God has been gracious and used Faith Bible Church for 30 years. Souls have been added to Christ’s kingdom and saints have been built up in our church and in our region. It’s a season of celebration and a season of anticipation. Jesus made a promise that he would build his church (Matthew 16:18), and neither the gates of hell nor Covid-19 has prevailed against it.
It is with the certainty of Jesus’ command and promises (Matthew 28:18-20) that we continue to press on with the mission of being a loving community making disciples of Jesus Christ. All people make plans. It is in man’s nature. But, the one who follows Christ constantly plans while seeking God’s will and God’s glory.
“The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit. Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.” - Proverbs 16:1-3
With humble hearts, we as a congregation have sought the Lord and wise counsel. We are seeking to discern what our focus should be and how to use our resources the next five years. With so many options, it is hard to decide. But you all have prayed, and we see God leading us in specific directions.
As a loving community making disciples of Jesus Christ, we want to see each believer better able to use the Scriptures to build up others. We want our neighborhood to know where we are and how they can find hope in Christ here. We want the building God has given to be a hospitable place for relationships to thrive.
In this document are three overall church objectives and initiatives, followed by ones for each ministry. May these serve as prayer prompts, service opportunities, and God-glorifying dreams for the future of Faith.
“May we shout for joy over your salvation, and
in the name of our God set up our banners!
May the Lord fulfill all your petitions!”
—Psalms 20:4-5
Relational ministry has always been a hallmark of Faith Bible Church, but with two recent church plants, many of our current members have been here a relatively short time. We desire to equip 200 more men and women who can walk side by side with others using God’s Word to help them navigate any area of life. Together, we will seek to build the life-on-life relationships that mature us in our own faith and display the Gospel vividly for unbelievers.
We desire every person living within five minutes of Faith Bible Church to know where we are and what we do to bring hope and grace to them and the city. We need to pray, reach out creatively, and be prepared for when God brings our neighbors through the doors of the building and into our lives and ministries.
This map represents the approximate area that is within five minutes of Faith Bible Church’s campus.
We desire to renovate the Faith building and campus to be more hospitable and functional for side-by-side ministry. We want a facility that enables disciple-making for the next three generations.
Click on any ministry below to open and view their initiatives.
Faith Bible Church is growing as a place where worship is prioritized and the arts are valued, both in our gatherings and in our homes. The next few years will be marked by “connecting the dots” between quality programming (choirs, bands, media, and visual arts), undistracting excellence in our corporate worship services, and meaningful family worship. In addition to developing talented artists and musicians from within the congregation, we will become a haven for Christian artists in our community as we also employ creativity and beauty to engage and evangelize the lost.
• Launch an internship program for developing worship leaders who are then sent out to serve elsewhere.
• Equip youth and college ministries to have primarily student-led worship music.
• Grow a choir program that includes children, students, and adults of all ages, as we continue to emphasize congregational singing as the most important ensemble.
• Produce a digital Faith “hymnal” including the songs we sing together for discipleship groups and families to use.
• Devote space for visual, theatrical, and literary arts in our worship spaces and gatherings, and eventually make facilities available for community events that fit our mission.
Children’s Ministry will continue teaching the next generation to know God and be known by others. We will continue to teach about God’s goodness and the good news of Jesus Christ using Sunday School and Discovery curriculum that accurately reflects who God is as revealed through Scripture. We will continue to teach children that God’s way is the path that leads to true and lasting happiness and joy. Family Ministry will continue to teach men how they can lead in their households by laying down their lives and serving their wives and families. We will continue to teach women how they can help their husbands and serve their families to the glory of God. And we will continue to teach all members to fulfill their roles in the family of God and in discipling the next generation.
• Provide quarterly equipping and fellowship for Sunday School teachers and volunteers, plus recruiting enough to serve so that their commitment schedule incorporates regular breaks.
• Explore opportunities for fathers to invest in sons and mothers in daughters through community-building events.
• Under churchwide Side by Side initiative, develop 50 husband-and-wife discipling teams that have the calling and ability to disciple other families.
• Develop a team that would explore the idea of holding a family camp in the summer of 2023 or 2024.
The Lord has provided a sacrificial, servant-hearted group of volunteer leaders to run Youth Ministry and invest in our students. We’ll equip these leaders as they seek to grow in their walk with Christ, so that they will pass on what they learn as they disciple students. We’re also developing a teaching curriculum for youth that will build a solid biblical foundation and address the real issues our middle-schoolers and high-schoolers are facing.
• Work with broader Faith ministries to develop/implement a plan for equipping and shepherding families as a whole.
• Identify areas in Youth Ministry and the broader church body where students can serve, and train leaders to encourage and oversee them in serving.
• Build a team to create a standard teaching curriculum that equips students with a biblical foundation to engage their world.
The College Ministry introduces young believers and unbelievers to a biblical worldview, with which believers are equipped with confidence to declare Christ to a truth-starved culture. Faith’s college ministry emphasizes inter-generational discipleship, international student outreach, and declaring Christ with the entirety of one’s life. Because of this, it is common to see unbelieving students come to a saving knowledge of and devotion to Christ. We also see future spiritual leaders, faithful church members, and Great-Commission-minded believers flow out of this College Ministry. This is all made possible by a 20-person volunteer staff and some core students who are building up the church and embracing the call to make disciples through their lives and relationships.
• Every ministry staff volunteer has a purposeful, dedicated role; a mature couple oversees each campus Bible study.
• Staff volunteers and core students are intentional with identifying next core students and giving them opportunities to grow.
• Six to eight church families regularly host students, getting to know them and discipling them.
• Establish a logistically self-sustained ministry by 2024, ready for the next college pastor as the Millican family is sent to the Czech Republic.
Every Christian is called to make disciples, and every Christian engages in speaking truth to one another. We’re developing Foundations for Discipleship to better equip everyone, no matter what age or maturity level, to engage in discipling others.
Faith Biblical Counseling Center is also growing the influence of biblical counseling in the Inland Northwest through training classes, the Transform Conference, and by growing our staff of certified counselors to be able to serve even more people outside the church. In addition to the spiritual growth in those being counseled, the cultivation of advocacy or mentoring relationships as part of their counseling process will encourage more advocates/mentors to be trained in biblical counseling.
• Develop Foundations for Discipleship curriculum and ministry “toolboxes” of recommended resources to prepare Faith members for side-by-side ministry.
• Train/equip 25-30 people per year in Fundamentals of Biblical Counseling.
• Out of counseling and discipleship training, develop a core team of advocates/mentors to come alongside people in the counseling/discipleship process
• In the next five years, add 8-15 certified biblical counselors serving in counseling ministry.
• Add counseling specializations, including marriage and reconciliation.
• Add/equip children’s counseling center and women’s resource center.
We want every member to be in some kind of discipling group where people can know and love each other, speak God’s Word to each other, and live out the Gospel of Christ together. Across the church, we want to equip and mobilize 200 new mentors over the next five years to come alongside others to disciple them.
• Create a Grounding Class curriculum for discipling new believers, which can be used in a one-on-one or small-group format as needed.
• Through mentoring and Foundations for Discipleship (see above), equip new leaders and start five new Growth Groups and other discipling groups each year in areas that need them.
• Identify a deacon team to coordinate men’s discipleship and events and connect men to help with the needs of others in the church.
• Organize three men’s breakfast events per year to aid in fellowship and discipleship.
We want to see the ladies of Faith encouraged and equipped in their ministry to each other and to their world through side-by-side discipling relationships, Bible studies, and gatherings. God is raising up new leaders to meet the needs of single women, widows, moms and wives through Faith.
• Identify a deaconess team to coordinate women’s mentoring, events, and the needs of widows and other single women in the church.
• Form an Aspiring Women track to equip leaders for the next generation of discipling groups.
• Organize three Thrive events per year to aid in encouragement and connection.
• Increase church body’s awareness and support of the Sisters by Grace ministry to widows and singles.
• Encourage more involvement of moms with preteen and teenage children in MomLife.
The Lord continues to raise up new men to come for ministry training through The Master’s Seminary on Faith’s campus, strengthening Christ’s church in our region. As we watch this happening through current students and graduates, we pray that more men from Faith would seek training through the seminary. We also desire to strengthen the church regionally through The Master’s Fellowship: pastors and leaders sharing encouragement, resources and experience.
• Add five seminary students per year from area churches, two or three being from Faith.
• Mentor five churches through the Pastoral Core initiative.
• Begin to lay the groundwork for a full-time faculty member and dean.
Aspiring Men seeks to ground young men in a life of servant leadership as potential deacons, elders or pastors. This will be done through the other training initiatives of Faith to give them experience and exposure in equipping the saints for the work of ministry. We seek to connect those who are called into ministry into The Master’s Seminary on our campus.
• Integrate 3-5 Aspiring Men per year into various equipping, leading and shepherding roles across the church.
• Develop an in-depth internship program across the ministries of the church that raises up men from Faith and attracts men from the region.
Every member of Faith Bible Church should be engaging their community with the Gospel, “making Gospel noise” with activities that allow us to show kindness to unbelievers and build relationships with them to share the Gospel. We desire to have every person living within five minutes of Faith Bible Church know where we are and what we do to bring hope and grace to the city. Over the next five years, we are praying for at least 50 new people to come to Christ, be baptized and join the church.
• Every discipling group strategizes together to plan two activities per year “making Gospel noise” in their neighborhoods.
• Discipling groups multiply into new groups as they grow, keeping space open for new people.
• Form an evangelism equipping team to strategize and lead the church in engaging the community through such opportunities as UGM Camp, the arts, a work/career seminar, Emerson/Garfield neighborhood group, etc.
• Begin preparations for another church plant within 5-10 years.
Over the next five years, we want to send five more global partners (singles or couples/families) to take God’s Word to the peoples who do not have God’s Word and to establish churches where there are no churches. And we are praying everyone at Faith will live as marketplace missionaries, using their jobs to glorify God and to be a blessing to those around them and the world.
• Involve more members in refugee ministry, bringing the Gospel to the nations coming to Spokane.
• Each discipling group adopts a global partner to communicate with and pray for.
• Over the next five years, five new global partners (singles or couples) are equipped and sent out to places and peoples that don’t have God’s Word and/or Christ-centered churches.
And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless… For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.
—1 Timothy 3:10, 13
By God’s grace in the next five years, He will use Faith Bible Church to continue making disciples in a loving community as we refocus on supporting existing and raising up new deacons and deaconesses to serving and help lead the body under the direction of the elders. These lead servants will be better celebrated and established to aid the elders’ ministry of the Word and prayer, build unity, and meet the needs of the body.
• Develop a loving, wise process for equipping, testing, and commissioning deacons and deaconesses.
• Support and communicate with current deacons/deaconesses already serving in lead servant roles.
• Place and equip new deacons/deaconesses on an ongoing basis for long-term sustainability in each key ministry area.
• Develop a deacon/deaconess lead servant team to work with the elders to strategically develop and grow their teams in each key ministry area.
Over the next five years, by God’s grace Faith Bible Church will grow in maintaining a clear and sustainable budget, stewarding ministry finances and the church campus to God’s glory. Resources will be focused on our facilities being hospitable and functional for side-by-side ministry for the next three generations.
• Adjust budget annually to reflect ministry priorities and facilities maintenance needs, including developing an appropriate facilities reserve.
• Build up regular communications between leadership and members regarding stewardship of facilities, best practices, and ministry priorities.
• Form a Master Planning Team this year to aid in strategizing for a long-term campus plan for the next 10-15 years.
A loving community making disciples of Jesus Christ.
View Resources by Faith Bible Church
As part of the Faith in Five Initiative, the elders are praying that everyone who lives within five minutes of Faith Bible Church will know where our church gathers and why we gather. We want them to know that we have forgiveness, power to change,...