Fellowship Kansas City launched 11 years ago with a mission to reach Kansas City’s Northland with the gospel of Jesus Christ. For its first three years of ministry, Fellowship KC met on the campus of Midwestern Seminary, until relocating in 2016 to its current location in Parkville, Missouri. Under the leadership of Senior Pastor Tyler Wilkins, Fellowship KC pursues the Great Commission with the goal to reach 250,000 people in Kansas City’s Northland.
MBTS: Tell us about the history of Fellowship KC and how the Lord called you to serve there.
Tyler Wilkins: Fellowship Kansas City began as a church plant out of Lenexa Baptist Church in August 2013. With a vision to reach the greater Kansas City area with the gospel, FKC has always aimed to accomplish this goal through reproducible discipleship in the local church. Through God’s kindness and grace, our church has seen continual spiritual and numeric growth since its inception.
God called my wife and me to FKC as laypersons while I was a student at Midwestern Seminary. As God was calling me to pastoral ministry, He also provided opportunities for me to be discipled in the church. After several years of faithful membership, the church ordained me as an associate pastor. Then, in July 2022, the Lord called me into the role of senior pastor here. It has been such a joy to be trained and developed for pastoral ministry in the context of the local church and then to be called to serve at the very church in which I was trained.
MBTS: In what ways have you seen Fellowship KC contribute to the formation of future pastors and preachers?
Tyler: My experience at FKC is representative of a culture of pastoral development that has been here since our inception. It is our Scriptural conviction that healthy churches produce future healthy pastors. At FKC, we offer a multi-year pastoral fellow training program for Midwestern Seminary students. During their time in seminary, these men not only serve the local church, but they also receive practical ministry and preaching experience. Our aim is to see these men best prepared for pastoral ministry upon graduation.
Our pastoral fellows go through this program in community with other fellows. My prayer is that they would develop lifelong friendships with these other men that they could call upon decades in the future for encouragement.
MBTS: As a pastor, what factors do you consider in deciding what sermon series or books of the Bible to preach through in your church?
Tyler: I want our church members to receive a balanced diet of all of God’s Word. Each calendar year, I make sure that we are preaching through books in both the Old Testament and New Testament as well as covering a variety of Scriptural genres.
Additionally, I try diligently to never undervalue the discipline of prayer. FKC is God’s church far more than it is mine. He knows the congregation infinitely better than I do, as He knows His Word infinitely better than I do. Thus, I encourage myself, as I do any pastor, to devote every aspect of preaching and teaching to prayer.
MBTS: For those called to preach, what encouragement would you offer to help them steward the task well?
Tyler: The calling is worth it! I have not imagined a more glorious calling in life, nor have I read in the Scriptures a more glorious calling than preaching the gospel. Devote your life to it. Let preaching Christ be first place above everything else in your life.
Charles H. Spurgeon once proclaimed, “Never was man blamed in heaven for preaching Christ too much.” For preachers and those who aspire to preach, let us all devote our lives to this feat. Let us attempt to be one day found guilty before our Lord of “preaching Christ too much.”