Wait! What? Are you serious? 

That’s the early reactions I’ve gotten since announcing FAD’s demise last Sunday evening during my sermon. But like the infomercial always says, “Wait, There’s more!” After much discussion and prayer it became apparent to me that God was calling our ministry to grow up and I’ve learned that when God’s calling me, it feels less like an emotional light from heaven and more like a punch to the gut. That’s preciously what I had been feeling lately. When God launched FAD, there were only about 8 people in leadership and it was basically a college service. Four years later, I find that we still have committed and amazing college students but God has begun to bring recent college grads and young professionals who wanted to join our mission to reach our city. This migration has caused me to reconsider some of the things we do at FAD that make it a college only service like breaking for summer, spring break and having no childcare. Are we short changing our mission? Are there people who want to be on mission with us but can’t? Are we projecting something that we aren’t anymore? All good questions that I (and every pastor in the world) should ask every now and then. The shocking answer was yes. We made a decision to be more inclusive than exclusive. We made a decision that will throw us into the unknown. We made a decision that comes with some daunting tasks ahead. We made the right decision. FAD has to go.

In its place, God is placing “Fellowship PM“, a new evening service at Fellowship Bible Church focused on producing a missional church service made up of college students, young adults, young families and growing families. What’s staying the same?  Still teaching a different series from morning services, awesome worship and missional community focus. What’s changing? We’re going year round! We’re also moving to 6pm, adding childcare to accommodate young families that want to worship with us and moving to the big sanctuary. We’re so excited that God has allowed us to move into a larger role in ministry and we’re so thankful for our church leaders and the body of Fellowship Bible Church. As you can imagine, a change of this magnitude will take much planning and work. Please pray for us.

Jon Love

Pastor

So we are only two weeks away from the last FAD of the year. We typically call this service “sad fad” because its always hard to stop worshiping together and encouraging each other for an extended time. However, these next two weeks are going to be critical to the future of our service and ministry. I have been wrestling with what God would have our little but growing service become for a while now and after prayer and counsel I am ready to cast that vision over the next two weeks. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind regarding these next two weeks.

1. There are BIG changes coming so we need you to be there to hear what they are and why we’re making them. 

2. I fully believe God is calling us to these changes. 

3. God has chosen His people to work through in the world and thus we CANNOT move forward without your help.

I will preach a two part series called “Don’t go to church. Be the Church.” which will lay out our future and I am asking for your prayers as I seek God’s voice for our body. Thank you for being an amazing body of Christ and I’m so excited to share our new vision with you. See you Sunday!

Jon

FAD Blog November