Christ Fellowship featured by Mid-South Baptists
Mid-South Ministry Profile
Christ Fellowship of Memphis by Stuart McCollough
I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your home, naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me.
— Matthew 25:35-36
In a city torn apart by racial tension, Christ Fellowship is seeking to bring people of different backgrounds together in one body to make a difference in their own lives and the lives of the people they come in contact with. They want to be a body of believers who exemplify Matthew 25:35-36. Their mission is to advance the kingdom of God against the darkness of this world
by loving God, embodying God’s love for each other and by proclaiming God’s love to the world.
Led by Pastor Kelvin Bowen 
and Associate Pastor Mark Morris, Christ Fellowship is striving to share the gospel both locally and globally. Both pastors have extensive experience in church planting, mission work and ministry. Pastor Bowen served as an associate minister at Healing Center Baptist Church for 14 years. He also serves as Executive Vice President for Memphis Athletics Ministry (MAM), an inner-city ministry of six
athletic facilities around the city that uses athletics as a tool to reach young people with the gospel of Christ. Mark Morris and his family served on the mission field for 14 years in Africa and Asia. They served as traditional missionaries for four years, he served as a Strategy Coordinator among unreached people groups in Central Asia and as a Regional leader of Central and Southern Asia for the International Mission Board. In 1997, Mark and his family returned to the United States where he co-founded All Peoples, a church consulting group which assisted churches to impact the least reached. He was on staff at Germantown Baptist Church from 2000-2007 and then served on staff at Saddleback Valley Community Church in California.
The church presently meets at the Stephen Olford Center on the Memphis campus of Union University. Christ Fellowship was already meeting under the leadership of Mark Morris. Bro. Mark and Bro. Kelvin were both basketball officials and had been friends for some time when they started throwing around the idea of beginning a multi-racial congregation. Knowing
that Sunday mornings were the most segregated time in America, both men had a desire to see blacks, whites and people of all races worship together. Sponsored by a predominately African-American fellowship – One Faith Fellowship – the church officially became a multiracial fellowship on December 14, 2008. The members have continued to cross cultural barriers
and face the challenges of blending worship styles and even preconceived ideas of what worship really is.
Christ Fellowship recently had two special services: a commissioning of 3-year missionaries being appointed to serve as Southern Baptist workers overseas and an Easter service where close to 100 people joined them for worship. The pastors want to see lives changed from the inside out and people come to know Jesus. They realize Christ Fellowship is among very few churches in the city and even the country that are trying to bring believers of diverse backgrounds together to worship and break down the walls of racial divide. They are excited about what God is doing and looking forward to what He is going to do in the future.
Names and Numbers
In the Bible there is an entire “book” dedicated to and known as NUMBERS.
In the Bible names carry much significance, by way of example, Abram became Abraham as an important marker of his being chosen and transformed by God. God built in and through Abraham seeds of a nation of blessing to all the nations.
So, Names and Numbers seem to be important to God. We don’t talk about numbers a lot in church because we don’t want to appear to be driven by how many came to church this Sunday. We do try to learn each others names because when we call someone’s name out loud, we are telling them how much we value them - we know your name.
All this to say, thank the Lord for the faithful core of three dozen or so faithful Christ Fellowship family members who come faithfully and serve daily the cause of Christ.
Likewise, thank the Lord for two record breaking gatherings of guests and friends of Christ Fellowship who came to join us for two special experiences:
- the commissioning of our 3 year missionaries being appointed to serve as Southern Baptist workers overseas;
- our Easter worship gathering in which just short of 100 joined us to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord.
Most of all, we’re excited to get to know more names because more people joined us on those Sundays. Likewise we are excited to see God adding to our numbers daily.
May our hearts and hands be turned upward to the Lord, inward to discipleship and personal growth, and outward to our neighbers and to the world.
First Mission Trip
Christ Fellowship has been meeting together on Sunday mornings at 11:00 am as a multicultural congregation since Dec 14 and today we marked a great milestone when we commissioned our first mission volunteer.
This coming Saturday we will send our first short term volunteer on a mission trip to a restricted access nation. What’s a restricted access nation? It’s a country that is so resistant to the Gospel that naming it here would put the work in danger.
One of our most faithful servants, Pancho, not only set up our sound and powerpoint system, he also puts out our weekly email blast, and posts our sermons on the web.
Now Pancho is going as our first mission volunteer. What a great day it was today to commission Pancho just shy of two months from our formal launch.
By April we hope to commission our first long-term missionary couple also hoping to go to work among the least reached in a very challenging part of the world.
Please pray for Pancho for the next two weeks. Pray for God to care for his mother who is in a nursing home. Pray for his home responsibilities in Memphis - that God will look over all of those concerns during his absence.
Pray for God to protect him on his journey and to give his team spiritual fruit in their ministry to the least reached.
This is a great event upon which we pray that God will build our missional future.
An Amazing Journey
It is a challenging but blessed endeavor to bring cultures together to worship the living Lord. In doing so we discover as much about ourselves as we discover about persons of other backgrounds.
We tend to think that worship is mono-cultural. We don’t realize that we have been trained over years to experience worship from a singular culture worldview. “My kind of worship” is the only kind that is normal and worship from another worldview is strange. We think, something is wrong with the other guys.
As Christ Fellowship experiences worship and service together, we are learning that discomfort and change is part of crossing cultural barriers. We are also learning that the payoff is extraordinary.
Christ Fellowship of Memphis consists of followers of Christ who are becoming “brothers and sisters” in biblical community with people of another race.
The journey has been amazing thus far. Come and join us if you dare.
Dec 21 Christmas Celebration
What a great launch this past Sunday. Pastor Bowen delivered a perfect message to kick off our services at the Olford Center. Eighty people joined us for our inaugural celebration. Tiffany Curry led us in some inspiring worship in singing.
Join us this week as Pastor Mark Morris brings our Christmas Message.
Looking Forward to our Dec 14 Celebration
Christ Fellowship of Memphis is a dream yet to be fulfilled.
The dream is for a church of black and white to become a City of Hope within this divided city of Memphis.
The vision is expressed best in our singular core value of love. Scripture teaches that Love only happens in hearts and minds that have been captured by Jesus.
The breadth of the vision of Christ Fellowship is demonstrated by love which overcomes the barriers that divide this demarcated city. Each Sunday our city is divided along comfort lines - I hang with the people with whom I feel safest, most comfortable, and with whom I have the most in common. Love mandates that I reach beyond my comfort into a world which creates discomfort, because each of us is to be an ambassador of Christ. Ambassadors don’t serve in their own land, but in a land that is foreign to them. This vision is for more ambassadors to cross into foreign lands.
The antithesis of this vision is seen in the followers of Jesus who protested at him stepping across His racial and cultural and spiritual dividing line into wilds of Samaria to touch the heart of the woman at the well.
The challenge to this vision is that it is not yet comfortable because we are wholly incomplete. God’s work has only begun in us and we would prefer to remain comfortable in our imcompleteness.
Satan hates this vision and throughout what people call the “Bible Belt” he has successfully dissuaded followers of Christ from meeting together as one body, in a fashion that reflects the diversity of worship found in heaven itself.
Christ Fellowship is seeking a few mature believers, white and black, who are prepared to serve outside their comfort zone. We’re seeking white families willing for your children to go to Sunday School with black children. We’re looking for black families who are willing to become prayer partners with white families. Please don’t join this effort to be served. Come in order to serve our Master, Jesus Christ.
On Sunday morning, December 14, at 10:45 we launch our first multi-cultural celebration at a cross-road of our city, where white meets black. We meet at 4000 Riverdale Road at Union University’s Olford Center Campus. Riverdale Road is an approximate dividing line where Hickory Hill ends and Germantown begins its trek down Winchester Road toward Collierville.
Christ Fellowship is led by Lead Pastor Kelvin Bowen as well as Pastor Mark Morris.
If you are interested in knowing more, contact us at missionleader@mac.com.
Wed. Bible Study - God Will Use You
“God is going to do something amazing through you. He is going to use you to build His church.” Pastor Kelvin Bowen - at Wednesday Bible Study.
Each Wednesday 30 to 50 teenagers and young adults gather at the Salvation Army gym on Winchester for Bible Study. Wednesday we celebrated the fact that one of the young ladies was baptized this week. We also learned that in December, we will have a larger location to start meeting for Sunday celebration service. Until now we have been meeting in small groups in homes on Sundays. We thank the Lord for what He is doing.
Sunday Oct 25
Hello all, on this Beautiful Friday afternoon! (From Cindy.)
Trust that everyone is doing well….those out of town and those in town!
I want to send a great big THANK YOU to each of you for your help last Sunday. God brought a wonderful group together.
On Wednesday night Rollo and Beth and Mark and I went down to Winchester to support all those kids that came here for the cookout. We enjoyed another good study under Kelvin’s leadership. Because we had been with everyone for worship and food on Sunday, there was a new warmth and fellowship among us. It was great to be with the adults, too. So many of the teenagers come from families with need. Several of them asked for prayer for a parent or relative incarcerated. There were a few babies on the hips of teenage moms; they are precious! Kelvin “shot straight,” as he does and we all paid attention.
Well, Mark contacted a great facility to see what they might think about housing our church. To Mark’s surprise, the guy that he met with is quite connected to IMB missionary friends. He was very receptive to the idea of Christ Fellowship worshiping there. Mark says it will hold about 150; and that it is all set up with sound equipment and seating, etc. Wow, could it be that the Lord is opening this door? The facility is located on Riverdale and Winchester….situated in a way that is accessible to all of us. November 30 is the day, Thanksgiving weekend, that Kelvin thinks may be good for us to try it out, and then once again in December. The other weeks we will continue to meet as a small group. Look forward to 11:00 this week again at our house. I am more than happy to meet in town at Amy’s or out at Beth and Rollo’s or whatever. Mark will jump in with Heb 6. (Steve and I intentionally left that Hebrews 6 study with him! :) Try to do the study that I handed you, if you have time. Don’t worry if you don’t.
All of this to say, praise the Lord! Please join us in prayer as we all seek the Lord’s direction. May He keep drawing us to Himself and in sweeter and sweeter fellowship with one another:
“Let us draw near to God with full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on to love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the day approaching.”
Hebrews 10:22-25
Together on the journey with you, cindy
Oct 19 Celebration And Cookout
What a great celebration this past Sunday at the Morris’ home. Around thirty of us shared fellowship, Lord’s Supper, bratworts and burgers. Pastor Kelvin taught a powerful lesson from Job. And thank the Lord, no one fell in the Lake!
Cookout Oct 19 at Morris Home After Worship
This Sunday Oct 19 we will have our second joint gathering of our two groups coming together. At 11am we will worship together followed by some burgers and brattworsts fresh off the grill. We will be off Walnut Grove at 18 W. Viking Dr, Cordova 38018. (Across the street from Hope Pres.) If you want to bring something to add to the goodies, contact Lee Ann or Cindy.
Remember the awesome experience we had when we came together last time!
Kelvin will teach the Word, Mark will flip the burgers, Steve will lead us in sharing the Lord’s Supper, and all will be filled!
This will be a great time to bring a friend.