How they OVERCAME ALL OBSTACLES at Fellowship Church, Grapevine TX

Shortly after its opening, the membership hired Edwin Barry Young as its Senior Pastor. Young quickly convinced the church to adopt the "seeker church" style made popular by Bill Hybels and Willow Creek Community Church. One of the church's first actions was to de-emphasize its ties with the Southern Baptist Convention and change its name to "Fellowship of Las Colinas".

Another move was to use contemporary music during the services, and to offer services on Saturday evenings. Most notably, Fellowship Church adopted the concept of "age appropriate" teaching--children 5th grade and under are provided separate services at their level of maturity.

Parents are encouraged (but not required) to send their children to those services. Fellowship Church purports that several families, after initially being hesitant to return to Fellowship Church--mainly due to its size and non-traditional approach to church--did so after finding out their children loved the activities.

The strategy proved highly successful, and Fellowship Church, led by Pastor Ed Young Jr, quickly outgrew its original facility. Thus, it moved across the parking lot to the nearby Irving Arts Center. During this time, Fellowship Church tried the concept of "simultaneous services"--one group would meet at Fellowship Church's facility while another would meet at the Arts Center.

The Fellowship Church music team would play at one site while Young preached at the other, then midway through the services the teams would switch places. The concept proved unsuccessful and was quickly dropped, but continues in "Fellowship Church lore" as from time to time Young mentions it in his sermons as an example of how Fellowship Church is willing to try new, unconventional ideas in order to reach people

Fellowship Church Purchases Too Much Property: What Happens>

Though larger than Fellowship Church wanted, Fellowship Church did not have the option to bid on only a portion of the site--it had to bid on the entire site or not bid at all. Fellowship Church agreed to bid on the site, and was the successful bidder; however, it had to quickly borrow $1.675 million to make the payment.

Approximately two years later, the announcement was made that Grapevine Mills, a shopping mall, would be built literally across the street from Fellowship Church. Unsolicited offers came in for portions of the Fellowship Church property, and eventually Fellowship Church sold a 23 acre parcel on the north side of the property for the exact amount it had borrowed earlier, thus allowing it to begin construction debt-free.

Meanwhile, Fellowship Church outgrew the Irving Arts Center before its permanent facility was complete. It thus moved across the street to MacArthur High School. (As part of the lease agreement, Fellowship Church agreed to install an upgraded sound system in MacArthur's auditorium.)

In order to maintain the "age-appropriate" services for preschoolers and children, this required an enormous logistical feat each weekend--volunteers would have to unload several trucks early on Saturday morning (the building was unavailable until then), install temporary partitions and furniture in several areas, then after the final Sunday service tear down and reload all the items onto the trucks, and make the school building ready for use on Monday morning.

In April 1998, Fellowship Church finally completed and moved to its current facility and adopted its present name. Pastor Ed Young's father and Bill Hybels spoke at the dedication service.

Fellowship Church Grows to Satelitte Locations in Dallas, Ft Worth & Miami

Fellowship Church took another page out of Bill Hybels' playbook--the concept of the satellite church. In early 2005 Fellowship Church opened two satellite campuses--Fellowship Church Plano (which meets at a church-owned facility in Plano, Texas) and Fellowship Church Downtown (which was previously named Uptown when meeting at North Dallas High School.) As of June 2006, Fellowship Church Downtown meets at a church-owned facility in the arts district of Downtown Dallas.

Later in 2005, a third satellite campus was added--Fellowship Church Alliance (which met at Northwest High School in Justin, Texas, near Fort Worth Alliance Airport); however, in October 2007 the campus name will change to Fellowship Church Fort Worth and meet in a new facility near downtown.[3]

In 2006 Fellowship Church opened a fourth campus and its first outside the DFW area--Fellowship Church Miami in South Miami. The satellite campuses act as extensions of Fellowship Church; though they have live music and their own staff, all sermons are broadcast from the Grapevine campus.

Fellowship Church Today

Fellowship Church offers a wide range of activities and ministries for all stages of life. Fellowship Church's "Home Team" ministry, modeled after the popular cell group system, allows newcomers to meet individuals with similar interests and geographic locations, which would not be otherwise possible due to its size.

Fellowship Church operates a bookstore and coffee bar (The Source), which features mainly Fellowship Church-logo merchandise and Ed Young's sermons and books. One of the unique features of Fellowship Church's facility is its outdoor baptistry. Fellowship Church does not have an indoor baptistry, a common feature in church architecture among churches which practice baptism by immersion; whenever Fellowship Church does perform a baptism indoors it uses portable jacuzzis.

Built like an amphitheater, it is located within a lake on the Grapevine campus (the lake serves as a flood control pond for the property). However, it is physically separated from the lake (to keep whatever may be swimming in the lake out), and is heated similar to a jacuzzi.

Notwithstanding that Texas weather is notoriously fickle and at times violent, only on a handful of rare instances have scheduled baptisms been cancelled due to inclement weather. Another fountain on the campus (closer to the building) was the initial outdoor baptistry, and is used most often during winter months to allow individuals to more quickly enter the building after being baptized.

All four campuses meet Sunday Mornings at 10:00 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. The Grapevine campus meets Saturday night at 5:00 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. and the Plano Campus meets Saturday night at 6:30 p.m. The Downtown and Alliance campuses do not currently have Saturday services. All weekend services are identical in format and content. Special "age appropriate" services are held for preschoolers and children through 5th grade at all Fellowship Church services.

Fellowship Church's Christmas and Easter services are among the area's most popular, and in order to accommodate the large crowds over 20 separate services are held during a 3-4 day period. In 2004, Fellowship Church was able to rent the American Airlines Center for its Christmas services due to the NHL lockout which made the facility available; however, for 2005 it reverted to having multiple services at its campuses (11 at the Grapevine campus, five at Plano, three at Alliance, and two at Downtown).

In December 2005, Associated Press reported that Fellowship was one of several American megachurches that would not hold services on Christmas Day, which in 2005 fell on a Sunday. At least one talk show host (nationally syndicated radio host Mike Gallagher, featured on local radio station KRLD) criticized Fellowship's decision not to hold services that day, since Sunday is the traditional day of worship in Christianity.

Fellowship Church stated in the AP article that it chose not to hold Sunday services due to expected poor attendance on that Sunday, and since it offered 21 alternative services during the preceding days.

The night before Super Bowl XLI Fellowship gave away 2 tickets and airfare from its Grapevine Campus to the game, garnering widespread media attention as a way to attract people who do not normally attend church.

In September 2007 Fellowship Church launched a website, ineed2change.com, in conjunction with a sermon series of the same name.