Monday, August 28, 2017

FELLOWSHIP IS FORTY!

Saturday afternoon Mike and I were awash in a sea of hugs and gray hair as our church in Little Rock marked their fortieth birthday.

The meet-and-greet was for those from "the early days" of the church's beginning.  We saw familiar faces and played NAMEFIND in rapid-fire desperation.

Bill Wellons, Mike, and Bill Parkinson
Since the Cruses had gone to FBC from 1980 until our move to Fayetteville in 2009...we qualified as beginners.  Plus Mike had a ten year FBC work history.

The event tasted like heaven.  You know why?  Time was sucked out of a  room full of God's love.  





It wasn't that the people there were more favored than anyone else.  We saw friends who had experienced dread medical diagnoses, a divorce, or whose kids had run off into the weeds.  The rain falls on the just and the unjust.

But they were people we had co-labored with...prayed with...loved...had forgiven...and who had taught us what God said.  These two Bill's to the right (plus Robert) married our kids and buried our family.  That makes them very dear to our hearts.






It was a special treat to have Alan Mesko come help us worship.  For a mathematician, he is an amazing pianist/worship leader who can work those keys like a boss.    

Then it wouldn't have been Fellowship without the beautiful sopranos, Debbie Rees and Vicki Burnett. 

Music has a way of transporting right into the throne room.

When the part came when our stats were read, we were stunned:

Fellowship Bible Church has 93 church plants,(open that link to see an amazing map), a residency program for graduating pastors, and over 100 ministries established by FBC alums on 7 continents/32 countries.  To experience the needs of others around the world, FBC put over 2,000 people on the mission field.  Twenty-five alums have written books.  We sought to be light in our local community by establishing a mid-town medical center, a work in the inner city, and an outreach at the Med Center (to equip new docs in money management, marriage skills, etc.).  We began "Sharefest" (which 150 churches adopted), a mentoring program in the schools, and Robert's "Men's Fraternity", which was taught over the United States and then went international. 

There was more, but isn't that awesome?  We knew not to be impressed with ourselves because we know our limits. The horn-tooting was all for the mind of God which imagined such an undertaking...and the Spirit of God who empowered it.  That's why at the end, we will fully realize His grace and throw our crowns at His feet.

Thirty years ago, Jane Anne Smith wrote a piece to try and explain how special she knew Fellowship to be.  She reread it on Saturday, and here are Jane Anne's thoughts about the 1977 founding of FBC:



"Be certain, then, that the Lord your God is God; 
whose faith and mercy are unchanging, 
who keeps His word through thousand generations
 to those who have love for Him and keep His laws." 
Deuteronomy 7:9