Brad Wilson and his wife, Kelsey, weren’t on the team starting Forge City Church the first time they gathered around people creating the church’s culture or the community’s needs.

Truth be told, Wilson wasn’t even a believer this past summer as he sat in on conversations about Christ’s work in Lexington, Kentucky. Kelsey first learned about the church through social media. After she contacted the church, Forge City pastor Bryant Applegate invited Brad and her to a launch team meeting. 

“The more launch team meetings I went to,” he said, “the more I could feel something pulling at me and tugging me.” 

Something in his heart ‘broke loose’ during a worship service a few months later. He accepted Christ as Lord and was baptized in the fall. Now, their family drives 40 minutes for worship with the Converge church.

“I’ve never experienced anything like it,” Wilson added.

Building trust helps new church embrace the hurting and the hesitant

Applegate said he, his wife, Chelsea and the core team have seen 17 baptisms during the earliest months of this new congregation.

A key to that has been building trust by having dinner with people living in the town of more than 300,000 people. Quite a few of those people have been hurt by a church in the past, especially after a large church in the area recently suffered the moral failures of its pastor.

“A lot of people in the moment lost trust,” he said. “This city is engulfed in church hurt.”

To help those jaded people and the large numbers of lost people in Lexington, Forge City Church has prioritized cookouts and community events. These opportunities serve people who may not be ready to join worshipers on a Sunday morning.

“The amount of dinners we’ve had is probably insane,” he said. “We learned really quickly that people wanted to have trust before they wanted to ever walk in our church doors. For some people, walking in these doors is being completely vulnerable.”

The spiritual barriers in Lexington go beyond church hurt. Applegate explained that many people didn’t grow up with Christian awareness. Others are affluent and less inclined to know God. Some groups are from foreign countries and have resettled in their new home with their religious beliefs intact.

“I think the Lord has called us to Lexington to bring the lost to him and help the dechurched — those who have been church hurt — come back to Christ,” he said.

 

 

Getting creative and compassionate around the community

 

Forge City’s approach to achieving Christ’s mission includes asking if the church can find better ways of doing things than what Christians have done in the past. He’s encountered many people who desire a new strategy to follow Christ and train others to do the same.

That creativity has potential in a bustling, diverse city. Forge City has begun having success with attracting multiethnic worshipers and Bluegrass State natives and Nepalis and basketball fans and Kentucky Derby enthusiasts.

That meant plenty of people had somewhere else to be on Sunday mornings. That’s partly why Forge City meets on Sunday nights. Now, some people attend church on Sunday mornings and come to Forge City later that day.

Amanda Fiedler, a college student, said Forge City draws her because people have created the space to know who she is.

Her first visit came after her uncle died in June, creating a great deal of grief. Amanda’s friend invited her to come to Forge City, so she went to a service. Within minutes, a greeter introduced Fiedler to Chelsea, who immediately gave the guest a big hug.

“I just started sobbing,” Fiedler recalls of the emotion that surged as she encountered Chelsea’s kindness. Fiedler quickly shared her grief and encountered the hands and feet of Christ through his people.

“Ever since I met her, I’ve felt like I’m part of her family,” Fiedler said. “They’re so welcoming. That’s what kept me coming back.”

The Lord is moving for new believers and a new church

 

For Brad Wilson, growing in his new faith motivates him and his wife, Kelsey, to keep making the drive. The Lord moves in them, he said, in times of praise and preaching and through the people the Lord has drawn there.

“Once we started learning about Forge City, the Lord pulled me in,” he said.

Converge’s 10 districts have committed to deploying 312 church planters before 2026. Read more inspiring church planting stories and learn about the goal to send out 312 church planters in five years.