This year, the team had to make a strategic pivot and recreate Fellowship Kids into something completely different. An Online Family Toolkit was designed to equip parents to teach their kids about Jesus at home—it includes teachings from Fellowship Kids Directors and team members so that kids can hear their Bible stories from a familiar face, even if they're at home.
 
The Fellowship Kids team also looked for new ways to reach families through social media and Covid-friendly events that were very effective in reaching Fellowship families. They also created many virtual events such as zoom calls with classes and teachers.

Life Groups are Fellowship’s main vehicle for gospel-formed relationships within the church. Groups were quick adopters of Zoom to maintain face-to-face contact with others. They found creative ways to be with each other for celebrations with parade-style birthdays, taking each other meals, or serving together. Some Groups even launched for the first time completely over Zoom! We even found that families were reaching out more and more to find ways to connect  when our larger body could not gather together.

These stories show how important it is to not just find community, but to build it. We need more builders to join us as we continue to work together to create environments for gospel-formed relationships to begin and flourish.

Our Young Adults ministry typically gathers together for First Thursday each month, but this year they were able to meet only three times before the COVID-19 shutdowns. They met online each month as a ministry, but they wanted more for our young adults who were mostly alone and isolated during this season. Out of this tension, "House Nights" was created to bridge the gap. These are basically mini versions of the First Thursday large gatherings, but in people's homes, in small groups. Our young adults were hungry for community, and houses kept filling up each month. Some months, there were up to seven houses across Knoxville hosting a House Night, providing a place for our young adults to find family from strangers.

Back in March, when our Student Ministry Team got the word that all student events were canceled indefinitely, they jumped into action. From the beginning, they viewed this season as an opportunity to disciple rather than a crisis to overcome. In doing that, they launched some pretty incredible online experiences for our students that would bridge the gap until they could begin meeting in person. Those experiences ranged anywhere from Instagram Live Friday Fun Nights with games and prizes, to weekly online studies, and Zoom Life Groups. This season provided new ideas in connecting with and discipling students even more intentionally. These ideas have continued well into regathering, and we are so thankful God used this time the way that He did.

The largest obstacle that college students face today is social distance. That goes well beyond the physical six feet that we have been instructed to maintain, and into the struggle of relationship and community. Our College Life ministry identified quickly that relationships do not transcend a computer screen. They aren’t cultivated through social platforms, so our College Life team had to re-imagine the ways which they accomplish their mission. Instead of the traditional retreat, they have traded it in for small group retreats. Each one of our College Life groups had the opportunity to retreat together. This re-imagining of a ministry retreat has been and will continue to be a catalyst for deep biblical community. One where everyone is seen, heard, cared for, appreciated, encouraged, and loved well. The thing we all desire.

As COVID-19 shutdowns began, our counseling team adjusted immediately to online counseling to keep engaging crucial relationships. Additionally, many new counseling requests emerged from difficulty navigating anxiety, loneliness, grief, addictions, and relational difficulties connected to the quarantine. Not only did the Counseling Team modify their face-to-face counseling to fit mandates, but the Counseling Team also sought preventive ways to still provide soul care to our church body through podcasts, training leadership teams, new care groups online, leading marriage enrichments, providing parenting training videos, and partnering with other staff to help in the various crises of each developmental age group.

Just as our Global Partnerships team was preparing to build their teams for the 2020 global ministry trips, COVID-19 hit and shut the world down. All of the countries that we normally visit were closed to international visitors.

Most of our global partners depend on visiting teams to help with ministry projects, both within their ministry and in the areas that they serve in their country. In addition to not having ministry team to support them, lost donations from around the world left a major financial impact.

However, thank the Lord that Fellowship had enough money in the missions reserves to continue monthly support, and send our partners a gift that made up for any financial impact of our teams not visiting. In addition to that, our congregation responded to Rick Dunn‘s request for our church to send $50,000 out of our giving to help our partners reach into their communities even more.

Our Regional Impact team had their hands in so many areas this year as COVID-19 created so many needs in our community. In May, they headed up our Care Packages initiative which mobilized our church body to provide over 200 Care Packages of food and essentials for those in need.

For Camp Reach this year, they got creative and took Camp Reach straight to the front porches of our families in Lonsdale. They did this by safely delivering games and fun activities so that our Lonsdale families could put on their own Camp Reach at home. Our Regional Impact team also have worked towards building relationships with our neighbors in The Pines community. Our body participated in a reading and lunch program, provided backpacks and supplies for school, and now are distributing groceries each week.

Before COVID-19, if you had asked our Teaching, Worship, and Communications Teams if Fellowship would ever livestream Sunday services, they probably would have jokingly said, “It would take a global pandemic.” Yet here we are!

We are so thankful for these teams as they became the "front door" of our church when everything closed. Early on in the quarantine, these teams worked together to create new ways to engage with our people digitally.  They created a way for our people to chat with our pastors and ask questions at “The Table” on Sunday nights.

These teams also launched two podcasts this year (Life Reframed and Open Door) to help our church continue to view our lives through the lens of the gospel. With everything moving to digital formats this year, our Communications Team wanted our online presence to be as simple and elegant as possible. So they rebuilt our website from scratch and developed a Fellowship app.

Our Worship and Tech Team did a fantastic job navigating how to keep our staff and volunteers safe, all while producing some of the highest quality Sunday services we have ever had at Fellowship.

Our greatest unsung heroes this year are our Support Services and Facilities Teams. So much of what these teams do is never seen and yet we could not function without them. Our Facilities Team cleans every chair in the Worship Center after each service to make sure that we can provide the safest environment possible for our church. They have also had to completely rethink how we sanitize the entire building each week.

Our Support Services Teams consist of Accounting, Information Technologies, and Human Resources. Our finances this year have been unlike any other year in our history. In the height of the COVID shutdowns, our Accounting Team spent countless hours working to apply for the "Paycheck Protection Program," which was such a blessing to our church.

This year, our Information Technologies Team helped us livestream our services when they were first canceled, and then as we began regathering in June, they implemented a way for us to provide registration for Sunday services, all on top of their normal duties.