BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

* * * * article from p. 16 continues * * * * Although she continued to volunteer at Cornerstone, in 2004 Becky had resigned her staff position to pursue itinerate ministry. She’d worked a secular job until the grant that supported it was not renewed. Then in 2012, she was unemployed with nothing on the horizon. After eight months not being able to find a job, Becky was praying one day, when she heard herself say what she still considers one of the strangest things: “Lord,” she prayed, “whatever the challenges in my city, state and nation, let the solutions flow through me.” Back to the Basics “I decided that until I knew what God had for me next, I would devote myself to Bible study and prayer,” Becky recalls. “For many years, I’d been a Partner with KCM and attended their meetings. Now out of work, I began watching the "BVOV" broadcast and found the series that Pastor George Pearsons and Gloria Copeland taught in 2010, on prosperity and increase. One day Pastor George encouraged everyone watching to download the notes, so I did. From the "BVOV" notes, Becky began to study Deuteronomy 28. “I learned in greater detail about THE BLESSING of Abraham, and how God wanted me to be the head and not the tail—a person of great influence, and that He would bless whatever I set my hand to do,” she recalls. “Instead of giving in to the images of failure that the enemy bombarded me with, I renewed my thinking to the fact that God wanted me to be a person of influence. “I learned that my life wasn’t subject to the times in which I lived, whether good or bad. By trusting in God, I would flourish even in times of famine.” Included in Becky’s binder of broadcast notes was a list of every scripture related to the favor of God from the "Amplified Bible." Becky printed them out and began to meditate daily on all 300 of them, along with the notes she had taken from the TV broadcasts. In the process, she said, her discouragement turned into an expectation that something wonderful was ahead for her. During this time, Becky also came across materials by Dr. Ed Silvoso on marketplace ministry. She’d never considered that the ministry God had for her might be outside the walls of the church. But as she studied the four Gospels, Becky made a startling discovery. To her surprise, she said, she found that of the 132 public appearances Jesus made, 122 of them were in the marketplace. Of the 52 parables Jesus told, 45 of them had a workplace context. Of the 40 miracles recorded in the book of Acts, 39 took place in the marketplace. In addition, 54% of Jesus’ recorded teachings centered on daily life experiences. “This changed my thinking about ministry that happened inside the church walls and the ministry that took place outside the church walls,” Becky says. “If you look at the New Testament model, most ministry took place in the marketplace. It occurred to me that we should be as excited about going to work on Monday as we are about going to church on Sunday. “As a believer, I knew I had eternal life. However, the more I studied the more I realized that I have the life of the Eternal inside of me. I realized that I was like a packet of yeast. When I’m added to any mix, it will rise! That’s when I began to pray, ‘Lord, whatever the challenges in my city, state and nation, let the solutions flow through me.’ “I was praying that by faith. I didn’t even know what the problems were—much less the solutions.” A New Call In October 2012, Becky’s former boss called to say she had heard of a job opening at the Johnson City Police Department. They were seeking a director over a grant-funded position to reduce crime. She urged Becky to check it out. Becky found the listing and applied. After a rigorous interviewing process in December 2012, she was hired as director over the $800,000 Targeted Community Crime Reduction Project—a program aimed at reducing drug-related and violent crime in the two neighborhoods with the highest crime rates. One was a residential neighborhood made up of many elderly people. The other was a downtown neighborhood. The project was centered on four pillars for addressing crime: prevention, law enforcement, neighborhood restoration and reducing recidivism. One of my jobs is to reduce recidivism, Becky thought. It might help if I knew what that word meant. Looking up recidivism, Becky learned the word meant “the rate at which discharged prisoners returned to jail.” The recidivism rate for Tennessee was between 48%-50%. 18 : BVOV

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