A Short History of

Logos Christian Fellowship

Pastor Christopher Brian Ward, Doctorate of Ministry

In the Spring of 1989, I started a Bible study in our home at 1314 Maugans Avenue, Leesburg.

On Friday, June 23, 1989, we decided to officially start a home fellowship.

We met for the first time at 7 PM at Patty Wilson's home on Radio Road, in Leesburg.

There were about twelve people in attendance.

Sunday, October 15, 1989, we held our first church service at Golden Grove Camper Resort, across from the Leesburg Airport. We began in a room next to their laundry room in the meeting hall. Sunday school was in the old donut shop up front. How little did we know that this was a prophetic start.

This is the entrance to the donut shop at Golden Grove Camper Resort and through the laundry room to the meeting room. People would actually walk right through the services while I was giving my sermon to get to the laundry room.

After about six months of wash and fold we moved to Central Baptist's Day Care center on the corner of Main Street and Perkins. At this time we were affiliated with Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa.

Another six months later (March of 1990), we moved to the American Legion hall on the corner of Palmetto and Meadow Street . This was a delightful building saturated in cigarette smoke and decorated with Bingo trappings. Right behind the pulpit was a huge lighted sign that announced "Bingo." This was an excellent way to punctuate my sermon points. The Sunday school met in the kitchen. In those days there was no addition with extra rooms like there is today.

We officially incorporated as Calvary Chapel Leesburg, Inc. on May 14, 1990.

We still own the copyright and fictitious name filing to that name today.

During the Fall of 1991, we moved into the Tropical Cinemagic Movie Theater.

This was an exciting oxymoron of holiness and magic. The owner of the theater, at that time, was a magician. During Halloween he created a cemetery in the lobby with ghouls, ghosts, and demons. Some of our more legalistic visitors would only enter via the side door away from all the magic and death. The rest of us found it to be an excellent litmus test of religion and relationship.

We stayed there until January of 1993.

The last Sunday in January of 1993, we moved into High Street.

We were still known as Calvary Chapel of Leesburg, Inc. at that time.

High Street was originally an Assemblies of God church with two women as pastors thirty years ago. It served for five years as the Disabled American Veterans Hall. When we moved it in was being used as a storage shed for vending machines. It took a lot of hard work and over $10,000.00 to make it a church again. We really enjoyed our stay at High Street. Some of my fondest memories took place in this church. It was an excellent place for us to pasture while we matured and discovered our niche in the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was on High Street that we began Deliverance ministry.

We opened http:/www.logoschristian.org web page on July 4, 1998. It was dedicated to deliverance, hippies, and Ufologists. It focused on the misinformed, needy, spiritually oppressed, and homeless.

We have received over 1.5 millions visitors as of July 4, 2007.

On June 1, 1998, we changed our name to Logos Christian Fellowship of Leesburg, Inc. We anticipated that we might come into some friction with our affiliate, Calvary Chapel, due to the obedient but controversial nature of the web page ministry and missions outreach. We are pioneers in the development of the cyber-church and cyber-evangelism, naturally there are going to be some confusion and discomfort to those who hold fast to the traditions of men. "You cannot put new wine in old wine skins."

For more information on the impact of this courageous outreach ministry to Ufologists please see Charisma Magazine, April of 2001, November of 2001, and March of 2002. These articles help to define what it is that we were attempting to accomplish for the Kingdom of God. How do you reach the UFO community for Christ? We do not believe in aliens per se, only that they represent a Satanic plan of destruction for mankind. they are not our brothers.

If you can get a copy of MSNBC's show, In Search of Satan, with Forest Sawyer, you will also get an insight into what we are doing in deliverance ministry for those who are spiritually oppressed and those who are demonically possessed.

8839 C.R. 44, Leesburg, FL 34788

On August 1, 1999, we purchased and moved into the Fraternal Order of Police (F.O.P.) building at 8839 C.R. 44 east of Leesburg. The F.O.P. is the police fraternity branch of the Masons. They had their talisman, pentagram-badge, on the front door. We found brochures of their secret hand shake and rules for their secret order in the building. The building was previously know as Club 44, a black night club that had a lot of violence and a couple of shootings. Needless to say we had a cleansing of the building. Rabbi Joe Carpenter and Beth El Elyon came and helped us march around the building seven times with the Torah and an army of praisers. Praise the Lord! We now had a spiritually clean place to call home.

Beth El Elyon moved into the building with us and started Shabbatt services on Saturday morning at 10 AM. They are still with us today and we enjoy a beautiful relationship. They love the Torah and we love the grace--iron sharpens steel.

As of the end of February, 2001, we were no longer affiliated with Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa. Chuck Smith removed our affiliation because, to quote Bob Coy of Calvary Chapel of Ft. Lauderdale, "You did not reflect the philosophy and style of Calvary Chapel." Mind you, there rejection of our ministry was completely conducted behind closed doors and without even an invitation to defend our outreach ministry. I found out about the meeting two months after they had already made a decision. What ever happened to Matthew 15:17? Bygones!

I really hated to lose this relationship. Rita and I got saved (Jesus People Hippies) at Calvary Chapel of Riverside, California, with Greg Laurie (Harvest), but this was completely out of my control, and in the hands of the Lord.

Chuck Smith, Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, conveyed to me that he was very concerned that we were ministering to Ufologists. He wouldn't come out and actually say what was bothering him, but he implied we should stop doing any outreach ministry in this area on two separate phone conversations with me. Why? Jesus said go into all the world and preach to EVERY creature.

What is so wrong with wanting to take Jesus to the UFO culture?

I consider Chuck Smith to be one of the premiere Bible teachers of the 20th Century. I truly enjoyed his leadership and example. I wanted to reach people misinformed about the origin of UFOs and minister to those who claimed abduction experiences because the Holy Spirit inspired me too.

The 21st Century will have a whole new host of Bible teachers. You will see talented and well educated Bible teachers and pastor that know the Word of God and can present it seemlessly while navigating safely through the ancien languages, Apocrypha, and Deuterocanonical Books. Surfing the Bible is over. Mature Christian who have come out of the Word and Charismatic movements want deep Biblical expertise that is based on 1st Century Christian traditional knowledge.

"My People perish for lack of knowledge..."

Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach to every creature." Mark 16:15. I guess I took Jesus literally. That is not a smart thing to do if you want to be part of a denomination. I can see why the Lord moved us out now, but at the time, I was really disappointed.

Chuck Smith is the greatest, and I still have many wonderful friends that pastor Calvary Chapels. Everything I ever learned about the Bible, I learned from Chuck Smith during the ten years I was a Calvary pastor and the ten years I assisted in the children's ministry.

Being ejected out of Calvary Chapel was a difficult transition for me, and I never would have made it, if it had not been for all the love and compassion that Gib Allen of Calvary Chapel of Orlando freely showed me during that difficult time. His comfort and kind words and compassionate leadership toward me and Logos' means more to me than he will ever know. Ask Gib about his faithful support, kindness, and how he helped me through this difficult transition.

Thank God that Calvary Chapel is not known for shooting its wounded!

It really was a wonderful 20 year relationship. We love you Calvary Chapel! Thank you Chuck!

I learned one very important thing through this unfortunate experience, never fear men. Do what it is that the Lord Jesus' has put on your heart. Never look back and never take your hand off the plow. We are ministering to thousands of hippies, ufologists, needy, homeless, and spiritually oppressed people today. Our web page received almost 1.5 million visitors. We have had as many as 200 to 300 hippies a week visiting our food bank, clothing bank, laundry and showers at Logos. Sometimes, we deliver as much as ten tons of food a week to the homeless in the Ocala National Forest. We have had thousands get delivered and hundreds receive exorcisms each year. We also have over 15,000 people give their heart to the Lord on our invitation web page (http://www.logoschristian.org/invitation.html).

Praise the Lord!

To God be the glory great things He has done!

April 13, 2001, Brian Cronin and I wrote the Phat news of Mark. Click on the cover to investigate.

 

"As a Father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him." Psalm103:13.

"A Father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His habitation. God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the religious dwell in a dry land." Psalm 68:5 - 6.

We believe that Father God will bring the orphans, widows, needy, spiritually oppressed, and the homeless, and set them in the Logos' family.

 

New Chapter in History

September of 2005 we opened a Thrift Store on the corner of 2nd Street and Market.

In the mean time the real estate in Lake County went off the charts. We had our building appraised at between $600,000.00 and $1,100,000.00 dollars. We had promised Pastor Chrispus in Kenya that we would help him build his church in Nakura. So the elders and I had this idea that we could sell the property at 8839 C.R. 44 and use the half million dollars to build the church in Africa, build a new church for ourselves and use the rest for missions. We moved into the Thrift Store in February of 2006. Well after 14 months without an offer we decided to move back into the old church property. We moved back home in February of 2007. In the meantime pastor Chrispus was able to build his own new church from our donations and did not need us to sell the building after all. He has a new church building and we have our old church back.

Logos Christian Fellowship 2007

 

Pastor Chris

 

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