Since our humble beginning in August 2001, New Life Fellowship has been a dynamic and growing church. Responding to what he believed to be a call from God, Pastor Jimi Staton and his wife Carla and a small group of other families set out to establish a church in the city of Huntington, Indiana that would be a cornerstone for other believers in the community.

 

We started our mission and initially held youth and Wednesday evening services at the home of Scott and Debra Thorn. Sunday morning services, followed by brunch, were held in the home of Mel and Deb Seymour. In September, God opened the door to an upstairs studio that was a tanning and aerobics salon. After much elbow grease and lots of paint, we held our first service in our upstairs studio at 213 West State Street. God continued to bless us and other families joined while we all learned and grew together.

 

Then, in February of 2002, God opened another door when the space below us, which was an industrial clothing textile shop, closed. The landlords gave us the first option to rent it before they put it on the market. At the time it seemed to be beyond our means, but we took that step of faith and took it.

 

Our hope was to have our first service downstairs on Easter Sunday. Again we went to work, we cleaned and painted and painted some more. We were able to find some pews, new carpet and with a lot of late nights and one very late Saturday night before Easter, we made it. Our first service in the new sanctuary downstairs was on Easter Sunday 2002. Having the downstairs, allowed us the opportunity to grow our church and expand the youth group. We now had a street level entrance without any stairs. This opened the door to the elderly.

 

We continued to grow and God continued to bless us with more members. In the spring of 2004, we began the process to become a sanctioned church. Up to that time we were a mission of Huntington Baptist Church. In July 2004, we organized and approved our constitution and in August, three years after our start, we were officially chartered as a Southern Baptist Convention Church.

 

We again had growing pains; we were quickly becoming too big for the building we were in. God opened another door. We found a church building setting empty on the corner of Guilford and Franklin Streets. This empty church building at 246 East Franklin street became our new home in July of 2005.

 

After we moved, Pastor Staton then laid out the vision that God had given him for us at New Life Fellowship Church. New Life’s vision is to serve, to help, and to reach those on the crossroads of life. Our vision is to have external ministries that provide those services while sharing the gospel and our Christian Beliefs. We started on the tasks to do this. We visited other churches that had similar visions and were doing these ministries. After much prayers and God’s direction, the first ministry we started on our road to fulfill the vision was to start a meal ministry. We served our first meal through the New Life Community Meal Ministry on January 15, 2007. The ministry serves a free evening meal 365 days a year. This ministry initially started in our church’s basement, has since moved 2 times to it’s current location at 323 North Jefferson Street.

 

Meanwhile the church continued to grow, so we needed a larger facility/church. God then gave us another blessing, in early 2009, the church building that was caddy-corner from us became available. Again after much prayer, we decided to purchase that building and we moved again for the 5th time. We held our first service in our current location at 313 E. Franklin Street on July 4, 2009 and it has been our home ever since. Our new home gave us a larger sanctuary, more rooms, a large atrium and a large fellowship hall and kitchen that allowed us more flexibility and much needed space for our ministry work and fellowship time.

 

God then gave us the second item on our vision. It was a Women’s Shelter! We purchased a home near the church in the fall of 2012. We again went to work and The Women’s Life house was opened in July of 2013. We soon saw a need for a home for women with children. In 2016 we were blessed to purchase a home right next door to the Women’s Life House for $50. After looks of work, we opened the house for women with children in 2019.

 

The vision has not stopped. Currently, we are working hard renovate a home next door to the church. This home is going to be our Men’s Life House. The plans are to open this home by the end of 2021.

 

With so many ministries that God has entrusted us with, we decided we needed to consolidate all New Life external ministries under one title to help with administration, funding and promotional items. So New Life Ministries was formed. To learn more about the ministries, you can visit New Life Ministries’ website at www.newlifeministries-indiana.com.

 

We hope that you will come visit our church and find it to be a place where you can come and be part of our future history.