To celebrate our 30th anniversary, we’re telling 30 stories of God’s faithfulness in and through Fellowship North. You can read all the stories here.
The weekend before I had Devin (my youngest son), a friend of Morgan’s (my oldest son) from elementary school invited him to visit her church. I had gone to church as a child with family or neighbors, but had not been back as an adult, except here and there with Morgan when he was very young. My husband, Daniel, had not gone to church. Ever, really. SO, we accepted her invitation for Morgan and went as a family to church for the very first time. We all enjoyed the service and decided we should find a church that we would all love to attend regularly. I gave birth to Devin the next week and for the following 18 months, the thought of getting up on our ONE DAY OFF to try to get everyone ready and out the door to ONE MORE THING was exhausting. We decided we should go to church, but getting there was a whole different story. And when we did go, we were very uncomfortable. All the churches we visited were white. We are an interracial family and people stared at us and didn’t approach us. We were talking about it at a peewee football practice when another set of interracial parents, Anthony and Rebecca Louden, said we should try Fellowship North. They told us that they had just hired a black pastor for that very reason – to bring the races together in the church. We visited the following weekend and have been coming to FN ever since. We loved that there were people that not only looked like our family, but were all different colors. Together. Hugging. Laughing. 
We went through IFS and joined immediately. After we joined, we were asked to join the First Impressions team to be greeters. I remember we got in the car that evening and Daniel said, “Not only are we and the boys comfortable here, but they are putting us at the front door together to greet people when they come in!” (He also was impressed that everyone knew his name…until I reminded him that he was wearing a nametag.)
October 2013 marked seven years for us at Fellowship North. We have been blessed with many great friendships through the church, as have our boys. Morgan is 18 now and a senior at North Little Rock High School and is looking forward to the Senior Backpacking Trip in July before he heads to college. Devin will turn nine this month and is looking forward to his turn at Castle Bluff.
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Today’s story is by Gretchen Jackson.
“I am married to Daniel and we own a small business. I am soccer mom to two boys, Morgan & Devin. We came to Fellowship North seven years ago on the invitation of friends and were blown away by the movement of the church toward racial unity. I love all kinds of art, but dance and theater are what speak the most to me.”