Little Rock Resources

This new case study from Harvard’s Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations profiles the efforts of Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, Arkansas to serve the city’s South Midtown neighborhood.

Twenty-five years after its founding, the Fellowship Bible Church of Little Rock, Arkansas had proven to be an astounding success. The church that had first met in the private homes of its 18 founding members had come, by the fall of 2004, to hold its worship services on a 25-acre campus in one of the best locations in the booming West Little Rock section of the city. Its three “worship centers,” each with its own style and approach, attracted a combined 5,000 congregants on any given Sunday. Overall weekly attendance topped 7,500. Fellowship’s acres of parking lots were regularly jammed, although there was always room for newcomers in a special section set aside for them. Its $13 million-plus annual budget allowed the church to employ the most up-to-date technology: lyrics of the contemporary Christian songs sung by its choir and congregation were projected on a large screen for all to see; the main Sunday sermon could be viewed live in all three auditorium-like worship centers simultaneously. Moreover, Fellowship’s non-denominational evangelistic approach had attracted many of the city’s most affluent young professionals, drawn by dynamic preaching, contemporary music, special programs for children and teenagers, and a broad, engaging effort to serve, in the words of long-time “directional leader” (senior pastor) Robert Lewis, “as an equipping church that calls people up to a responsible life that’s tied to eternal purpose.

          But as the Fellowship congregation had grown, the leadership of this successful “mega-church”—it had become the single largest in Little Rock—had come to believe that the Christian life must go beyond individual salvation, beyond the responsibilities of family, friendship, and individual acts of charity, as crucial as these were….

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