Our History

Faith Church (originally Faith Baptist Church) began as a vision of the congregation of Kossuth Street Baptist Church (currently located on the corner of 29th and Kossuth Street), and its pastor, the late Baden Rowe. At that time, the south side of Lafayette was growing rapidly and the church family at Kossuth Street desired to plant a daughter congregation to meet the needs of the growing population.

• Services began in February, 1964 under the direction of Pastor Roland Reed, then a missionary with the Fellowship of Baptists for Home Missions. Pastor Reed served the church for two and one-half years before going on to Minnesota. The church began meeting in the Farm Credit Building, and then purchased land on South 18th Street.
• Beginning in 1967, Glen Lockwood pastored Faith for six fast-growing years. Except for a five-month period, the church was without a pastor from August, 1973 to February, 1975. By the end of 1974, attendance had fallen below 200. A young congregation with much zeal and desire to be God’s kind of people badly needed new direction and leadership. 
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  Pastor Bill Goode

  In 1975, God provided that leadership in Pastor William Goode. Pastor Goode directed the church in sound financial principles, God’s plan for restoring erring brothers and sisters in Christ, and many other biblical principles designed for “perfecting the saints for the work of the ministry” (Ephesians 4:12). The results amazed the congregation, the community, our sister churches across the country, and have been an example to missionaries and pastors all over the world.
• By 1978, all the debt had been retired and an expansion fund started. Accurate and practical teaching strengthened families and the church. As a result, a tremendous unity developed, divisions were eliminated, and numeric growth resulted as well. 
   

Faith Biblical Counseling Ministries

In 1977, Faith officially established Faith Biblical Counseling Ministries for the purpose of providing training in biblical counseling while offering biblical counseling services to the community. This eventually became an 11-week training program offered three times throughout the year (spring, summer, and fall). Hundreds of men and women, lay people, and those in full-time ministry have been trained to counsel others by using the sufficient Word of God to help people struggling with non-organic problems. Literally, thousands of people (counselees) have been helped by learning to solve problems biblically. 

Biblical Counseling Training Conference

In 1985, Pastor Goode and the congregation assisted the counseling ministry in expanding its training opportunity in the development of the current Biblical Counseling Training Conference. This was intended to train missionaries in biblical counseling who were home on furlough (rather than the staff from our church & counseling ministry traveling around the world to train missionaries, we brought the missionaries to Lafayette). However, the BCTC has expanded to training pastors, church leaders, and lay people interested in biblical counseling. This grew from about 40 attendees in 1985 to approximately 1600 today! When one stops and thinks about the number of people (homes, families, congregations) those attendees represent, it is mind boggling to think of the awesome opportunity God has given to us as a church family. 

New Location

As the church continued to increase in spiritual maturity and size, it outgrew its land and facilities on 18th Street. In 1986, the church relocated to our present location on State Road 26 East. Pastor Goode continued to lead the church in many areas of growth. He became the director of the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors (NANC) and trained thousands of pastors, missionaries, and lay leaders to rely on the sufficiency of the Scriptures for all areas of life and ministry. 

Faith Baptist Church in 1964 on South 18th Street

Steve Viars Becomes Pastor

Building Projects

In 1987, Pastor Goode and the congregation invited Steve Viars to join the staff as the Associate Pastor – with the plan in mind for Steve to eventually become the senior pastor. In February of 1996, our congregation unanimously elected Steve as our senior pastor, and Pastor Goode became our pastor emeritus. This smooth transition was evidence of God’s grace and blessing in the life of our church. The following year August 23, 1997, Pastor Bill Goode died and went to heaven. We are truly thankful for the way God used Pastor Goode in our ministry and in our lives! 

As the Lord continued to bless our efforts and the church continued to grow, it became evident that we needed more land to construct a larger parking lot. As Pastors Goode and Viars approached one of the adjacent land owners to the 12 acres we had already purchased, they asked for a strip of land to expand the parking. The owner made the comment, “Boys, you’re not thinking big enough!” As a result, we began purchasing surrounding land, bringing us to our current 46 acres. 
 

We have completed the following major building projects:

• 1996 – New Offices Addition 
• 1997 – Faith Christian School 
• 2000 – Ministry Resource Center, Music Suite, New Nursery
• 2002 – Education Addition
• 2006-2007 – Campus Infrastructure Development
• 2007 – Faith Community Center
• 2008 – Vision of Hope
• 2013 – Safe Haven Home 
• 2013 – Faith West

Faith Christian School

In 1997, God enabled us to begin Faith Christian School, under the leadership of Bob and Joan Leffew. Under the Leffew’s leadership, and the dedication and sacrifice of many teachers/staff, the school has grown from 48 students to over 700 students today. A number of our members use FCS as their educational option. 

Faith Community Ministries

As the church continued to grow in fulfilling our mission to bring glory to God by winning people to Jesus Christ and equipping them to be more faithful disciples, our focus became more and more concentrated on serving our community in creative ways while remaining true to God’s Word and not compromising biblical truth. In 2004, our congregation voted to construct Faith Community Center in an effort to be more effective in accomplishing our mission.

Faith Bible Seminary

As a result of the training emphasis in the church, the congregation believed that a church-based seminary was a natural extension of what God has allowed FC to do throughout its history.  Faith Bible Seminary (FBS) was legally established in 2005, and began in the fall of 2007 by offering a Master of Divinity degree. An MABC program was added in 2008. Read more about the history of Faith Bible Seminary. 

Vision of Hope Residential Treatment Center

Vision of Hope opened January 2008 to offer loving, practical solutions from God’s Word to help produce permanent and lasting change in women whose lives have become characterized by negative, life-dominating habits.

Faith Global Missions

While staying focused on our community, (our “Jerusalem” - Acts 1:8), we’ve also worked hard to grow in our vision to reach the world for Christ. Faith Global Ministries was founded in 2004 to serve as the missions arm of Faith Church.  Our desire was to give local churches more control over their global missionary outreach.  Under the direction of our pastors and deacons, FGM managed and directed the missions ministry of Faith Church. 

In 2011 God lead Faith Church to make FGM a missionary agency serving other evangelical churches.  By the end of that year, God had blessed us with eight member missionaries serving on five continents.  In 2012 we changed our name to Faith Global Missions to better identify our mission and grew to 11 member missionaries.

Our Future

Recently, our gracious Lord used one of His servants to give us 100 acres of land a few miles east of our property. This property, called Bethany Farms, serves as a reminder of God’s blessings and a great opportunity to provide housing for our seminary students, not to mention a whole host of ministry opportunities such as camp sites, sporting events, missionary housing, and many other things that can be developed. 

To summarize our church history, we would use the words of the Psalmist: Psalm 71:19 - For Your righteousness, O God, reaches to the heavens, You who have done great things; O God, who is like You?