurched in our community. Why don’t you do me a favor? Visit www.onelifeknox.com/staff and pray for each of these folks. And even though I’m not listed on that same page, I could use a prayer too!

Thanks OneLife. I truly love each of you with all of my heart!

How We Met: I met Dillan when I got to a point of desperation. A worship leader that I thought was going to be the OneLife worship leader had just told me it wouldn’t work out. We were just a few short weeks away from our first preview service and I didn’t have a clue what we would do. I literally thought I would be doing both – preaching and leading worship – on Sundays. But one day I literally got in the floor of my living room and asked God to PLEASE lead me to the person he wanted to be our worship leader. Less than two hours later, Dillan responded to an email I sent and the rest is history.

What He Does: Dillan cracks me up, that’s what he does! But what he does for OneLife is anything related to worship. He is responsible for leading worship, scheduling and rehearsing the band and vocals, and working with Tyler to program our worship services. On top of that, Dillan is part of a local band called Hello Forever that travels around the country leading worship at all kinds of different events. One of the things that led to me to keeping Dillan around is his heart for the local church. No matter where Hello Forever is playing, be it Seattle, Florida, or Tennessee, as a rule they always return to their home churches on Sundays to lead worship.

Sunday Responsibilities: It’s pretty obvious, but Dillan is responsible for leading worship on Sundays! He also helps to set up and tear down equipment and help to make last second changes and tweaks to the worship service.

As one of the most over-worked and under-appreciated positions in a church like ours, I am thankful for a team player that truly has a heart for the church reaching people that would otherwise go unreached.

How We Met: Tyler and I met in college. It didn’t take long for us to begin working together on concerts held on campus, weekly worship nights with him playing drums and me leading worship, and eventually church services on Sunday where he quickly became the infamous sound man.

Follow up:
It was during these experiences over the past five years that I saw Tyler learn how to do graphics and web design, sound and lighting installations, video production, and basically anything having to do with production. But more than all of that, it was at North Point’s “Drive” Conference in early 2007 that I saw Tyler catch the vision for the local church being the most effective means of showing people who Jesus truly is. Not the only means, but the most effective.

From that point on, Tyler has grown in not only his technical knowledge of how to mix sound, design flyers, build a set, and create a video but also how to lead a team, cast vision, evaluate and improve systems, and simplify ministry to what matters most.

What He Does: Makes me and OneLife look good (on top of constantly driving me to a crazy place with his perfectionist, artistic quirkiness and constant desire to spend more money on more equipment!). Throughout the week he is responsible for anything that gets printed (banners, handouts, business cards, flyers, etc.), the website (podcast, videos, rotating banner images, content), Sunday morning production (sermon slides, lighting cues, pre/post-service environment, etc.), building the tech team of volunteers, set design, and anything else media or tech related. He currently gets paid for two days a week but works much, much more than that. We hope to add at least a third day of pay by January. The other days he works on the media staff at one of our supporting churches, Grace Baptist Church.

Sunday Responsibilities: Tyler oversees the set-up and tear down of all tech related equipment in the main auditorium including stage sets, sound equipment, lighting, and video. He then oversees an incredible team of volunteers that executes each of these elements to make the worship service happen while also overseeing the technical aspects of OneLife Kidz.

Picture: Not sure if he’s mad, smells something bad, or is just trying to be a rock star.

How We Met: I met Kydon when he was a freshman at UT and he came to a Bible study I led for new students. Over the years I got to know Kydon better as he became more and more involved with ministry at UT and his wife and my wife became close through a small group Bible study they did together.

What He Does: Kydon works part-time for OneLife and part-time for the Baptist Collegiate Ministry at UT. For the BCM, Kydon oversees the ministry to new students and for OneLife he oversees our volunteer ministry. That means he is responsible for plugging people in to various areas of ministry and making sure that all of our areas are covered on Sunday mornings. This is a huge role because at this point, Volunteer Ministry acts as our small groups and our main strategy for assimilating new people into our church.

Sunday Responsibilities: Kydon’s day starts by overseeing pretty much all of our setup in terms of making sure we have people in the right places to get it all done. Under his leadership our setup has gone from an hour and a half to an hour at the most and some days as little as 45 minutes. He then makes sure that each volunteer knows where they need to be and helps new volunteers plug in to different ministry teams as they try to discover their role. At the end of each service, Kydon hosts “The Tour” which is a behind-the-scenes look at OneLife for new volunteers to see all of the many opportunities we have for them to serve. Then he probably goes home and crashes after a long but fun-filled day at OneLife.