During the social and religious upheaval of the 1970s, a small group of freshman from several denominations started meeting in UK’s Haggin Hall. The students had one desire: To know God intimately and to make him known.
Hungry for biblical community, they read Scripture closely and asked God to help them understand how to build his church in a way that would honor him. By 1980, these same students formed the first CF congregation, Lexington Christian Fellowship, with Billy Henderson as pastor.
Because of a deep commitment to church life where every member plays a part, the original team decided to plant a new church each time a congregation reached approximately 200 members. Church plants include Jessamine Christian Fellowship in Nicholasville and Trinity Christian Fellowship in Lexington.
Commissioned on Easter Sunday, 2018, Emmanuel Christian Fellowship (that’s us!) is the newest church plant.
Though the churches will always focus on ministry to college students—now at UK, BCTC, Asbury, and EKU—they also reach a greater portion of the body of Christ and the world. Central Kentucky’s home school community benefits from Mars Hill, the CF cooperative for middle and high schoolers. And outside the U.S., CF members serve their sister church, Ayutla Christian Fellowship, in Mexico.
In all of this, our commitment to knowing God and building his church through love within and without the body of Christ remains central.