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TONI ESTRIDGE presides over a meeting of a Fellowship Church Hometeam in his Colleyville residence. (Photos by Toby Druin)
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Fellowship Church finds fertile
ground for creative worship
___By Toby Druin
___Regional Correspondent
___"Evangelism is environmental," says Ed Young Jr. "It is challenging our membership core to build relationships with people outside and invite them into church, and there, as they sit under teaching and get involved in small groups, they
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ED YOUNG JR. outside the worship center of Fellowship Church. (Photo by Toby Druin)
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become Christians."
___The evangelism environment at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, where Young has been the pastor the last 10 years, apparently is a fertile one. In the 1998-99 church year, the church led the Baptist General Convention of Texas in baptisms with 1,156--more than 858 of them adults.
___They did it without revivals. "Every weekend is a revival," Young said.
___And most of the time they did it without a walk-forward invitation at the close of each service. Instead of responding to an invitation at the close of a worship service, people interested in making a profession of faith in Christ or joining the church are asked to indicate their decision on a guest registry card that is a part of the worship folder.
___"We usually don't ask people to walk the aisle," Young explained. "Up to 80 percent of the time, I will pray a prayer for someone to become a Christian and just ask them to check off their decision" on the registry card.
___"I grew up in churches where we had an invitation, and we did it here for the first four years," he added, "but the moment we moved from an invitation to a newcomers' class,
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SUNDAY MORNING worshippers fill up on Starbucks coffee and Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
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baptisms and conversions went up. In our newcomers classes, we share the gospel, explain the ordinances and tell them what church membership means."
___Anyone seeking membership in the church must go through a newcomers class and have been baptized by immersion. At the conclusion of each class--the first 30 or 40 minutes of which is a presentation of the gospel--they are given the option to join the church. If they want to join, they are questioned about the decision to make sure they are Christians.
___The system is working. The church is averaging more than 10,200 in attendance at weekend services held Saturday night and twice on Sunday mornings. During spring break, when many churches were explaining low attendance, more than 11,000 came to Fellowship Church to hear a sermon series by Young on "The Ulti-Mate: Finding the Love of Your Life."
___He preached the series from the back seat of a Mercedes 500 SL convertible, parked on
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A FELLOWSHIP CHURCH family participates in a baby dedication service broadcast over the Internet.
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the rostrum. The topics included "Who's Behind the Driver's Seat?" on spouse selection, "Who's Driving the Car?" and "Don't Go Off-Road" about extra-marital affairs.
___The sermon series and the Mercedes are examples of what Young describes as Fellowship's "commitment to excellence, to creativity."
___On Mother's Day, instead of a sermon, Young interviewed his mother, Jo Beth Young, about the Christian home and parental responsibility as they sat on the platform in two overstuffed chairs. For an evangelistic emphasis, he took a camera crew to Las Vegas, where he had a speaking engagement and interviewed people on the Strip and in casinos about how to get to heaven.
___Baptisms at the church and more than 200 baby and child dedications on Mother's Day weekend are streamed onto the Internet, where friends and relatives unable to attend can watch. The church's website address is fconline.org.
___A huge atrium/foyer outside the worship center offers visitors and members a
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YOUNG gathers his management team for a meeting after services.
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gathering place before services, complete with an information booth, juice bar, fruit bar, Starbuck's coffee bar, Krispy Kreme donuts and a bookstore.
___Creativity contributes to the church's appeal and keeps visitors coming, Young said. "But we are never going to get into simply trying to top last week. We will be messing up when we do that. We try to let the Bible dictate what we do. We run an idea by several people, but we depend on God for the idea."
___The church is patterned largely on the model of Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago, but creativity is Young's watchword in everything he does.
___Sermon ideas--he calls them "talks"--are "my call," Young said. But they are submitted to both "creative" and "management" teams of staff members and volunteers for their critique and suggestions.
___His staff--or management team--is largely made up of people who have been called to their positions while members of the church. Preston Mitchell, who heads spiritual
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YOUNG interviews his mother during his sermon on Mother's Day.
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development and has been on staff for five years, previously worked in public relations for Texas Utilities. Barry Ford, who heads the athletics program, worked in it for two years while employed by Southwest Airlines.
___The teams meet after the Saturday night service to critique what was done and to tweak it for the two Sunday morning services to follow.
___"We try to create a climate of critique," Young said. "If people are going to give us two hours of their time, we better deliver. And besides, I am motivated by a healthy fear--a fear of standing up there unprepared or flying by the seat of my pants and failing someone out there who doesn't know Christ."
___Young's major role, he said, is to "keep evangelism on top-shelf priority." He constantly reminds his teams and the church that 98 percent of the people in the church are there because someone invited them.
___"I will do two or three messages a year challenging them to invite their friends," he said. One message was preached from a boat on the platform with Young encouraging the church to "throw out lifelines" to people. Each person in church that day was given a Lifesaver mint and told not to eat it until they had invited a non-Christian person to church and seen them trust Christ.
___"I try in my own life to know people who
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COUNTDOWN to the start of the service at Fellowship Church.
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don't know Christ," Young said.
___The idea is to constantly fill the church with people who recently have been won to Christ, he said. "You can't be a great disciple-making church if you are not filling the church with freshly redeemed people."
___The creativity extends to the music program, which is contemporary but varies from week to week. On Mother's Day weekend, it had an all-male "Back Street Boys" motif, but on other Sundays, it might be a lone cellist, all women or a duet.
___"The higher the unpredictability," Young said, "the more you communicate."
___Young, 39, said Fellowship is not trying to reach any particular niche of people, although the majority are in the 20 to 40 age range. Overall, the church reaches a broad cross-section of people. Many drive from all over the Metroplex to attend the church, which is located across Highway 121 from Grapevine Mills Mall, just north of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
___"We're not a big church; we're a small town," the pastor said. "And we want to be a church that grows smaller and smaller while getting larger and larger."
___The smaller and smaller reference is to the small groups that members are channeled into--Connections classes (Sunday School) and Hometeams, groups of 10 to 20 who meet twice monthly on Sunday evenings for a meal and Bible study, prayer and support.
___Many other programs also are offered. Hundreds attend Bible and book studies on parenting, divorce recovery or other subjects on Tuesdays each week. The church does not have a regular Wednesday evening program, but instead has a "First Wednesday" service
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THE CHURCH'S logo on the roof is visible to planes taking off and landing at DFW Airport.
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each month that includes an intense period of worship, prayer and testimonies with baptism and the Lord's Supper and no preaching.
___Children in the church attend Connections classes in a wing of the building that illustrates the seven days of creation, and they have their own worship service.
___An athletic ministry involves 2,000 to 3,000 people and has been vital in enlisting unchurched people.
___Not having "Baptist" in its name has been an asset rather than a liability, Young said, although the newcomers' classes are told up front the church is Southern Baptist.
___"It is one of the best decisions we have ever made," said Young of keeping "Baptist" out of the church name. "We are not shy about being Baptist; we just didn't want a label to be a detriment to people coming here for the first time."
___"We wanted a church with no barriers," explained Mitchell, who has attended the church since it was begun in 1990. "Sadly, denominational affiliation is a barrier to some."
___The church gives a relatively small amount of its budget to missions, Young said, because it is involved in many direct missions projects, including inner-city work in San Antonio and Piedras Negras, Mexico.
___"I have a world missions heart," he said, "but at this stage so many thousands are coming here there is barely enough just to reach them. I don't want to fly over one mission field to get to another."
___The mission of Fellowship Church, he said, is to reach up in worship, reach out in evangelism and to reach in through discipleship.
___The church, which began as a mission of First Baptist Church of Irving, met for several years in the Irving Fine Arts Center's 300-seat auditorium. Then it moved to its 140-acre site in 1995. The church recently bought a 45,000-square foot building adjacent to its property for a youth building and offices. A children's building will be added soon, and ground will be broken early next year for an addition that will include a chapel.
___"I don't think we will be the same church stylistically five years from now, but I have no idea what it will be," he said.
___ "If you had told me eight years ago we would be like this, I wouldn't have believed it. But I feel great about it. It's who we are."
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