Bellingham as seen from Bellingham Bay, with Mount Baker in the background. What a beautiful city!
With the help of some very dedicated friends, in July we planted a new church in Whatcom County Washington called Bread and Wine Fellowship. BWF is dedicated to proclaiming the lavish grace and power of God that comes to us through Christ Jesus crucified. Numerous people have come to faith or have had their faith greatly strengthened through the actions of this church! This is a church created solely and specifically to proclaim the message of strong grace through the power of the gospel of Christ crucified and resurrected!
Our Challenge
Jim and Betty McNeely are the founding pastors of Bread and Wine Fellowship
When growing vegetables from seeds, one must start the seedlings early in a tiny seedling cup, and once it sprouts and begins to thrive, it must be transplanted to a larger container. The time has come to transplant our little seedling of a church! Our current location is rural, remote, and obscure. We only have access to it once a week, and even then we have certain limitations on how to use the building. At the decision of the founders and leaders of the church, we have decided that we would like to move our base of operations to a more populated and prominent location. We want to see the message of the gospel take fire in Northwestern Washington.
What’s Our Vision?
We’ve found a church building to rent which has a wonderful sanctuary, sunday school area, even a baby cry-room with windows, and it has living quarters for our family built in to the facility. The building is right near the downtown area in a highly populated area.
Chad and Naomi Bjorgan. Chad is the worship pastor and drummer extraordinaire. Naomi manages their five children while Chad is running rehearsals.
We are already involved in numerous ministries in this area. Here are a few efforts we are already doing or hope to do soon:
Weekly Church: We preach a message of grace, forgiveness, hope and assurance through Christ’s precious blood. Generally we go systematically through a book of the Bible (right now we’re going through the book of John), and on occasion we have a topical message. Every week we share the communion table together and have a time of prayer and ministry. We also eat together every Sunday.
Homeless ministry: We have been able to provide transitional housing for several women this year. We would really like to continue to do this as the Lord leads.
Crosstalk: We have been hosting an evening called “Crosstalk” which fosters conversation about big ideas between Christians, atheists, and agnostics of various stripes. This has been a great success and has been a delight to participate in!
Music Ministry: We have a fantastic worship band with stellar musicians. We have been playing at some public events as well as every week at church, and we hope to expand this arm of the ministry! We’d like to finally settle down and do some recording soon as well.
Women’s Ministry: Betty is hosting a women’s Bible study, and right now they are going through Jim’s new book, Grace in Community, which is a commentary and devotional on the book of 1 John.
Arts Events: We would like to have Christian arts events, music nights, and poetry readings. Basically we would turn the sanctuary into a Christian coffee house on a periodic basis.
Gray states are predominantly unchurched
Weekday gathering: We want to begin a “seeker-friendly” weekly evening teaching called “Beautiful Spirituality” which gives us a place to dialog with people in the community about the essential truths of the gospel, in order to show that the Christian perspective is a beautiful and true one.
Therefore Now Ministries: Jim will continue to write for his blog, thereforenow.com, and to write more books.
All in all, we have big plans and we need a space to do these things near the white harvest fields.
How Can You Help?
Prayer: Pray for us! This is very much a spiritual endeavor. The message of Christ and Him crucified is not always welcome! Pray for much favor with all authorities, for supernatural provision, for open doors to teach the mystery of the gospel, for the Holy Spirit’s true power to be evident, for unity within the body, etc.
Dave and Mindy Bulger. Dave is the worship band bass player and Mindy is generally indispensable.
Visit: Come stay with us and minister with us for a while! You’re welcome to come hang out, pray, converse, and in general be refreshed in the awesome grace of God. Nestled in the Chuckanut mountains of the Cascade mountain range, Bellingham is one of the most beautiful cities in the US; you will have much occasion to reflect on things while you walk through the forest or along the ocean. We would love to have you!
Donate:
We really do need funds! We will need first and last month’s rent, 100 chairs, tables, a lectern, some sound equipment, signs and banners, and assorted other things. Just to successfully make this transition we are estimating that we will need at least $12,000. We are certain that God is able through the generosity of His people to come through with this. You will be contributing to an effort to share the gospel in numerous ways to many unchurched people! Your donations are tax deductible and we will send you a statement to that effect. Donate this year and it will deduct from this year’s taxes.
Payment with a Check
You can send your check to:
Bread and Wine Fellowship
P.O. Box 565
Everson WA 98247
Please make checks payable to Bread and Wine Fellowship, and put “BWF Transition” on the memo line.