Hi. My name is Bill Carpenter. I’m a Christ-follower, yet I’ve spent most of my adult life struggling with over-controlling anger and a number of other issues.

God has given Fellowship North a wonderful Christ-following community of believers who love God and each other. We may love each other imperfectly every day, but we love, nonetheless. Our teaching pastors, elders, and leaders share that we can have hope in the all-sufficient love and grace of Christ. They also share from their own brokenness – all the while acknowledging that we don’t have to stay broken. There is a better way to live in Christ. It’s modeled and taught. God has given us a community of genuine Christ-followers who live authentically, transparently, and with vulnerability before Christ and others. Even so, many of us still struggle in profound ways.

I believe the hearts of the people who call Fellowship North (FN) their faith community are ready to embrace having a Christ-based recovery ministry here someday. I say “someday” because I am not in a hurry to launch a new ministry, but I do feel God has opened a door of opportunity in our church that is unmistakably His doing. I’m looking for a diverse small group of men and women who will partner with me in this.

Our pastors, the staff leadership and the elders are fully with me and have given me the go ahead to begin this investigation. The Christ-based recovery ministry which I most identify with was founded at Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas. It’s called “re:generation Recovery”. Their tagline is, “re:regeneration, recovery in Christ when life is broken”. The video below will tell you more about this ministry.

Welcome to ReGeneration from Watermark Community Church on Vimeo.

Fellowship North has been selected as one of twenty churches nationwide to participate in Watermark’s re:generation ministry beta test. They’ve tested their materials in-house and are now testing in varied environments over the next year. They’ve written new recovery curriculum and updated their ministry model, after having worked in recovery ministry for many years.

Our next steps are as follows:

Pray [see specific requests below]
Form a small diverse group to begin the process of investigation here.
Recruit a group of interested folks to go to Watermark Community Church in Dallas for two days of intense re:generation training. We’ll leave on Sunday, August 10th and return Tuesday evening. We have no budget yet, so the cost of the trip will be self-funded. My wife and I are going.
As God affirms, begin a Sunday morning small group recovery experience at Fellowship North this fall.

Here are ways you can pray specifically:

Pray that God will bring the right team of people together to investigate the possibilities.
Pray that God will help people see their needs and that these same people will find the help they desperately need to live in freedom in Christ.
Pray that people from all walks of life, from all over North Little Rock and Central Arkansas will hear about what God is doing in people’s hearts and lives at Fellowship North.
Pray that we will clearly hear God’s direction and that if He moves, we move and if He stays, we stay. We do not want to get ahead of God or miss His Holy Spirit moving in people’s lives.

If any of this sounds like something you want to be a part of, please email me at regen@fellowshipnorth.net or call me at 501-773-9485.