FULTON – In May 2023 four people banded together to start a new church in a community room of a recreation center in Fulton. As they launched, they quickly gathered about 20 attenders. Fast forward a little over 2.5 years later and there are now 475 attending in three worship services each weekend. Lifepointe Church of Fulton has been described as one of Missouri’s fastest growing church plants by Jason Zellmer, who heads up NAMB’s Send Missouri.
Lead Pastor Travis Boyt says, “It’s been a wild ride.” He’s been there since November of 2023. This was about the time the group moved out of the recreation center and renovated a former Mexican restaurant for the new church’s first permanent location.
The new church was a dream of Pastor Rusty Thomas, lead pastor of Lifepointe Church in Sedalia. He contacted retired pastor Frank Whitney of Holt’s Summit. He and his wife, Shelly, banded together with longtime friends Doug and Michele Doug Ebersold, who live in Fulton. He is a faculty member at William Woods University in Fulton. These four helped lay the groundwork for the new church.
Whitney said they were blessed when Freshwater Church in Jefferson City asked the members of one of their life groups to join the church plant. This group was located in Fulton, and they joined in to help launch the new church. Lifepointe Church, Sedalia, also sent a dozen members to commute up to Fulton every Sunday in the beginning stages of the satellite church launch.
Boyt and Whitney describe the church as intentionally targeting Next Gen adults. Whitney said, “I’m 70 years old and there are things about church life that I am very comfortable with. But the generation today is not inclined in that way.” He added, “We tried to share the gospel in a different way and in different settings. It is packaged differently, but it is the same gospel.”
Whitney said there are many good traditional churches in Fulton, but there was a need for a church focusing on the next generation.
Boyt said he was serving in Iola, Kansas, in a fairly traditional church. He was a full-time pastor. He has a wife and four children, plus a foster child. His wife, Amanda, is recovering from cancer treatment. It seemed like a stretch to move back to Missouri and plant a church.
But he trusted the leadership and mentoring from his former pastor, Frank Whitney and his friend Rusty Thomas.
Send Missouri, the Missouri church planting arm of the North American Mission Board (NAMB) came alongside him. Financial support from Send Missouri as well as Lifepointe Church, Sedalia, made it possible for the family to relocate and be employed full-time as the church planter in Fulton. Lifepointe in Fulton is a satellite church of Lifepointe in Sedalia. Initially the music portion of the worship service was streamed from Sedalia to Fulton until a local worship team could be assembled.
Boyt said he feels very supported by Send Missouri and NAMB. He said they took him through an assessment of his church planting abilities and commissioned him as a church planting missionary in November 2023. There are ongoing support groups and classes with other church planters in the region.
About the time Boyt moved to Fulton, the church plant core group moved into the former Mexican restaurant. It had to be retrofitted some but they kept part of it as a cafe where they are open for coffee and espresso drinks a couple of mornings a week. Boyt said they charge for the coffee, but they give a lot of it away and the main purpose of it is to be a place were relationships are formed and strengthened.
“We just want to love people where they are and preach the gospel,” he said. They are targeting people who may be a little familiar with Jesus but are just not plugged in anywhere.
The church has added staff members: the pastor and one other full-time staff member as well as two part-time staff. Amanda Boyt manages the coffee shop ministry. Braden Alexander is the Next Gen pastor and Aaron Nelson is the part-time worship leader. He also is a school teacher in the area.
They have three worship services on Sunday mornings and life groups that meet throughout the week in the community and the church facility.
They are affiliated with the SBC and MBC and are exploring affiliation with the Heart of Missouri Baptist Association, led by Preston Thompson.
Boyt attributed the growth and stability of the new church to those who have served before as the church was launched. He is also very grateful for the Send Missouri/NAMB support and resources.
To learn more about the church, check out their website at www.lifepointefulton.com.