The Love of God is in This House
At first she hesitated. “What will everyone think?” “I dunno.” “Maybe next time.” But something kept gnawing at her to go.
She was a resident at the Dorcas House recovery center. A few months earlier, she had given her life to Christ. Her life was in repair. She needed prayer…but not for herself.
Eventually, she found the courage to move.
She took the first step. Then another toward the altar.
She approached Sherri Blunk, co-pastor of Impact Church. “I’m not sure whether I’ll go back to my husband after I get out,” she told Sherri. “Let’s pray that my husband will come to the outreach next week, that he’ll give his life to Jesus, and that he’ll get baptized.”
Sherri was stunned. “Wow,” she thought. “That’s some faith.”
They knelt together and prayed. A week later at the outreach event, Sherri recalls, “Someone grabbed my arm. ‘Hey, you have to come!’ I thought there was an emergency.” But it wasn’t an emergency—it was God’s answer.
“I came running to where the baptisms were and there was my friend. She was sobbing and pointing. ‘That’s my husband! He’s the one we prayed for.’”
Her husband came out of the water. He was crying, too. He turned to Sherri. “I just gave my life to Jesus. I hope there’s someone who can help me, because I don’t know how to do this.” “Don’t worry,” Sherri told him. “It’s going to be alright.”
In the coming months, people at Impact made sure this family didn’t walk alone. They helped with rides to church. Cared for their kids. Taught them what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus. Whatever the need, someone always showed up.
That was three years ago. “They’re doing amazing now,” Sherri says. “They’re both out of any substance abuse. He’s got a great job. Their kids are doing great in school. They’re consistent in church. And they’re just honoring the Lord.”
Stories like these are not rare at Impact Church. “We’ve had some pretty dramatic salvation encounters—people who were really bound in their life found freedom in Jesus,” says Philip Blunk, co-pastor of Impact Church and Sherri’s husband. “We’ve seen miracles—brain tumors completely gone. We’ve also had veterans from the V.A. and women from domestic violence and drug abuse programs join us. We’ve been blessed to minister to and love them.”
A House of Worship
Terry Nance came to Christ in 1973 during the Jesus Movement. He remembers revival sweeping across the country, including his hometown of Magnolia, Arkansas. “We spent our Friday nights in parking lots witnessing, handing out tracts,” he says. “It was amazing.”
In 1979, Terry and his wife, Kim, joined Agape Church in Little Rock. While serving on staff in the early 1980s, they established the Agape School of World Evangelism. In 1990, Terry wrote God’s Armor Bearer: How to Serve God’s Leaders. The book emphasizes the role of servanthood. The title reflects Terry’s revelation from 1 Samuel 16:21, when God called him, like David, to support his pastor’s vision, promising, “What you make happen for someone else, I will make happen for you.”
“Honestly, I didn’t think anybody would read it,” Terry says. But word spread, and God’s Armor Bearer became a bestseller. To date, it has sold over a million copies.
Terry and Kim stayed with Agape until 2003. They relocated to Northwest Arkansas, and Terry began traveling the country, leading Armor Bearer conferences. In 2008, after years on the road, he sensed a transition coming. “I got up one morning and reread the story of Moses,” he says. “I felt the Holy Spirit say, ‘What did I tell Moses to do when he spoke to the children of Israel?’ And then it hit me: God told them to go out to Mt. Sinai and have a worship service. The most important thing in life is our relationship with God and knowing Him.”
Soon after, the Nances moved to Sherwood to plant a church. A friend let them use a vacant warehouse space behind his carpet store. “The focus was to build a church around worship. We said, ‘Let’s just meet on Wednesday nights and worship.’ After we worshiped, we’d pray for our city. It was really about the presence of the Lord and honoring Him. That’s how we started.”
It began small, but the church grew. People encountered God’s presence—and wanted more of it.
A Passion for Evangelism
Among them were Philip and Sherri Blunk. Years earlier, they served as volunteers in Agape’s student ministry. “We go way back,” Philip says. “Terry and Kim were our instructors at the Agape School of World Evangelism.”
Through the years, the Blunks and Nances lost contact. But one day in 2014, Philip felt the pull to visit Terry. The next Sunday, he and Sherri visited Impact. “We’re not church hoppers,” Sherri says. “But we try to let the Lord show us where we need to be. The timing was perfect.”
The Blunks brought a passion for evangelism with them. “The moment I live for is when lives are translating out of darkness into light. That’s the whole reason I show up,” Sherri says. “It’s the greatest satisfaction to see precious souls come to Jesus,” Philip says. “That is the Father’s kiss — the harvest of righteousness on seed sown. ‘Well done, son. You went and took my Son Jesus to other people.’ There’s nothing greater than seeing that.”
Sherri says this passion goes back decades. “When we started dating, we would go and do outreach as dates. We didn’t need anybody dragging us along to do evangelism. It was just supernaturally natural.”
Bringing Churches Together
As evangelists, the Blunks have always felt a burden for youth. “It breaks our hearts to see the casualties of the culture we live in,” Sherry says. In 1997, God led them to start an outreach to unchurched youth in their city. It started with doing free concerts and weekly Bible studies. They did this for three years. Before long, fifteen churches across different denominations joined them, and the B1 Student Network was born.
“The name comes from Jesus’ prayer in John 17:20-23 that His people would be one as the Father and the Son are one,” Philip says. B1 organized outreach events across Central Arkansas, from the go-kart track to baseball games to water parks. “It grew to where we were able to rent out Wild River Country and do big outreaches of a thousand plus kids out there. Dozens got saved. It was awesome.”
Around the same time, local pastors had started the Nehemiah Network (now known as CityChurch Network of Arkansas). “We had similar hearts—to bring churches together. When Luis Palau’s team came to town to scout the area for CityFest in 2009, Pastor Ray [Williams] told them I would be a good fit as the Church and Community Relations Coordinator.”
Philip helped bring over 100 churches together for CityFest, a two-day event in North Little Rock’s Riverfront Park. The result: 55,000 attendees and 1,100 professions of faith. “It was a huge catalyst in the Body of Christ here in Central Arkansas to mobilize believers to serve the community and to proclaim the gospel through those acts of service.”
Years later, the Blunks launched their nonprofit, Love Unity. “It’s always been in our DNA to bring unity among churches,” Sherri says. “We can do more together in ways that we couldn’t on our own.”
Love Unity has held outreach events and equipping conferences in churches, skate parks, bars, concert venues, coffee shops, and entertainment districts. Recently, they held an outreach to the recovery community with Brian “Head” Welch from the rock band Korn.
New Role, Same Mission
Amplify began in 2012 out of Holland Chapel Baptist Church in Benton. Held in the church’s backyard — a former airstrip — the two-day outreach event has grown into the largest free Christian music festival in the nation, drawing over 70,000 attendees each year.
By late 2022, the event’s co-founders, Matt Brumley and Josh Turner, weren’t sure if the festival would last another year. The weight of executing such a large festival outreach had begun to take its toll.
Around the same time, Philip and Sherri were praying for direction. “We were at a stagnant point,” Philip says. That’s when Sherri made a suggestion: “Why don’t you reach out to the people at Amplify Festival?”
Philip called Matt Brumley the next day. “Hey, I just want to serve and support you guys,” Philip told Matt. Matt laughed. “You’re the second guy who’s called me this week asking if you can help out. You need to call the guys up at Pulse.”
Pulse is a national evangelistic ministry in Minneapolis led by Nick Hall, someone Philip had met during CityFest in 2009. Pulse and Amplify had joined forces recently. Pulse brought large-scale training and outreach experience. Amplify brought church partnerships to supply volunteers, promotion, and follow-up.
Philip reached out but didn’t expect much. “Fifteen minutes later, the evangelistic campaign director called me. I told him about the festivals, the outreaches, the work Sherri and I had done. He said, ‘Well, I’m flying in tomorrow. We’ll hang out for a couple of days and talk.’”
“It all came together. I served at some of their outreaches in the spring and fall.” By early 2024, Philip joined Amplify as the Church and Community Relations lead. “It’s all full circle. Now, we’re bringing churches together for evangelism through Amplify.”
Go-And-Doers
Walk into Impact Church, and you sense it. “You just feel God’s presence,” Philip says. “That’s really our prayer. We want people to encounter the love of Jesus. Virtually everybody that’s visited says, ‘The love of God is in this house.’”
“Jesus led with love. He fed and ministered to people before He ever spoke truth to them. So we want people to encounter God’s love, be revived in that, and go, ‘I’m going to commit my life wholeheartedly to Jesus.’”
Mission and outreach flow from that love. “We’re not sit-and-listeners. We’re go-and-doers.” The church hosts at least one outreach—a food drive, a worship night, a guest speaker—every month. “We want to be out in the public domain, sharing the gospel together. Not just individually, but as a church.”
No One Grows Alone
For this community, evangelism’s end goal isn’t someone saying a prayer. It’s someone learning how to walk as a disciple. “Jesus intended for us to continue His work,” Sherri says. “We’re investing in the kingdom. We’re investing in people. In their maturity. In their growth. So, they can then do the same and carry on the work of Jesus with others.”
At Impact Church, no one grows alone. “We’re surrounding them from the moment they give their lives to Jesus. Walking with them through day-to-day stuff. That’s what family does,” she says. “Think about a family gathering where there’s a three-year-old running around. Who looks after him? Everybody. ‘Let me get you a drink.’ ‘Don’t do that. You’ll hurt yourself.’ That’s discipleship in community.”
The Blunks lead a life group in their home. “We can’t disciple everybody,” Sherri says. “But we believe that when we disciple people, they will, in turn, disciple people. There’s a couple that’s in our church now. They’re sharing Jesus with others, inviting friends, gathering people. They want others to experience the same freedom they’ve found.”
He’ll Revive You
In October 2024, Impact Church underwent a leadership transition. After sixteen years, Terry and Kim Nance passed senior leadership to Philip and Sherri Blunk. “Transitions can be challenging,” Sherri says. “But God has been good, and the transition has been smooth. We’ve had a tremendous amount of grace and support.”
After decades encouraging others to serve their leaders’ vision, Terry is now doing the same. This time, for the Blunks. But that doesn’t mean he’s retiring. “The call of God is not something you ever lay down. I’m back out traveling, doing conferences again, and I really enjoy it,” Terry says.
“We’re in a season where the Holy Spirit is calling us back to our prayer closet to continue to know Him. His presence most often comes to us when we’re in worship. All you have to do is hunger for more of Him. That’s really what it’s all about. Spend time in your prayer closet. He’ll touch you. He’ll revive you.”
Impact Church started with a call to worship. It wasn’t complicated. Just a hunger for more of God’s presence. That desire continues to fuel the church’s mission to be a house of revival, a house of discipleship, built around a culture of love.
What began in one generation continues through the next.
“We thank God for His presence,” Philip says. “We thank Him for His goodness and all He’s doing at Impact. All we want to do is lift Jesus up. We want to reach people. We want them to know Him and His love.”
We’re grateful for the exceptional work of Impact Church and other churches across Arkansas that are bringing people into God’s presence. They are helping the whole Church grow.
Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Ephesians 4:15-16
This year’s Amplify will take place on August 8th and 9th. The event will feature performances by today’s top Christian artists and gospel presentations by Nick Hall, Maverick City Music, Lecrae, Switchfoot, Matthew West, Charity Gale, TRU-SERVA, Gio, Terrian, and Jamie MacDonald.
For more information, visit amplifyfest.org.
