COVER STORY 16 September 2024 www.goodnewsfl.org Good News • South Florida edition Forty years ago, Coach Tom Mullins, then athletic director at Palm Beach State College, and his wife Donna, began a church meeting in their home with the simple premise, “Let’s love God with all of our heart and let’s love people at their point of need.” Today, Christ Fellowship, based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida has grown to be the sixth largest church in America with 30,000 congregants gathering for weekly services at 13 campuses and thousands more viewing online, now under the leadership of Pastors Todd and Julie Mullins, their son and daughter-in-law. The ministry reaches throughout Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, serving the most vulnerable, feeding the hungry and homeless, caring for widows and orphans and showing compassion toward those with special needs. They launched Place of Hope, a residential community for neglected and abused children in South Florida and Place of Hope International, which establishes homes and cares for children around the globe. Todd and Julie serve on the lead team of the Association of Related Churches (ARC), the largest independent churchplanting organization in America, and are founders of Church United, a partnership of local churches from various denominations who join together to transform our region. On an international level, they’ve partnered with organizations in alignment with their vision such as Convoy of Hope, bringing humanitarian aid and emergency relief around the globe, and OneHope, a ministry committed to engaging every child in the world with God's Word. Todd Mullins, Christ Fellowship Senior Pastor, said, “We believe our faith in Jesus better make a difference in our world. Our community should be better because the church is here serving, caring, meeting the needs, being an expression of Christ to the world and that happens through outreach.” They’ve most recently doubled down on their ministry to youth, launching the “Get There First” campaign, a multi-year strategy to reach the next generation, expanding discipleship programs and summer camps, investing in leaders through specialized retreats for students, developing partnerships with schools such as Trinity Christian School, and increasing their involvement in public schools through First Priority and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Their Palm Beach Gardens campus is also home to Southeastern University at Christ Fellowship, offering an accredited liberal arts education. “We realized that in the race for the heart of the next generation, the first one there wins,” said Julie Mullins, senior pastor, referencing the battle in 2Kings: 6. “If you look around at our culture right now, it could be said that the people of God are not winning. But we don’t see culture as our enemy. We see it as our mission field.” Pastor Todd added, “If we can help them understand who they are in Christ in the first grade and pour into their leadership, by the time they get to middle school, no one is going to tell them who they are. They’ll already know, and they’re going to be the ones influencing others.” Rob Hoskins, president of OneHope, senior advisor to the World Evangelical Alliance, and chairman of the “He Gets Us” campaign, said “The Mullins family and Christ Fellowship are a missional force, igniting positive change in local communities and worldwide. They make an incredible impact in South Florida through their worldclass foster care program and feeding programs, and they continue to invest in helping plant churches across the nation. Through their collaboration with ministries like OneHope, they share God's Word in the hardest to reach places on the planet, and generously invest in many other international ministries and initiatives totaling millions of dollars.” Shepherding the shepherds On a personal level, Hoskins added, “the Mullins have been incredible encouragers to many leaders. Despite their many commitments, they have never stopped being pastors and shepherds. So often I receive a text or call from them, checking in and offering an inspirational or encouraging word. They say 'I love you' so freely and authentically, that will be their ultimate legacy — the love they show through their words and actions, a love that I and thousands of others have experienced.” Jimmy Scroggins, lead pastor of Family Church, agrees. “When First Baptist Church of West Palm Beach (now Family Church) first called me to be their senior pastor in 2008, before I even moved down here, Tom Mullins called just to encourage me, pray for me and let me know that when I got there, I was going to have friends, and that Christ Fellowship was pulling for us. And they’ve been good at their word all these years.” In addition, Scroggins said Christ Fellowship regularly shares their resources with other churches in the area, displaying an extreme generosity of spirit. One way they do this is through their annual Christ Fellowship Conference. Launched in 2018 to encourage and equip church staff from around the world, Christ Fellowship Conference 2025 will be held February 12th and 13th, 2025, featuring NY Times best-selling author, speaker and leadership coach John Maxwell, who is a member of the Christ Fellowship teaching staff; Charlotte Gambil, an author and international speaker, who serves alongside her husband Steve in building Life Church in the UK and Europe; and the Mullins. The conference, which includes large gatherings and smaller breakout sessions, provides a platform through which they share what God has done at Christ Fellowship, and make tools and resources readily available to others. Stephan Tchividjian, CEO and co-founder of the National Christian Foundation South Florida, said, “I’ve had the privilege of knowing both Pastor ‘Coach’ Tom and Pastor Todd for many years, and the phrase I would use to epitomize their faithfulness and fruitfulness is ‘a long obedience in the same direction.’ In today’s culture, rarely do we see long term faithfulness and fruitfulness. However, with Team Mullins you do… and that cascades to their spouses, their team and their network. I love their big vision. I love how they execute with excellence. I love how they preach God’s Word without compromise, and I love how they love the difficult to love. Our culture in South Florida has been forever impacted by churches like Christ Fellowship. Lastly, the way Pastor Tom transitioned leadership to Pastor Todd is textbook; I wish more ministries would take note.” Generational blessing After leading the church he founded for 27 years, Coach Mullins stepped down as lead pastor in 2011, handing the reins to Pastors Todd and Julie. “In 2009, we stepped in as co-pastors for 18 months before,” noted Pastor Todd. “We went through a long transition, and this is an important part of the journey. I always say great leaders leave room for other leaders to lead, and my dad was a great leader because he left room for us to learn how to lead, didn’t take up all the leadership oxygen and created space for us to grow and get some legs under us.” Understanding their leadership styles would be different, Pastor Todd said, “My dad is the quintessential coach. Call the shots. This is where we’re going. We’re more collaborative in our leadership. We get to build off a great foundation he and my mom laid, but I feel God has given us more of a way to systemize some of the processes, so we’re able to take what was built and expand it to reach more people." Since Pastors Todd and Julie have taken the lead, the church has expanded from five campuses to 13 with the goal of reaching this entire region. Coach Mullins said he feels the church is thriving due to what he calls a “generational blessing.” “I go back to the 1890s when my great grandfather went full time into ministry as Among the Largest Congregations in America, Christ Fellowship Celebrates 40 Years of Impact Shelly Pond Good News Editor Julie and Todd Mullins, senior pastors, and Donna and Coach Tom Mullins, founders of Christ Fellowship
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