The FFC Albia core team immediately moved into an older church building that was part of a property transfer from First Baptist Church of Albia, a BCI affiliated church that had just closed its doors. This is a great example of a successful “Restart,” a new church planting strategy catching on across the nation that is now coming to Iowa. And while renovating an old building while planting a new church seems like an impossible task, the FFC Albia team worked hard and trusted God to show up and they now consider their church building a huge blessing.

Finalizing transfer of property

A Fruitful Year

Pastor Jason is very encouraged with all of the spiritual fruit they have experienced over their first year. “We feel like we are on track as a church in spite of the challenges we faced with COVID. We’ve seen a lot of growth in attendance and, thanks to the generosity of our church and other supporting ministries, we are doing well financially. Pre-COVID we were averaging around 90 and we are encouraged to see our attendance creeping back up as we resume our fall events. However, the most exciting part is that all except for a few of our key families were unchurched before joining.”

In addition to reaching the unchurched in their community, they are also seeing a lot of spiritual growth in their congregation. “We’ve had 14 people make a profession of faith in Christ and we’ve baptized 8 new believers. We have more that were going to be baptized that we had to postpone due to COVID. And we believe there’s still a lot more opportunities for evangelism because we have a number of people who regularly participate in our ministries who are not yet saved.”

Just starting out, FFC Albia had the desire to have a major impact on their community for the sake of the gospel. “We aren’t interested in simply having a great facility or strong attendance, but in growing the Kingdom of God. We want to see people transformed by Him and praise God, we have seen marriages restored and addictions broken. We know we still have a long way to go but we believe we are heading in the right direction.”

Surprised by God

One surprising thing that Pastor Jason experienced in their first year as a church was the amount of support from other partner churches and their desire to invest in their church and the Albia community. Another pleasant surprise was the number of committed members of FFC Albia who stepped up to utilize their giftings to “fill the gap” in advancing Christ’s Kingdom through the local church. “God really surprised us in how He worked things out in spite of COVID and everything else that was going on during our first year. ‘God is in control’ is a truth we knew in our heads but now we’ve seen it in action.” Considering the encouraging number of unchurched community members in attendance, professions of faith, baptisms, and restored relationships that FFC Albia has already experienced in their first year, they are confident that God will continue to surprise them with His faithfulness through the years of ministry ahead.