Fellowship Bible Church | Paragould, AR

• Jared Pickney
• Sep 6, 2012
• Series: Church Profiles
• Categories: Church Planting Articles, Latest News

Briefly describe your story of your call to plant a church

The vision for Fellowship Paragould started in 2007 while I was living in Louisville, KY. Though I moved to Louisville expecting my life to be largely impacted by the Seminary I was attending, God rocked my world in a big way through a local church in Louisville called Sojourn Community Church. It was while I was involved at Sojourn that I was introduced to A29 and the reality of what it it looks like to stop simply going to church and to start being the church. I begin to get see what it means to submit all of my life to Jesus as I partnered together with other believers in the mission God was calling us to in Louisville. 

The longer I was a part of Sojourn the more I found myself falling in love with Jesus and his church. It was here that God birthed a major desire and burden in my heart to plant a gospel centered church in the city of Paragould where people could experience and enjoy God more than ever before. 

In 2009 I moved back to Paragould where I married my wife, Meagan, helped re-plant a church in the city, and begin to develop a strong relationship with the A29 pastors of Fellowship Jonesboro. The longer I talked and prayed with the pastors of Fellowship Jonesboro the more our hearts were aligned with God’s in partnering together to plant a gospel centered, church planting, church in the city of Paragould. 

In October of 2011 Fellowship Jonesboro started funding our church planting movement in Paragould as a core group of people begin meeting in mine and my wife’s home to discuss what it would look like to live as a gospel community on mission in Paragould.

How did you build up your core? What advice would you give to guys in the core-stage?

Prayed and then approached people that seemed to be excited about Jesus and the mission of making disciples. I shared with them the vision God had birthed in my heart and encouraged them to pray about partnering with us. 

Advice: Make sure your core group understands that your goal is plant the gospel, not a Sunday gathering. Make sure that you equip your people to make disciples who can make more disciples. Spend less time with books and more time with people. Set up meetings and phone interviews where you can pick the brains of other church planters. Make sure that your core group understands the gospel and how the gospel serves as the catalyst of growth in their own hearts and in our cities. Be sure that the church is being built on Jesus and that everything you are doing can be reproduced. If you appear as the "professional" the majority of the people in your church will never try to plant another church because they will not see it as something an "ordinary" Christian can do. Be generous from the very beginning. If you are not faithful with little you probably won't be faithful with much. 

Also... Make sure you have a group of like minded pastors who can coach you from the very beginning while helping you make the tough decisions like, how much you should be paid, your church budget, when you should launch, etc..

What advice do you have for men who are wrestling with the decision to plant? 

Check your heart to make sure that if you plant you are planting out of a positive response to Jesus, not a negative response to anything else. 

Look at your life and see if you have ever started anything before. 

Talk to a lot of dudes who have already planted. I also think it is beneficial to go through the A29 assessment because if you don't have a major desire to plant a church and are not ready the A29 assessment will probably reveal that.

What’s the most important thing you’d want to share with a new church planter?   

Make sure you are spiritually healthy and that your family is healthy. 

If there is anything in you at all that wants to do this because you want to feel important, don't plant a church. 

If you fantasize about preaching more than you do pastoring, don't plant a church. 

If you more concerned about planting the church than you are about planting the gospel in the hearts of people, don't go plant a church.

Outside of the Bible, what is the most helpful book you have read for church planting?

Church Planting Landmines, Church in The Making, Church Planter, & Outgrowing the Ingrown Church

Church Profile: Fellowship Bible Church
Launch Date: September 2012
Location: Paragould, AR

Mission, Vision, Values of Church 

Mission: Be the church for one another and for our city in our everyday lives. 

Vision: To establish a movement of gospel communities on mission that are living out their gospel identities int heir everyday life, saturating our city and the world around us with the Good News of Jesus Christ. 

Values of the Church: Gospel, Community, Mission.

What are some examples of God's grace that you have seen in your life and/or the life of your church?

Wow. Too many to recall off the top of my head. 

I have heard many people in our core group say they are enjoying God more now than ever before.

We are becoming more and more like a family. 

Almost our entire core group is in a Fight Club, fighting their sin and fighting to believe Jesus is better.

People are inviting their lost neighbors over to eat. 

I am personally learning how to motivate with grace rather than guilt. 

I don't feel the pressure anymore of being a successful church planter. I am learning to find my identity in Christ. 

We are building relationships with people far from God. 

We experienced a miracle just last week. 

God has placed Soma Communities in our life and Fellowship Bible Church of Jonesboro

God has provided for all of our financial needs.

How can we pray for you?

Pray that I will enjoy God more and more everyday. 

Pray that I will lead and love my wife and daughter as Christ would. 

Pray for God to raise up more leaders in our church.

Pray that God will continue to fund his mission. 

Pray that the church I lead will take the call to make disciples seriously. 

Pray that God will give me the wisdom to lead our church in a way that exalt Jesus. 

Pray that God keeps me and my family safe from the attacks of the evil one.