Creating Communion

Fellowship reaches out to Nashville’s homeless by providing food and shelter throughout the winter.
By Rachel Hester, Room In The Inn Executive Director & Fellowship Member

Room In The Inn is an emergency winter shelter for homeless men, women, and children in Middle Tennessee. Started with four congregations in 1986, the program has grown to more than 150 congregations of all faiths working together toward a common goal of hospitality by welcoming those in need to their congregations. Each night from November through March, an average of 200 guests find shelter in local houses of worship.

This program became a part of Fellowship in the fall of 2005 with two community groups (Joel Williams and Joe Storey’s groups). This past season, we had seven community groups involved (Joel Williams, Joe Storey, Larry Schumacher, Alan Fister, Scott Safford, Bob Aucker, Henry Williams).

Room In The Inn may be safe and warm, clean and quiet, dependable and secure. But most importantly, it is loving hospitality—found in the sharing, the tears, the memories, the hopes and all those other moments that bring us communion with others and with God.

This past winter season, approximately 5,000 volunteers provided over 100,000 hours of service to provide over 28,060 shelter bed and over 70,000 meals provided to over 1000 different individuals. Fellowship Bible Church provided Room In The Inn each Tuesday this past winter to over 120 individuals. Although we deal with large numbers, our hope, my hope, is that we remember that the most important number is 1. One day of sobriety, each day on a job, each person moving out of homelessness into permanent housing, and the one volunteer who looks into the eyes of a guest and recognizes that there is no difference between them. We are all loved equally.

"Steve and I had the opportunity to minister to a man from Dallas who is going through tough times in his marriage. He showed us pictures of his 2 children back in Texas and you could sense he had a lot on his mind. We read scripture, prayed with him and Steve even drove to his office to get a Bible that he gave him as a gift! It was awesome seeing how this wayward man heard what the Lord said through us. We told him not to be too hard on himself, that we all fall short and we all have our own issues in life. We encouraged him to never forget that the Almighty Lord is always with him and that He can help him repair his marriage! This man could not wait to drive back to Dallas and rekindle his relationship with his wife and kids! He was leaving today!!"
--Larry Schumacher

"In the hustle and bustle of life, it is that two hours of being with the men that snaps me back into the reality of what life is all about and how there are so many people who are struggling. I have also been aware that so easily we all could be in the same situation. The appreciation and the gratitude that comes from just having a hot home cooked meal or a new, clean pair of socks is heart breaking, but also sobering. RITI has been such a blessing for me in it is the tool that God has used to snap me out of my selfishness and to see the reality of the needs of others."
--Ann Myrick

"Our ride to Fellowship is one of my favorite parts. There are no distractions as we get to talk for half an hour. First thing, I said I really admire them for being able to cope with going to a different place every night. I praised their patience for standing around waiting so much, and being at the mercy of others. They called this "two stepping." Later, I shared that I am in a "twelve step program" which meets at Fellowship. I told them I had just done my "5th step," which is where you confess you life story and covered-up mess to another person. They asked what had gotten me, and if I was going to meetings. Most admitted their demons and jail time. On hearing we were heading to Williamson county, one guy said: 'Oh no, I spend a year in jail there for drug paraphernalia!' He said he had learned his lesson: no more carrying drug paraphernalia!"
I admired his honesty.
--Wayne Day

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Here is what a typical Tuesday night looks like:
• Tuesday afternoon, some members of the group setup mattresses and make beds in the portables at Fellowship.
• Other members make sack lunches for the guests to take with them.
• Around 5:30pm a few of our group members go downtown to the Room in the Inn coordination facility to pick up our Guests (at FBC we take 6 Men every Tuesday).
• We then serve the guests an evening meal. This is either a meal served at the church prepared by group members or we take them to a restaurant in the Cool Springs area. During dinner, it is typical for other group members and/or family members to join and eat with the guests (including children).
• After the meal we either play games, watch a movie or sit around and talk.
• We then go to bed and at least two of the male members from the FBC community group stay the night with the guests.
• In the morning, we wake the guests at 5:30am. Everyone assists to clean the portables, collect dirty sheets and stack mattresses.
• By 6:00am we are at McDonalds in Brentwood and we get breakfast for the guests.
• Finally, we drop the guests back off downtown at the Room in the Inn facility.
• During the week, one of the members of the community group washes all of the sheets and returns them to the portables to be ready for the next Tuesday night.

Grounds For Ministry In Sudan

Inversion Kicks-Off Mocha Club To Aid African Orphans
By Jonathan Phipps


On March 15th, Inversion hosted an African Connection Night. The purpose of the night was to call the young adults of Inversion to raise funds for orphans in Nymlal, Sudan. The night featured local recording artists Dave Barnes, Adam Cunningham and Inversion’s very own Amy Stroup. Throughout the evening we were told of the desperate needs of nearly 400 orphans in Southern Sudan. Currently, their primary need is the construction of a dormitory, which would keep them from sleeping outside and would provide shelter and protection from the elements and dangerous wildlife.

Through African Leadership’s online vehicle, the Mocha Club, the young men and women of Inversion raised over $600 a month, which will provide a continuous stream of funding for the project. And that is only the beginning… Praise God! Mocha Club is something aimed at Young Adults who want to do something together for Africa. We learned that Inversion’s response was the largest launch of any Mocha Club thus far.

For $7 or the cost of only two mochas a month (something our people can surely afford to give up) so much can be accomplished in this hurting part of the world. Psalm 67:4 says, “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth.” We pray that God will use our meager efforts as part of how the people of Sudan will ultimately find their greatest joy in Him.

“As I stood in Khayalitsha, South Africa, suddenly all those pictures from TV and movies became real. These aren’t people from another planet. These are people like you and I, but in VERY different circumstances. Sadly, these circumstances are nightmarish – AIDS is ripping its way through the heart of this beautiful continent, and until recently, without much of a fight…until now. This is an exciting thing happening that YOU and I are able to be a part of, a movement against AIDS in Africa. With SO little sacrifice, we are able to help provide the necessities that can change the legacy of these people and their families. I don’t have to fix the world, and it’d be dumb to think I could. But I can give whatever I can, however small.”
--Dave Barnes

“For the past 30 years, Sudan has been wracked by civil war between the Muslim northern government and the primarily Christian Sudanese in the south. In recent years, a militia known as the “Janjaweed,” backed by the Sudan government, has been eradicating villages of people in Darfur. People are literally fleeing for their lives and making new homes out of straw or whatever scraps they can find. They scavenge for the basic necessities of life and live in constant danger of being killed or raped.

Will you join with me to provide the basic necessities for the people of Darfur? Your $7 a month can provide life-saving items such as mosquito nets to prevent malaria, tarps that can serve as homes to cover them during the rainy season, food, clean water, and desperately needed medication for illnesses such as waterborne diseases, diarrheal diseases and malaria."
--Amy Stroup

Hope On the Horizon In Peru

New Peruvian President, Alan Garcia, opens historic doors to Christianity
By Sandy Butters


Sunday, July 30, 2006 marked a pivotal moment in Peru’s history. This was the first time in its history that its president attended an evangelistic worship service. The nondenominational service was coordinated by a group of 20 evangelical pastors as a worship service of thanksgiving for the incoming president of Peru, Alan Garcia.

Neal Joseph, Jim and Marla Huskey, and Warner and Sandy Butters were able to attend this worship service as guests of Mario Perez, Executive Director of the Christian Missionary Alliance’s administrative arm.

According to the pastor who gave the message, President Alan Garcia has not yet made a public confession of faith in Jesus Christ, but is definitely pursuing Him. The pastor had presented him the gospel and the plan of salvation at an earlier date but Alan did not commit. However, Garcia did agree to two things: to attend a thanksgiving worship service if he became president and to a “cleansing of the presidential palace.” He kept his word on both things.

The “cleansing” took place in a private service Sunday afternoon in the basement of the presidential palace. There was a room there where all the past presidents had stored the idols, ornaments, skulls, cadavers, implements, etc. used in various forms of worship. Garcia invited these pastors to come, pray, cast out the demons and take everything out. Talk about a WOW!

Sunday morning’s message was from Luke 10:25-28, where Jesus responded to the lawyer’s question, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” The focus of the message was on the need for a personal experience with Jesus, rather than a general, intellectual understanding of who He is. He shared how this personal relationship today enables us to establish correct priorities of loving God first and then our neighbor as ourselves, to understand and experience how freedom flourishes in obedience to God’s principles, to fight self-centeredness and to turn to the Lord. The question presented to the congregation of over 1,500 national pastors, dignitaries and other invitees was, “How can you make it possible to have a society of these values without having them yourself?” He ended the message with Jesus’ words, “Do this, and you will live.”

There will be backlash and we MUST keep praying for Garcia’s salvation and a God-led revival in Peru as well as against the forces of darkness.

Deep Calling Unto Deep

Learning to be honest with self, God and others leads to deeper life
By Johanna Powell


Like a little child enjoying the warmth of the sun and the chill of the ocean, I sat in the barn and basked in the joy of a rare evening out with other women. No one to take care of and plenty of adult conversation—how could you go wrong?

Then Stephen James began to speak. He described parts of his own personal story and invited us to begin exploring our stories. Like that child, I felt the power of the undertow pulling me out of the sand and to uncharted, beautiful, alluring, and yet savage waters. Those waters are a place I know I was made for; however, I had never managed to find them on my own. It is a place where God is in charge and He is uncompromisingly committed to using all the good and the bad to call us to relationship with Him, to conform us to His image, and to invite us to speak into other’s lives.

What followed was a counseling session with Stephen. God used him to point me to the “Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Planned” women’s story group and then the “Exploring Your Story for Couples” group, as well as some individual appointments with Jennifer Osborn.

God has used all of them to bring me out of the shallow waters of mere existence to a place where I know myself, God, and others, deeper than I ever have thought possible. Life down here hurts and we are all wounded and in pain from disappointments and losses.

It is not our job to cover over the pain or to even fix it; but, to present it to God and allow Him to do His work through it. I have learned that God wants us to tell the truth to ourselves, to God, and then to others.

I have experienced God to be most loving and gentle, and yet the most savagely committed to setting free not only my spirit, but my heart as well. He has called me to trust Him in the circumstances that only He can fix, to speak the truth that He has put in my heart, and to rejoice in the abundant life He has given me.

By His grace, I am sometimes swimming—sometimes sinking in these wild waters. I am finding God to be everything I need and others to be an essential part of what He is up to. The deep waters He is leading me through are completely alive, especially compared to where I was when I didn’t know how, or was too afraid, to feel what was going on inside of and to me. One thing I’m certain of is that I never want to go back to the safety of the sand.

Learning How To Build A Bridge

Community Group bands together to help accident victim
By Luke Littrell


How many Saturdays had I risen up from working on the lawn to wave to my neighbor? Probably a hundred since I had been living beside them for over five years. My neighbor Doug is that guy who keeps his lawn in immaculate condition. While my lawn looked like “Sanford and Son,” his looked like a portion of Legend’s Country Club. That’s why we were interested to know where he and the rest of his family were for several days.

Then, my wife saw his granddaughter at their house playing in the driveway and asked where Doug was. She said, “Grandpa’s been hurt real bad.” Later, she saw Doug’s daughter and discovered that he had been in a horrific car accident just up the road. His car left the road and flew down an embankment crashing into a fence. His foot was shattered, his ankle was broken in pieces, and he sustained some broken vertebrae, not to mention several cuts and bruises and an enormous amount of pain.

We were embarrassed that we didn’t even know their last name, and to this point we had wondered how God would show us how our Community Group could build bridges to those around us and suddenly it seemed all too clear. Doug’s daughter told us his last name and we called the hospital to find his room. We were simply compelled by the Holy Spirit to engage, not knowing what was in store for them or us. My wife and I began making extra dinner and bringing it up to the hospital and although they looked at us strangely at first, and said they were alright, they soon realized we were not going away.

At first it seemed to be just a good thing to do for our neighbor, but then we experienced so much blessing from serving and a real sense that God was asking us “how far are you willing to go?” Soon after we shared with the Community Group, the impact snowballed. We told the group how badly Doug was hurt and how exhausting this was for Doug’s wife, Pam, as she had not left his side for weeks and was barely eating. As we continued to go up to the hospital to visit, the families of our group began making meals for them. We even spent time before a guy’s night in the hospital lobby praying for Doug.


The idea surfaced that we could do for Doug what he longed to do, but was in no condition to do – take care of his lawn. I knew from living next to him for so long that since spring was fast approaching it would kill him to see his lawn unkempt and not fertilized or seeded. We set aside a Saturday and the guys and some of their boys showed up and invaded his yard. It is really amazing how God blesses everyone involved in this kind of thing. Everyone worked hard for the better part of a Saturday, including some of the boys, who perhaps saw for the first time, a man in need have his needs met as their dads gave their lives away.

We never saw this coming, and we will certainly never be the same. I know Doug is grateful, he says so all the time. Everyone watched his frail body struggle down three steps to say through his tears, “Thank You.” But, we’re grateful too. I’m grateful we didn’t go six years missing the opportunity to build a bridge to my neighbor, only 25 yards away.

Our whole group is grateful for God who showed us a real example of Jesus’ call for us to love our neighbor and build a bridge to them, because He is the ultimate bridge builder and He’s not going away either. Our bridge is still being built and we continue to seek God in how our group can minister to Doug and his family. Please join us in praying for Doug, his family, and our group, and that God would continue working in our hearts.

“Just before we left we all prayed together, which was a very emotional moment for the homeowner, and for the rest of us as well. As my son and I drove away he said, ‘Dad, that was really neat getting to help him out. When we were praying I heard him crying and I looked up and saw the biggest smile I've ever seen on anybody's face. Seeing him smile was the best reward we could have gotten.’ I was so excited to see that my son really understood what serving other people is all about.”
-Clint Redwine

The Least of These

Church members live on-call to respond when a need arises
By Philip Morlan

I ’m a preacher’s kid, and in typical P.K. fashion, I can’t recall very many messages that my dad gave, but there are two things about my dad’s pastorate that will never slip my memory. One was how he devoted himself to the study of God’s Word, and the second, was how he spent a lot of time in the hospital visiting families. This may surprise you, but it wasn’t until last November (16 years later) that the significance and value of why my dad spent all that timevisiting the sick and hurting really began to penetrate my heart. He was not just doing what pastors do; he was living out Scripture.

The week after Thanksgiving, I received a call from one of our members, Celeste Clydesdale. She told me how a little boy named Ethan was severely burned in a bon-fire accident. He and his mother had been visiting friends over the holidays. They had no family here to offer care and support; so, she asked if I would be willing to go to the hospital and visit.

Upon entering his dimly lit room, I saw his little body lying in that hospital bed all wrapped up like a mummy. His mom had just stepped out to get some dinner and a nurse was finishing an adjustment to his I.V. My life changed over the next hour and a half. Ethan and I became buddies. Although he could barley speak or even open his eyes, as he bobbed in and out of sleep, we managed to sneak in conversations about frogs and lizards and karate and the beach.

I had only been there about 20 minutes when he reached out his burned hand for me to hold. In all honesty, I didn’t know how to offer hope to a six-year-old boy whose life had just been changed forever, but God’s hand was at work through mine and I knew that He used my presence that night to help bring peace to a hurting and scared young boy.

Now it might sound like this story is about me, but that would hardly be Beyond Belief. The real purpose is to tell how God used Ethan to begin revealing an untold story of faithfulness, service and unconditional love within Fellowship’s body. The truth is that many people among us are quietly giving their lives away every day to families who are sick and in need.

I mentioned Celeste earlier. She, along with several other Fellowship folks, continued visiting Ethan and his mom over the three months they lived in Vanderbilt’s Burn Unit. These people built relationships, they brought gifts, they prayed and they carried a message of hope that God has not abandoned the hurting.

Recently I learned that there are several people on 24-hour call for the Paulson family. Mark and Gina’s son Silas has been in and out of the hospital for over a year, and at the drop of a phone call, people like Tammy Prosen and Nancy Thomas are at the hospital day or night ministering to Gina and Silas. While Mark works during the day, Dena Wilson has provided childcare for the Paulson’s other three children, and more people from surrounding community groups have committed to help with food, childcare and other needs.

Kevin and Melinda McCormick heard about a four-year-old boy who was cruelly burned by his mom. He had become a ward of the state and was literally alone in the hospital with no family. They were so moved by what had happened that they got on the phone and collected hundreds of dollars worth of goods to be donated so this boy could have something special to call his own.

Karthi Masters with 5-year-old Kajal

Blair and Karthi Masters have recently taken in a five-year-old girl, Kajal, from India who was blinded by her mother. They are in the process of adopting this precious child. A group of their Fellowship friends recognized a need that Blair and Karthi had, they prayed, put their money together and purchased a van for the Masters who didn’t have a vehicle large enough to carry their growing family.

Stories like these go on and on. Those who make up the body of Fellowship are acting as the physical body of Christ every day. In Matthew 25, Jesus said, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

The least of these are among us. It doesn’t take much—just a little time and willingness to let God work through you. You may feel ill-equipped and it will probably be uncomfortable, but if God can speak through a donkey and use a fish to carry out His purposes, there’s no doubt He can use all of us. Begin looking around and ask yourself what you can do for the least of these—you may never be the same.

Thoughts on Beyond Belief...

by Richard Scott, Elder

One Sunday evening in September 2005, after our family had given away our shoes on “Shoe Sunday,” six pair in all, we announced to our four kids our decision to pursue adoption. The kids asked many questions: Where will we go? At what cost? How long will it take? With no answers, we spoke with them of our faith in God’s provision and timing. Moments after the kids departed from the room, they returned with a shoe box which they had emptied their piggy banks and wallets providing the “seed money” for our adoption. In tears, we watched our kids model what living Beyond Belief really is. We know the call...all the questions are not answered...we walk by faith, giving our all, trusting in God and His Word...we see God provide according to His good pleasure.

I’m so thankful we are experiencing this journey together at Fellowship. Even as we endeavor to walk wisely and obediently, I don’t have answers to all the questions. I look back and see God’s care and provision, and then move forward in faith...all for His glory!