THERE’S A NEW CHURCH IN TOWN

By: Barry Shaw

There is a new church in town. It is Heritage Christian Fellowship (HCF) led by Senior Pastor Jeff Hensley. HCF is a non-denominational Biblical based congregation whose emphasis is to “Exalt the Lord, to edify the body of Christ, to equip His saints, and to evangelize the lost.” HCF first met in June 2008 and is now the church family for over 300 Christians. The Biblical passage that most exemplifies the spirit of HCF is Joshua 24:15: “...as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Pastor Jeff was born and raised in the Southern Baptist Bible belt of Southeastern United States in Asheville, North Carolina. As he describes it, he was born into a “classic Southern Baptist family.” His grandfather was a Baptist preacher who inspired his family to walk strongly with the Lord. Jeff’s father was a deacon in his church and his mother a devout Christian. “If the doors [of the church] were open, we were there.” It was upon this foundation that Jeff and his sister were instructed in the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Jeff attended North Carolina State University where he majored in philosophy of law and also studied civil engineering. While still in college, he met his wife Bronwyn [nee’ Blair] at a Christian leadership conference sponsored by Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs. Bronwyn later joined him attending school at North Carolina State and they married in 1996. After graduation, the Hensleys moved to Jacksonville where Bronwyn’s family resides. They have two children, Hannah and Alli. Jeff got a job with a Medford firm and started what he thought was a career in architectural engineering. But, God had other plans for the Hensleys.

Jeff was working at his job and raising his family when at the age of 25, God planted in his heart that He wanted him to be a teaching pastor. While continuing to work in engineering, Jeff followed the Lord’s lead and immersed himself in whatever and whenever he could to train for the ministry. He and his wife were very active in their church. He took school of ministry classes with Pastor Mark Anderson at Ashland Christian Fellowship. He learned to play the guitar and lead worship. Leaving engineering, he and Bronwyn spent almost a year at the Mexican mission of Applegate Christain Fellowship (ACF) where Jeff taught at ACF’s School of Discipleship and co-pastored to the staff. He later became the children’s pastor at ACF. In 2004, he joined Pastor Jim Wright as assistant pastor in forming Mountain Christian Fellowship in Medford.

In 2005, Jeff attended a pastor’s conference in Uganda where he and Jim taught the Book of Romans to over 400 Ugandan and Rwandan pastors. It was there that God’s plan for Jeff to be a teaching pastor blossomed: “We were teaching through Romans. He did a chapter and I did a chapter - teaching side by side. When we got back, Jim told me ‘I’ve only got you for a short period of time.’ People would come up to me after church [and would say], ‘So when are you going to start a church?’” It was in the Spring of 2008 at Pastor Jim’s urging that Jeff took the first steps to carry out God’s plan and organize a new church, Heritage Christian Fellowship.

Pastor Jeff arranged to lease the gymnasium at Jewett Elementary School in Central Point and on June 22, 2008, HCF had its first service. Jeff describes the experience: “I knew some people were going to come, but you just don’t know how many. The Lord kept bringing people in [and they] kept coming.” The church now meets Sundays and Wednesday evenings at Cascade Christian High School on Chevy Way in Medford.

The church’s theology is Biblical based, verse by verse study through the Bible. Metaphorically, Pastor Jeff regards the church as analogous to a sports “huddle.” “The point of our fellowship is out there, not here in the huddle - to help the people in the huddle perform better when they are on the field.” The Coach, the Lord, brings His people in to give instructions from His play book, the Bible, gives them room to catch their breath and rest from the pressures of the world, and then sends them out armored with His Word to play the game of life. HCF’s theology is summarized by the words of A.W.Tozer in Knowledge of the Holy: “It is vitally important that we hold the truth of God’s infinite wisdom as a tenet of our creed; but this is not enough. We must by the exercise of faith and by prayer bring it into the practical world of our day-to day experience.”

You can learn more about HCF at Heritagefellowship.net.

Barry Shaw writes from the Applegate Valley, Oregon.