Kingdom Overflow

The Roten’s Journey of Faith, Surrender, and Everyday Ministry

By Terry Henry and Emily Cox Mitchell

How Matt and Jordan Roten Discovered That Following Jesus Is More Than a Sunday Faith 

In 2019, by all appearances, Matt and Jordan Roten were already living lives devoted to ministry. They both worked for Samaritan’s Purse, served faithfully in a local church and deeply loved Jesus. Their lives appeared firmly planted in faith and purpose. 

But if you ask the Rotens today, they’ll tell you that God was only beginning to reveal what it truly meant to follow Him. God was inviting them into something deeper—not simply ministry as a profession, but a life completely surrendered to His kingdom. They would discover that, as they lived this surrendered life, there was more freedom to experience, more intimacy to enjoy, and more purpose to live out. 

Their story is a story of a young woman hiding in a closet, convinced she had ruined her relationship with God. It is a story of a teenage boy who was told he would never play sports again, only to walk out of church healed. It is a story of a husband and wife separated by hundreds of miles who experienced the same spiritual breakthrough at the same moment. 

And, ultimately, their story is about what happens when ordinary believers decide that faith is not merely something to believe, but something to live. 

Today, through Kingdom Overflow Ministries and Kingdom Overflow Properties, Matt and Jordan are helping others discover what they have learned firsthand: the Kingdom of God was never meant to be confined to a church building. It was always meant to overflow into every corner of life. 

A Faith That Felt Like a Facade 

Jordan’s earliest memories are rooted in church. She grew up attending a small local congregation and was surrounded by the language and culture of Christianity. While she appeared to be exactly what a young Christian should be outwardly, in her soul, a different story was unfolding. 

At just six or seven years old, Jordan encountered inappropriate content that led to years of addiction and shame. Though she continued attending church, she felt increasingly disconnected from God. 

“My relationship with the Lord always felt kind of like a facade,” she recalled. “I always felt guilty. I always felt like I was hiding from Him. I was not able to really have a relationship with Him.” 

For years, she carried the weight of shame. While she believed in God, she struggled to believe that God could truly love someone who carried so much brokenness. She wanted a relationship with God, but her prison of shame compelled her to keep her distance. 

Years later, Matt would describe her struggle with an analogy. “If you owe somebody a mortgage payment that you can’t pay,” he explained, “and you see them in public, you’re probably not going to run up and talk to them. You’re going to hide.” 

Jordan immediately recognized herself in the story. “I felt like I owed God something I couldn’t pay,” she said. “I wanted a relationship, but I felt like I had to avoid Him until I could get myself together.” Jordan lived under that burden for years.  Then everything changed in a matter of seconds. 

The Wreck That Changed Everything 

Shortly after her seventeenth birthday, Jordan was driving home when she was involved in a devastating car accident. Her car flipped multiple times and was a total loss. The crash was so severe that first responders struggled to comprehend how she survived. 

“It is a miracle that I am alive,” she said. 

Later, she learned that only two things made it out of the wreck intact: Jordan and her Bible. 

Determined to understand God for herself, she had recently begun reading her Bible seriously for the first time. She started at the beginning and was working her way through Scripture. 

In the aftermath, people repeatedly told her the same thing. 

“The Lord kept you alive for a reason.” 

Those words lingered in her mind. What did they mean? More importantly, what did God want from her? She knew she had survived for a reason, but she still didn’t know who she was in Christ. 

Eventually, the questions became impossible to ignore. 

One day she found herself sitting alone in a literal closet. The enclosed space felt safe, private, and hidden. There, surrounded by hanging clothes and silence, she did something she had never fully done before. She told God everything. She was honest with him about every secret, every failure, every shameful memory, and every reason she believed He should reject her. 

“I put it all on the table,” she said. She asked the Lord a question that had haunted her for years. “Is it really possible for You to still love me?” 

Before she could finish listing all the reasons she believed He shouldn’t love her, she experienced something that changed her forever.

“It’s like He interrupted me,” she recalled. The room did not change. The circumstances did not change. But Jordan changed. 

“I got hit by the love of the Father. It was the first time I’d ever felt it.” She struggles to describe the experience even today. The love she encountered was unlike anything she had ever known. 

“It was so overwhelming,” she said. “I knew it was Him because I’d never felt anything like it before.” 

In that moment, the shame that had kept her distant from God lost its grip. For the first time, she understood that God’s love was not reserved for the version of her that had everything figured out. His love was pursuing her right in the middle of her brokenness. 

That encounter ignited a hunger that has never left. 

“I wanted to know the God who could love me like that.” 

Choosing Boone 

As graduation approached, Jordan faced a crossroads. One path seemed logical: A promising corporate opportunity in Washington, D.C. The other 

path was uncertain: A temporary position in Boone with Samaritan’s Purse. 

Looking back, Jordan sees the decision as one of the first major acts of surrender in her life. 

“I remember thinking ‘This is the moment’,” she said. “I can either choose comfort and security, or I can pursue what I told the Lord I wanted—to know Him.” 

On her very first day, she met a young man named Matt Roten. While neither of them knew it then, God was weaving their stories together. 

The Boy Who Dropped the Easter Egg 

Matt’s faith story began very differently. Where Jordan struggled to believe God could love her, Matt never doubted God’s presence in his life. 

Born and raised in Boone, he grew up in a deeply Christian family. His earliest encounter with Christ came when he was just five years old. While dyeing Easter eggs with his family, Matt sensed God speaking to him. 

“I heard the Lord tell me to go to my room and give my life to Him.” 

He dropped what he was doing, ran to his bedroom, prayed, and then returned to the kitchen with an announcement that surprised everyone. 

“I just got saved,” he declared. 

While his parents were surprised by his abrupt decision, they could see that something profound had happened. 

That simple childlike response would become a defining characteristic throughout Matt’s life. When he sensed God speaking, he responded–even when he didn’t fully understand or when it seemed unreasonable. 

That willingness would later carry him through some of the most important moments of his faith journey. 

A Miracle in the Weight Room 

As a teenager, Matt developed a growing hunger to understand more of God. Raised in Baptist churches, in his early teen years, he found himself exposed to Pentecostal camp meetings through his family. 

The experience sparked countless questions. Why did some believers talk about healing? Why did some talk about spiritual gifts? Why did different churches seem to emphasize different parts of Scripture? 

Rather than dismiss the questions, Matt pursued them. His questions about healing suddenly became more urgent for him to find the answer to. 

During the summer before football season, Matt suffered a serious back injury while helping his father repair damage on their property. As the pain became unbearable, doctors delivered devastating news: A disc in his back had been severely damaged. 

His athletic future appeared over. “You probably won’t play sports again,” they told him. The prognosis extended beyond athletics. Doctors suggested he might never again be able to perform physically demanding work again. 

Before pursuing additional medical opinions, Matt’s parents gathered a few friends to pray. Matt remembers hearing someone reference Jesus’ healings in Scripture. The stories when Jesus would heal someone and then immediately tell them to do what they previously could not do stood out to Matt the most. 

“Stretch out your hand.” 

“Pick up your mat.” 

“Walk.” 

When the prayer ended, Matt decided to test his back. He bent forward and experienced no pain. The next day he showed up to football training and it was a max-out weightlifting day. Most people would have taken things slowly, but Matt did not. 

Jordan later joked, “Matt likes to load-test miracles.” 

He loaded 420 pounds onto a squat rack and squatted it. Pain-free. 

Doctors later compared new scans to the originals. The injury was gone. 

The experience left an indelible mark on him that went beyond his immediate healing. He now knew and had experienced that healing was real. The questions that followed would shape the next decade of his life: How did God do that? And what else had he yet to discover about the fullness of Christ and the power of a God who heals? 

“Why Would I Hold It Against You?” 

After their initial meeting at Samaritan’s Purse, the friendship between Matt and Jordan developed naturally. Working together each day, they found themselves drawn into conversations about faith, life, and what God was teaching them. Matt quickly recognized something special in Jordan. He admired her sincerity, her hunger for God, and the way she pursued truth. 

Jordan, however, saw things differently. 

Though her encounter with God’s love had changed her life, she still carried remnants of the shame she had lived under for so many years. She knew God loved her, but she had not yet fully grasped what it meant to be forgiven. 

The distinction may seem subtle, but for Jordan it was life-changing. 

She believed God had spared her life. She believed He had met her in that closet. She believed He loved her. But she still viewed herself through the lens of her failures. 

When Matt began expressing interest in her romantically, alarm bells went off. In her mind, he was a mature believer pursuing God wholeheartedly. She was still carrying the baggage of her past. 

“I felt like we would be unequally yoked,” she said. Eventually she decided she needed to end any possibility of a relationship before it began. One evening she invited Matt to chat with her on her porch, prepared to tell him everything. 

The conversation felt strangely familiar. Years earlier, she had sat in a closet and confessed her life before God. Now she was preparing to do something similar with Matt. 

One by one, she began recounting the failures, mistakes, addictions, and struggles that she believed defined her. She expected disappointment and concern. She was certain he would agree that pursuing a relationship would be a mistake. 

Instead, Matt looked confused. 

“Jordan,” he finally said, “I don’t understand.” Then he asked a question that would forever change her understanding of the gospel. 

“If Jesus already forgave you for all those things, why would I hold them against you?” 

Jordan still remembers grabbing his arm. 

“What do you mean Jesus already forgave me?” 

For many believers, forgiveness is a familiar concept. But for Jordan, that evening was a revelation. The love of God had rescued her from shame. The gospel now rescued her from condemnation. 

Matt patiently walked through Scripture with her, explaining what it meant to be a new creation in Christ. He explained what it meant that Jesus had taken her sins upon Himself and that God no longer defined her by her past. 

“This is what it means that you’re a new creation,” he told her. “This is what it means that your sins have been cast as far as the east is from the west.” 

His simple presentation of the gospel was one of the defining moments of Jordan’s spiritual life. 

The Father’s love had drawn her close. The truth of the gospel set her free. 

“A few months later we went on our first date. I knew I was going to marry him,” she said with a smile. 

Building a Life Together 

Marriage brought joy, growth, and the ordinary rhythms of life. Matt and Jordan settled into careers with Samaritan’s Purse and Operation Christmas Child. 

They had two kids, served in their church, taught Sunday school and pursued God together. 

To many people, it might have looked like they had arrived. Yet beneath the surface, God was still preparing them for something they could not yet see. 

Throughout those years, both carried a growing hunger. Jordan wanted to know the Father more deeply. Matt continued wrestling with questions about healing, spiritual gifts, and the authority Jesus entrusted to believers. 

While each grappled with their hunger and restlessness, God was busy putting the pieces together in ways they wouldn’t have imagined. In 2020, they separately experienced God in a way that changed everything. 

The Night Everything Changed 

By early 2020, Jordan was leading a distribution team in the Dominican Republic through Operation Christmas Child. The trip required her to be away from home for more than a week. 

Her trip presented a new challenge to Matt. For the first time, he would be caring for his infant son and toddler daughter on his own for an extended period. Unexpectedly, crippling anxiety began to surface, and he was overwhelmed by all the “What ifs” that her absence left him with. 

The experience frustrated him deeply. For years he had worked with students and taught them how to process fear and anxiety through faith. Now he found himself struggling to apply those same principles. 

“I felt like a hypocrite,” he admitted. “I’ve taught this for years. Why can’t I do it myself?” 

Instead of pulling away from God, Matt pressed in. 

Late at night, after the children were asleep, he immersed himself in Scripture. He studied passages about Christ’s authority, the authority of the believer, the kingdom of God, and the fullness of Christ. Again and again, he returned to the words of Jesus. 

What did Christ actually mean when He said, “The works that I do, you will do also, and greater works than these”? What did it mean to be completely surrendered to the Father? What did it mean to live as Jesus lived? 

Slowly, the Scriptures began connecting in ways they never had before. 

Then came one extraordinary night. 

Matt was asleep between his two young children when something awakened him. He sat upright in bed and looked at the clock reading 2:00AM. Out of nowhere, Matt began speaking in tongues. 

He couldn’t stop. For nearly an hour, he sat there overwhelmed by what was happening. 

The next day as they spoke on the phone, Matt shared what had happened to him. Jordan interrupted him, astonished that–hundreds of miles away–she had experienced something remarkably similar. As they compared stories, they realized they had experienced the same thing at virtually the same time. They were separated by distance but united by the Spirit of God. 

“We were both asking, ‘Lord, what are You doing?’” 

Looking back, they see that moment as a dividing line in their lives. When the Lord showed up to them both in the middle of the night, hundreds of miles apart, he launched them into a season of seeking God with a level of hunger they had never known before. 

Learning to Love Their Neighbors First 

When Jordan returned home, the world seemed almost unrecognizable. She had left for the Dominican Republic before COVID-19 dominated the headlines. When she came back, airports were filled with masks, uncertainty, and fear. 

“It felt like the whole world had changed in two weeks,” she recalled. 

While much of the world was shutting down, God was opening something new in the Rotens. 

At first, Matt and Jordan assumed this new calling would lead them overseas. They both had spent years working to support international ministry, so it seemed logical that God would call them overseas. 

But God had a different idea. 

One of the clearest instructions they felt from the Lord was surprisingly simple. “You need to learn to love your neighbors first.” 

The command redirected everything. Instead of looking across oceans, they began looking across the street. 

As pandemic restrictions intensified, they started visiting people who had become isolated. They visited with shut-ins, widows, elderly neighbors, the immunocompromised, and others who had gone weeks or months without meaningful connection. 

The ministry wasn’t complicated. There were no stages, microphones, or strategic plans. Many times, they simply sat on porches, listening, praying, and sharing what God was teaching them. 

“We were like little kids on Christmas morning,” Jordan said. “We were just so excited about what God was showing us.” 

As they poured into others, God began to open their eyes to the hidden needs all around them. 

Homes were falling apart. Repairs were needed. People lacked resources. Families were struggling. Because they were physically present, they could see needs that statistics and reports never revealed. One porch conversation at a time, God was teaching them something profound. 

Kingdom ministry starts with seeing people. 

Breakthrough Through Surrender 

As the needs around them became more apparent, another uncomfortable reality emerged. 

Many of those needs involved construction and home repair. 

Matt knew construction, but it was the last thing he wanted to do. Years earlier he had worked in the industry and experienced enough frustration to convince himself he would never return. 

Matt heard God tell him to get his contractor’s license. Matt’s response was immediate: “Anything but that.” 

He spent months arguing with God. Surely God had another plan. Surely there was someone else better suited for the task. Surely construction wasn’t part of the calling. 

As he felt God continue to instruct him, Matt finally surrendered. While it didn’t make sense to him at the time, he felt God telling him to not only get a contractor’s license, but to get an unlimited commercial and residential license. 

In hindsight, the Rotens see God’s wisdom in getting the expanded license. It became a foundational piece of what would eventually become Kingdom Overflow Ministries. 

Through this act of surrender, God demonstrated a principle He had been teaching them all along: Often the greatest breakthroughs come through the very things we least want to surrender. 

The thing Matt never wanted to revisit became one of the primary tools God would use to expand their ministry. 

When Ministry Became a Way of Life 

As Matt began pursuing his contractor’s license and the couple continued serving neighbors throughout the High Country, God began to give them a larger vision for their life and ministry. 

What initially looked like a series of unrelated events—a construction license, porch conversations, home repairs, discipleship relationships, and a growing hunger for the Kingdom of God—was actually part of the same story. 

“We felt very clearly that the Lord was calling us into full-time ministry,” Jordan said. The realization was humorous in light of the fact that they were already working in full-time ministry. But God was calling them into a discipleship ministry that looked different from anything they had previously imagined. 

For years, they had associated ministry primarily with programs, outreach efforts, and church activities. Those things are valuable, but God was giving them a broader vision for his Kingdom. 

Living in the Kingdom of God meant learning to live under the rule and reign of God every day, in every aspect of life. Whether at home, work, in relationships or in business, the Kingdom was not simply a future 

destination. The Kingdom was a present reality that God was inviting them to participate in. 

The Kingdom of God wasn’t meant to be compartmentalized. It wasn’t intended to occupy a few hours on Sunday and then disappear into the background of everyday life. From work and business to family and friendships to construction sites and neighborhoods– the Kingdom of God is meant to overflow naturally into every sphere of life. 

That realization became the foundation of what would eventually become Kingdom Overflow Ministries. 

The name itself carries the heartbeat of everything Matt and Jordan have learned along their journey. For Jordan, it goes back to one of the most important lessons God has ever taught her. 

“Everything with eternal value has to come from Him first,” she explained. “We don’t manufacture it. We receive it from Him, and then it overflows out of our lives.” 

That lesson emerged during what she describes as another pivotal season in her faith. 

As ministry opportunities increased, she found herself doing more and more for God. She was serving, leading, teaching, and helping–all good things. But in the middle of her busyness, the Lord asked a question that stopped her in her tracks. 

“What’s the most important thing?” 

The answer isn’t ministry. It isn’t influence, impact, or growth. 

The answer is love. 

The most important thing in her life was learning to love God with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength. Everything else was meant to flow from that place. 

“We serve from intimacy,” Jordan said. “Not because we’re trying to do things for Him, but because we’ve spent time with Him.” 

That conviction would eventually shape every aspect of Kingdom Overflow Ministries. 

Building Disciples in the Marketplace 

As the ministry grew, another conviction began taking shape. 

Many Christians understood how faith fit into church life. Far fewer understood how faith fit into their work life. Most people spend far more hours at work than they do in church, so what does Kingdom living look like in the marketplace? What does it look like to follow Jesus on a Tuesday morning? What does discipleship look like on a construction site? 

Rather than separating ministry and business, the Rotens felt God calling them to integrate them. Out of that vision, Kingdom Overflow Properties was born. 

While they function like a regular construction company that builds homes, repairs structures, completes renovations and manages projects, something much deeper is happening. 

Every morning begins with prayer. Scripture is discussed alongside project plans. Discipleship happens while swinging hammers, installing flooring, and rebuilding homes. 

The work itself becomes part of the training ground. 

As crew members learn a trade, they are also learning how to walk with Jesus. 

“As I’m teaching someone how to swing a hammer,” Matt explained, “I’m also teaching them what it means to follow Christ.” 

For the Rotens, employment itself becomes ministry. 

People are not merely workers. They are disciples. 

The goal is not simply to complete projects. The goal is to help people become more like Jesus. 

That philosophy extends beyond their own employees. 

Every construction project creates opportunities for relationships. Unlike many professions, contractors are often invited into deeply personal spaces–into homes, living rooms, bedrooms, family gathering places, people’s sanctuaries. 

“What other job allows someone to invite you into their home?” Jordan asked. 

For the Rotens, each project becomes an opportunity to bring the presence of God into a place where people live their everyday lives. 

They pray over foundations and walls. They pray for peace over families. They pray for healing where needed. 

And whether the project is a ministry-related repair, a hurricane recovery effort, or a standard construction job, their mission remains the same: Bring the Kingdom of God wherever they go. 

Walking Through Real Life Together 

One of the defining characteristics of Kingdom Overflow is its commitment to authentic discipleship. 

For Matt and Jordan, discipleship is not a class, curriculum, information transfer. True discipleship takes place when life is shared together. The model they pursue is intentionally relational. 

“We don’t just want to walk out the Sunday version of faith,” Jordan said. “We want to walk out the Wednesday slump and the Thursday struggle and the Friday where you’re asking, ‘Do I even know Jesus today?’” 

That honesty has become one of the ministry’s defining strengths. 

The Rotens are not interested in presenting a polished image of perfection. Instead, they believe transformation happens when people are willing to surrender every messy part of their lives to Christ.

“Living life together exposes things,” Jordan said. “It exposes wounds. It exposes places that still need healing. It exposes places that still need surrender.”

Far from seeing that as a problem, they view it as part of the discipleship process. Becoming more like Christ requires allowing Him access to every corner of the heart, including the parts we would rather keep hidden.

That understanding flows directly from both of their personal stories. Jordan’s freedom began when she brought hidden things into the light. Matt’s healing began when he trusted God beyond what seemed reasonable.

Their ministry now invites others into that same journey of surrender.

No Ishmaels and No Dead Isaacs

Along the way, the Rotens have developed a phrase that captures much of their ministry philosophy.

“No Ishmaels and no dead Isaacs.”

The phrase comes from two familiar stories in the life of Abraham. An “Ishmael” represents something produced through human effort rather than God’s timing. A “dead Isaac” represents failing to keep listening after God speaks.

The lesson is simple but profound. Obedience requires continual listening, not just hearing God once. Obedience requires hearing Him daily, following Him daily, surrendering to Him daily.

Whether making ministry decisions, business decisions, or family decisions, the goal remains the same: Stay close enough to hear His voice.

Jordan laughs that she understands Jesus’ habit of slipping away to pray far more now than she once did. Every morning begins with the same question:

“Lord, what’s the plan today?”

The longer they follow Christ, the more convinced they become that success is not measured by activity. It is measured by obedience.

Making Earth Look Like Heaven

If there is a single idea that summarizes the heart of Kingdom Overflow Ministries, it is this:

The Kingdom of God was never meant to remain confined within church walls.

Matt often explains the concept through the example of historical kingdoms. When powerful nations established colonies, they didn’t transport everyone back to the original kingdom. Instead, they transformed the new territory to reflect the culture of the kingdom they represented.

Languages changed. Customs changed. Laws changed. The colony began looking more and more like its home country. Matt believes Jesus had something similar in mind when He taught His followers to pray.

“Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

The church’s mission, he says, is to help earth reflect heaven. This change won’t happen through force or power or might, but through people who have surrendered themselves completely to Christ.

The Kingdom will come through people who carry His love, compassion, truth, and presence. It will come through people who bring His Kingdom into their homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, schools, and communities.

The more Matt studies Scripture, the more he sees that theme everywhere.

“The Kingdom of God has arrived,” Jesus proclaimed. It is here NOW and believers are invited to participate in its expansion.

That conviction fuels every home repair, every discipleship conversation, every Bible study, every prayer meeting, and every construction project connected to Kingdom Overflow.

The goal is not simply to build buildings. The goal is not even simply to build disciples.

The goal is to help create a place where the King feels at home. The goal is to make earth look a little more like heaven. 

This will only happen by staying close enough to Jesus that His life begins overflowing through yours and changing the lives around you.