On Orchard Lake Road in Farmington Hills
Faith Bible Church meets at 23414 Orchard Lake Road on the east side of Farmington Hills, in a stretch of Oakland County that mixes residential streets with small businesses and easy access to the freeways that fan out toward Detroit and the western suburbs. From this setting the church holds a single gathering each week, and its leaders sum up its identity with two simple statements. The first is descriptive: Faith Bible Church is "a small local church" that "strives to be passionate and real about our faith." The second is its mission: "Faith Bible Church exists to influence people to worship God in Spirit-led community as disciple-making disciples of Jesus Christ."
That mission has shaped the life of the congregation for more than three decades. Faith Bible Church traces its roots to 1990, when a small group of believers established the work and a slate of founding elders began to shepherd it. Senior Pastor Scott Mikel joined the church family in 2012 to shepherd the church toward "faith working through love" for the good of the surrounding community and the honor of the Creator God. The arrangement the church has settled into over time is straightforward and biblical in feel: a teaching pastor supported by a team of elders, with the larger body of believers gathering each Sunday around the Word and around one another.
Sundays at 10:30
Sunday worship begins at 10:30 AM and runs for about an hour. Three words summarize the gathering: worshipping, praying, teaching. The congregation invites everyone who walks through the door. There is no published dress code and no expectation about who should attend or what visitors should wear; the church consistently welcomes its neighbors to come as they are and find a place to belong.
The heartbeat of the gathering is the preaching of the Word. Most weeks find the pastor working through a book of the Bible verse by verse, with congregational worship and prayer woven around the sermon. After the service the building clears out and the week begins. Online giving is available for those who want to support the work from anywhere, and visitors who want to talk more can do so through the church's contact form, phone line, or email inbox.
What Faith Bible Church Believes
The confession of Faith Bible Church is laid out in a statement of core beliefs that runs from the nature of Scripture to the reality of eternity. The church states these convictions in its own words, with the Bible as the anchoring authority for each one.
- The Bible. The sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments are God's revealed Word to mankind. They were written by human authors under the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit. Because the Bible is fully inspired by God, it is "the truth without error in the original text" and serves as the supreme and final authority in all matters about which it speaks.
- God. God is the Creator and ruler of the universe. He eternally exists in three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - who are co-equal and one God, even as they carry different roles, functions, and works.
- Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the one and only eternal Son of God. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, and lived a sinless human life as both fully God and fully man. He gave Himself to die on the cross as the substitute for sinners, rose physically from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and now ministers as the Head of His body, the Church. He is preparing a place for His own and will return to the earth in power and glory.
- The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is present in the world today to make people aware of their need for Jesus Christ, to perform the miracle of new birth, and to come to live in every Christian the moment they trust in Jesus Christ as Savior. He provides the Christian with power for living and service, the understanding of spiritual truth, comfort in life's trials, guidance in choosing and doing what is right, and gifts which are for the building up of other believers.
- Human Beings. Human beings are divinely created by God in His image. Human life begins at conception and every moment of every human life is precious to God. God created male and female and ordained marriage to be between one man and one woman; the intimacy of a sexual relationship is to occur only within the context of biblically defined marriage. All human beings have fallen under the curse of sin through Adam and are guilty before God, unable to reconcile with Him by their own effort, and deserving of physical and spiritual death and separation from God forever.
- Salvation. The sins of the world were put on Jesus when He died as our substitute, and He willingly paid the price for our freedom from sin. When a person, by faith, puts their trust in Jesus Christ and His work, repenting of their sins and acknowledging Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, at that moment they are saved.
- The Church. The Church is the family of God and the body of Christ. It was created by God to show His glory on the earth by reaching out to people who do not know Him, lifting up worship to Him, loving each other as His family, growing in maturity to be like Christ, and serving others in His name. The Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts for ministry in the church, equipping believers for work in His service. The church administers believers' baptism and celebrates the Lord's Supper, also called Communion, until Christ returns.
- Eternity. Heaven and hell are real places of eternal existence. People were originally created by God to exist forever, but the reality of sin changed that. All human beings will be physically resurrected from death and will either exist eternally separated from God in hell because of their sin, or eternally with God through forgiveness and salvation.
Pastors and Elders Who Shepherd the Flock
Three men shepherd Faith Bible Church together.
Scott Mikel serves as Senior Pastor. He began pastoring Faith Bible Church in 2012 with the goal of "faith working through love" for the good of the community and the honor of God. Scott earned his Master of Divinity in 1998, began following Jesus at a young age, and has served in pastoral roles since 1995. He and his wife Kelly were married in 1996, and together they have four children and now the great joy of being grandparents. Scott's outlook is captured in a line he often returns to: because of the power of the risen Lord Jesus, "the best is yet to come." He continues to influence people to embrace the truth of God's Word and the grace of God's heart as faithful followers of God's Son. Scott's preaching voice is plainly verse by verse. Most of the church's audio archive is laid out by book, and the refrain "the best is yet to come" has become something of an anchor for the church family.
Michael "Mike" Adams is a founding elder, having joined Faith Bible Church at its beginning in 1990. He oversees the church's Financial Team as Treasurer and leads the church family with the conviction that "it's all about God's glory, not our comfort." Mike holds degrees in Criminal Justice and Educational Leadership. After a 28-year career with the Detroit Police Department, he retired as a Lieutenant and now owns and operates a home remodeling business. He has also enjoyed several trips to Israel, deepening his love for the land of the Bible.
Pierre Maceno joined the Elder Team and now shares the shepherding of the church. Born in Haiti into a pastor's home, Pierre came to trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior at a young age. He lived in Montreal and Paris before meeting Sherri in Ontario, Canada. They were married in 2005 at Jarvis Street Baptist Church in Toronto, and together they have four children. By trade, Pierre works in research and development for a medical device company. He continues a lifetime of studying and ministering God's Word for the building of Christ's church among neighbors and nations.
Books of the Bible, Week After Week
The teaching ministry at Faith Bible Church is built around expository series that walk through books of the Bible one at a time, often for many months and sometimes years at a stretch. The largest collection in the church's audio archive is the Gospel of Luke, with forty messages walking through the text verse by verse. Behind it come the shorter letters of John - labeled in the archive as "John's Dear Letters" - with twenty-one messages, a seventeen-message walk through Genesis, nineteen sermons in Colossians, thirteen in 2 Timothy, ten in Isaiah, eight in 2 Peter, and five in Jonah. Other series include a thread on the Book of Hebrews, focused passages through 2 Kings, a thoughtful walk through Psalm, a series through Exodus, and a careful study of Revelation.
Alongside the book-by-book preaching, the church has also kept a parallel shelf of "Independent" sermons drawn from various books and topics. Topic tags applied across the archive give a picture of what Faith Bible Church chooses to dwell on: endurance of faith, perseverance in suffering, honesty and confession, the practice of forgiveness, the pursuit of justice, the meaning of praise and worship, the call to service, the shape of the Christian as a new creation, the persistence of prayer, and the theology of Scripture itself. A teaching thread called Home Remodeled has focused on marriage and family life through passages such as Ephesians 5:25-27, exploring God's design for the marriage relationship. Another recurring thread has examined the meaning of church membership in messages titled "Church: What's the Big Deal About Belonging?" Every sermon is recorded and uploaded as an audio file and can be streamed or downloaded from the church's audio archive, which now reaches back several years.
Pastor Scott Mikel is the primary preaching voice, with more than one hundred sixty archived messages to his name. Pierre Maceno contributes his own line of preaching on books such as Genesis, 2 Kings, Hebrews, Revelation, Psalm, and Exodus, and he occasionally preaches alongside the senior pastor for services such as Christmas Eve. Other teaching voices that have been heard in the pulpit at Faith Bible Church include Mike Adams with seven archived messages, Matthew Neal with four, Matthew Lougheed with three, and Todd Kelly with one - a guest whose message on Psalm introduced the church to the work of Training Leaders International.
Scrip and Missionary Support
Faith Bible Church participates in a stewardship program called Scrip through the Great Lakes Scrip Center, a long-standing gift card service that works with churches and non-profit organizations across the region. The way Scrip works is simple: families purchase gift cards and certificates for purchases they are already planning to make - groceries, gas, most major retailers - and a pre-designated percentage of every purchase is returned to the church. Faith Bible Church describes the program as wise biblical stewardship rather than extra spending. In managing the financial resources God has given, it can be wise stewardship to use Scrip cards for purchases the family would make anyway, with the rebate quietly supporting the mission of the local church.
Scrip can be ordered online through the Great Lakes Scrip Center, or it can be requested through an order form at the church and picked up within a few days through the Scrip coordinator. Faith Bible Church has traditionally directed Scrip proceeds to support missionary projects and endeavors connected to its ministry, making the program both a budgeting tool for local families and a means of extending the church's gospel influence beyond Farmington Hills.
Visiting Faith Bible Church
Faith Bible Church meets at 23414 Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills, MI 48336. The phone line is 248.426.0096 and the general inbox is info@fbcfarmington.org. Sunday worship begins at 10:30 AM and lasts about an hour. Worship, prayer, and Bible teaching form the heart of the gathering, and visitors are warmly welcomed. Online giving is available through a secure portal linked from the church's home page. The sermon archive is the easiest way to sample the church's teaching before a visit, with audio going back several years across series in Luke, Genesis, Colossians, the shorter letters of John, and more.