We are charting a new course for the FEBC, and we need your help.
The position of full-time Ministries Coordinator was established in 2019 to better help and equip our churches. Rev. Gary Krehbiel has filled this role, serving many of your pastors, elders, and other leaders. Among other things, he provides encouragement, support, prayer, and on-site assistance with problems. He helps develop resources.
This position has been funded with reserves, mostly from estate gifts, with a plan to increase our general income over time to cover the cost. Due to multiple factors, that model is no longer sustainable. We announced earlier this year that the position would be suspended as one part of planned budget reductions. The President’s Address on page 5 was presented when this plan seemed inevitable.
But at Connect23, many of your delegates expressed their appreciation for the work that has been done to strengthen churches, and a desire to see this position continue. After prayer and considerable deliberation, the delegates instructed the FEBC directors to develop and implement a plan to pay for the position through a support-based model of funding – similar to the way individuals support missionaries.
Many overseas missionaries support and encourage local churches. In the same way, our Ministries Coordinator supports and encourages local churches in North America. Would you consider pledging a monthly amount to support this work?
To cover the salary, benefits, travel, and other related expenses, we need about $7,000/month. At Connect23, several of your delegates showed their genuine concern for this need by pledging about $1,100/month total. We are looking for $5,900 more in monthly pledges over the next few months.
As the original plan put forward by the directors included suspending the Ministries Coordinator position at the end of July, we are accepting funds now. However, if you wish to make a pledge that begins in the future, please let us know.
We plan to raise support for this position until income from existing and future churches is sufficient to resume funding with general income.  While this could take a few years, we would gratefully accept a pledge for any duration. And while the key to maintaining this position will be monthly giving, we can also accept one-time gifts for the position or for general FEBC needs.

To make a pledge, please email [email protected] , or call our office at 402-965-3860. To begin giving right away, click the button below. 

There is so much to report that I am not sure we can fit it all into this issue! We recently met together at Connect23, and there are many things that will look different as we move forward. I need to decide where to start.
First, Connect23: We had an amazing time together. Our hosts in Grunthal, MB, were well-prepared and very gracious, and our keynote speaker, Dr. Paul Nyquist, challenged us. The outings, meals, breakout sessions, and so much more were thoroughly enjoyable and deeply meaningful. We connected.
But I entered the event with a mixture of excitement and sadness. To make a long story as short as I can, our financial plan that began in 2019 has suffered setbacks recently due to several factors, including COVID and the recent economic downturn. Our funds have been depleted more quickly than anticipated.

Recently, the FEBC Scholarship Team met to select recipients for the 2023-2024 school year. Congratulations to these awardees:

​Change is a constant and inevitable part of life, and it is with a mix of anxiety and excitement that I pen this letter to you, our faithful subscribers and supporters of The Fellowship Focus. Over the years, our beloved magazine has been a beacon of inspiration and knowledge, sharing the message of faith, hope, and love with communities near and far. Today, in this issue, we announce a significant transformation that we believe will propel us into the future and enable us to spread the Good News and keep our churches connected and supported even more efficiently.
As many of you may already be aware, The Fellowship Focus will be embracing a new chapter in its journey. We have made the decision to transition from a traditional print magazine to an entirely digital publication. This shift comes with careful consideration and a profound understanding of the changing landscape of media consumption in the 21st century.

“You have to do the first thing before you do the second.” It
can’t get much more basic than that. It may have been the most
common thing I heard as a distracted child. “Do your chores
before you go play.” “Do your homework before you watch
TV.” “Clear your plate before you get dessert.” Priorities.
Sometimes even a good priority can prevent us focusing
on one that is more important. It is often a struggle to keep
our priorities because we are easily distracted, often selfish
and occasionally overwhelmed. With the pandemic and political
unrest that has become a common part of our lives, we
need to remember that God has told us what our priority is.
Years ago when people were asked what the most commonly
known verse in the Bible was, they usually responded
that it was John 3:16. The message of the gospel. Now the
most commonly quoted verse in the Bible is likely Matthew
7:1, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” And if it’s
not that, it might be, “Love your neighbor as yourself ”
(Matt. 22:39 niv). Both of those verses represent the
priority of the culture: non-judgmental acceptance.
That cultural priority has had an impact among
churches and those who claim to be followers of Jesus. The
cultural definition of love has begun to shape the way the
church attempts to demonstrate the love of Christ to the
world around us. Love becomes defined by the culture.
But should it be?
We are known by our love for one another. We are
supposed to love our neighbor as ourselves. God is love.
Jesus loved sinners. But how do Christians love the way
Christ loves?
The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your
God with all your heart, soul and mind (Matt. 22:37). As
important as it is to love others, the greatest commandment
sets everything else in order. The priority is to love God --
fully and wholeheartedly. An emphasis on the command to
love your neighbor misses the priority. We have to do the first
thing in order to do the second.
We cannot disregard the other implications of that
commandment. We are to love God with complete commitment
and trust. It means that He receives our full loyalty
and devotion. His priorities have to be ours. To fully love
God demands that we love the things that God loves and
the things that proceed from the character of God. We love
people because God is love. We love justice because God is
just. We love holiness because God is holy.
Too often people and churches emphasize the second
commandment without prioritizing the first. I thought about
this as a friend described her conversation with someone about
gender. They discussed someone they knew who is transitioning
their gender. The other person suggested that everyone
needed to be supportive of the person transitioning so that
they would feel loved and accepted. My friend pointed out that
the emphasis on acceptance doesn’t acknowledge that God can
and does use difficulty and brokenness to bring people to Himself.
Attempting to draw someone to God by trying to make
Him fit their perceived needs places the second commandment
ahead of the first. To truly love God is to love who He is and
what He loves. We cannot compromise any of that and remain
faithful to the first commandment, the first priority.
In Matthew 22, Jesus answers the question of what is the
greatest commandment. The religious leaders of the day were
trying to undermine Jesus’ credibility and authority before
the crowds. They pressured Him to align Himself with a
political movement, tried to draw Him into a theological
conflict, and attempted to force Him into a virtue dispute.
They tried to force Him into taking a ‘with us’ or ‘against us’
position. Each time, he stepped out of the trap. In summarizing
the greatest commandment, He prioritized all allegiances
and obligations.
Our culture attempts to force us to make declarations
and alliances so that people will know which side we are on.
The pressure to signal our virtue by agreeing with the morality
of the day can lead Christians to take positions that ignore
our first priority.
If the church focuses on the second great commandment,
we are always at risk of defining love by the response
of the culture we live in. When we focus on the greatest
commandment, God orders our hearts and minds so that
we reflect His character without the need to conform to
the world.
Ancient church buildings and cathedrals were often
built with towering ceilings and spires to direct worshippers’
eyes upward and remind them of the supremacy and majesty
of God. As our culture and events draw our eyes downward
to the needs around us we must maintain our first priority
in order to truly be agents of reconciliation and hope to the world around us. 

​Today I am charged with giving a State of the Fellowship Address. If you read my Annual Report, you have a decent idea of the state of our fellowship, but this address is different. The Annual Report is a report of everything that happened in the past Fiscal Year, which was April, 2022-March 2023. This address is to give you my assessment of the state of our Fellowship – today. 
Last year at this time, I had only positive things to report – we were coming out of COVID, we were adding a new church, we had filled several open pastoral positions around the Fellowship, and most of our churches were reporting financial and numerical growth. Our Vision strategy was gaining momentum. The word I used last year during this address was “poised.” We were poised to move forward well.

​​“Some assembly required.” 
As long as I’ve been able to read, those were always welcome words. I loved to put things together, whether children’s toys, cheap furniture, or Lego bricks. So, it’s probably natural that I enjoyed working with Fellowship Focus. A magazine requires a lot of assembly. There are no instructions, and parts don’t seem to fit, either by topic or length or mood.
Editors usually try to build a loose template, so when a story comes in, they have an idea where it should go. The back cover, and the pages inside the back cover are what people look at first, so you try to put the good stuff there — good stuff like people stories, heartwarming stories. 
A few years before I became editor, the Fellowship adopted the vision statement “We will be a fellowship of churches that equips and inspires one another so that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed by every member of every church at every opportunity.” This led to a column called “Catch the Vision” on the back cover of each issue. This was a personal interest story about how a reader found an opportunity to tell someone about Jesus. We solicited stories from our readers, they responded, and usually we had a pool of stories to choose from. 
The centerfold pages are valuable real estate in a magazine because they display a long story or a lot of photos. Each spring the centerfold promoted the annual Connect meetings and the Connect project. 
One of the best centerfold stories to run while I was editor was Terry Schultz’s “Too Busy for Outreach” (Jan/Feb 2016). By using a flow chart and hard questions, Mr. Schultz helped us determine whether we were really too busy to talk about Jesus, or whether we were making poor excuses.