Roots of fX: the Faith Experience
June 15, 2008
The Faith Experience, more commonly known by the acronym FX, is Faith UMC’s monthly contemporary worship service. FX serves as a modern alternative to traditional worship, features contemporary Christian music led by the FX Praise Team, and joins together families in fellowship with an Ohana dinner service. The FX worship service is currently scheduled on the 2nd Saturday of each month and begins at 5 PM in the Sanctuary.
As FX enters into its third year, we want to celebrate the success and growth of this ministry by sharing with you its roots and background history.
After Summer Day Camp in 2005, Reverend Derek asked Bob K to begin working on ways to integrate contemporary praise and worship music into MYF/TGIF meetings, and other Church services and events.
Further conversations evolved into an eventual discussion of planning a new service that would incorporate innovative styles of worship. Knowing that several members of our Church family were interested in exploring contemporary worship, a leadership team of highly devoted people of Faith was formed who have been serving together since October of 2005, on developing and directing monthly worship celebrations.
The mission of the leadership team was, and continues to be, to develop and support a Christian community by inspiring personal relationships with God through prayer, scripture, and interactive worship. Initially, the goal was to acquaint the congregation with new praise songs through occasional informal gatherings – Pastor Eric called them “jam sessions” – and plans were set in motion to take action during the spring of 2006.
From Psalm 66:2, “Sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise!” Using this Scripture as the basis for a theme, the leadership team determined that it couldn’t just occasionally gather informally, but needed to establish an on-going monthly worship service. After months of rehearsal, prayer, and preparation, “Sing Praise!” was launched on Palm Sunday, April 9, 2006.
Through the leadership of Pastor Eric, “Sing Praise!” evolved into a deep, spiritual, monthly contemporary worship service. Environmental design and thematically focused messages were eventually mainstreamed into the worship service. Through the team’s leadership and planning abilities, they gained experience that helped to develop a tight knit spiritual community of followers. Within a year’s time, attendance at the contemporary worship service was dominated by a committed group of Christians, including regular attending members of Faith UMC along with other local community congregations.
In May 2007, during Pastor Eric’s last contemporary worship service before he moved on to continue his education, “Sing Praise!” was renamed “The Faith Experience”. This name came from one of the church leaders who suggested it to describe the service during an Ad Council meeting while discussion of potential names were being explored. And so “The Faith Experience” was adopted and branded as FX.
The leadership team expanded and evolved into the FX Praise Team which participates in various Sunday morning services, and also includes Christmas, Good Friday and Palm Sunday services.
Reverend Ken’s arrival in the fall of 2007 began a new chapter of FX. In October 2007, the thematic series “Surrender” was introduced, an in-depth look at how we need to surrender everything to our loving God. The “Surrender” series sparked a spiritual fire that brought newcomers and visitors from other churches. At the conclusion of the “Surrender” series in June 2008, the growth in attendance extended the feeling that this Saturday evening service fulfills a need not only within our own Church community, but within the local area as well.
With the guidance of Reverend Derek and Pam, and help from our MYF youth, FX further expanded by providing children’s worship and arts and crafts. What started out as a potluck has now become the Ohana dinner, which provides time after worship to share great home cooked food while interacting with each other in Christian fellowship.
We invite you to join us for FX contemporary worship as God continues to touch everyone involved with the Faith Experience, and we look forward to His guidance as we move forward into the fall of 2008.
- contributed by Laurie P & Bob K
