History

THE BEGINNINGS: Word of Emmanuel, now FountainGate Fellowship, was born out of a small prayer group in the home Wilma and Thurston Carter in 1967. The Carter’s encountered the reality of the Holy Spirit in their lives and began to fellowship with others in the city that had encountered Him as they had. Wilma emerged as the churches founding pastor and they began meeting weekly on Thursday evenings to pray, worship, and fellowship around the Word of God in the Carter home.

In 1968, they began to meet on Sunday mornings in their home. In those early days, the Lord seemed to impress on their hearts that other hungry people would come expecting to encounter the Holy Spirit’s presence and power as they had. The church met in the Carter’s home until 1979.

THE GROWTH YEARS: In 1979, the church was about 50 strong when they purchased and moved into their first facility on N. 12 Street under Wilma’s leadership. The emphasis of the work was prayer, praise and worship, strong teaching of the Word of God, and the infilling of the Holy Spirit. The work continued to grow and in 1981, Steve Mansfield joined the ministry team as an associate to Wilma. In 1987, Steve took over the Pastorate of the work, and the church continued to grow under his leadership. Mansfield moved to Tennessee in October of 1991 and the church was without a full-time pastor for five months.

TODAY: Pastor Scott Beard and family arrived to pastor FGF in mid-February of 1992. 75-100 committed believers met Pastor Scott as his ministry. Under his and the elder’s leadership, the church grew and moved to its second location on N 3rd and Mockingbird. After nearly 9 years it outgrew that facility and they moved to their current facility at 909 N. Willis. The church has grown steadily over the 21 years that Pastor Scott has been the lead pastor and is now blessed with a membership of 650-700 who calls FountainGate home. Over the many years of FGF’s existence the core DNA has remained the same:

• Our Passion for transformation.
• Our compassion for the poor.
• Our hunger for God’s manifest presence through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Our mandate is to raise up, equip and send out mature disciples throughout the earth.