Meet New GFC Staff Member, Blake Tyree

GFC has recently hired Blake Tyree as the Children’s Ministry Associate Director – Early Childhood and Childcare. We’ve asked him to introduce himself so that we can get to know him a little better!

Hello, everyone! I want to tell you all about some of my journey up to this point in my life. I hope that this post will help you see some of who I am and why I am so thankful to be in the position I am today.

To start, I grew up here in Johnson City and attended Cornerstone Church. I attended Providence Academy from Kindergarten to 12thgrade. During my 12th grade year I met Millie Robinson, my current girlfriend of almost five years. She went to Science Hill, so the fact that I went to a private school automatically made her way out my league (don’t tell her that). Millie and I have grown a lot together over the years, and we do plan to get married sometime soon (once I ask a certain question).

Moving on, I started college at Belmont University. I spent one semester there, and that should tell you all you need to know about my school performance. Coming back home was pretty embarrassing, and to be honest I felt very much like a failure. I started to feel depressed, hopeless, and I really did not know what my next step was going to be. Right around this time, Millie introduce me to Grace Fellowship Church. I began attending and even helping to lead a small group of 8th grade boys. The more I got involved at GFC, the more I realized that no one here cared that I had failed. All the people here wanted to do was love me and help me grow in the Lord.

Over the past three years, I have grown at GFC because of the people God placed in my life here. People here helped me to see that I was capable of doing good things in this world, and I was able to see that more and more as I took on childcare responsibilities and even an internship with student ministry. The love I have experienced at this church was more than I could have ever hoped for.

Currently, I am getting ready to start a new ministry year with those little 8th grade boys who are now seniors (and taller than me). I am in the middle of my last class at ETSU and will soon have my Bachelor’s degree. And I am now working full time at the church that took me in and loved me where I was, despite my shortcomings and failures. I owe so much to GFC, and I am beyond thankful to now be working full time for a church that is so focused on showing God’s love to everyone, no matter what their story. God is at work in all of us, even when we cannot see it, and I hope to show His love to the little ones I see every week.

Blake Tyree