Fellowship of Faith gathers on 6120 Mason Hill Road, on the edge of McHenry in McHenry County, in northern Illinois. The congregation began in 1999 as a dream by a small group who wanted to follow Jesus together in their corner of the world, and it has grown to a Sunday attendance approaching 400. Casual in dress, modern in style, and packed with children, Fellowship of Faith (or FOF, as members call it) describes itself in three words: casual, modern, and kid-friendly. It is a member congregation of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, with the Northern Illinois District serving as its regional body. Because the church has outgrown its current building, leadership has launched Mission 247, a facility expansion project drawn from Acts 2:47: "The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."
Sunday Mornings on Mason Hill Road
Fellowship of Faith holds two identical Sunday worship services at 8:30 AM and 10:30 AM, both of which are livestreamed on FOF LIVE. The live feed opens about ten minutes before the music begins, with a pre-game show at 8:25 and 10:25 AM. Each service runs roughly 60 to 70 minutes and includes a worship band, contemporary songs, multimedia projection and lighting, prayer, a teaching from Senior Pastor David Gaddini, and communion on most weeks. Past teaching series on the sermon podcast reach back to 2011 and walk through books of the Bible, doctrinal topics, and the Christian life.
Both services offer care for the youngest children: infants through age five can be checked into the Rock during worship. School-aged kids and visiting families are welcome to stay in the service, and activity bags can be picked up at the Rock Check-In. The dress code is "come as you are," whether that means jeans, a sweatshirt, or Sunday best. Visitors arriving on campus are greeted at the Connect Center just inside the main doors, and hosts with lanyards can be found throughout the building to answer questions. The church also maintains "living rooms" in the back with comfortable chairs for parents who need a bit of quiet with younger kids and infants.
Between the two services, from 9:45 to 10:15 AM, three programs for every age meet at the same time, with doors opening at 9:30 AM. The Rock runs children's ministry for infants through fifth grade in the back of the coffeehouse, beneath the big Rock Kids sign. Boulder AM meets alongside for sixth through twelfth graders, who gather near the fireplace. Foundations, an adult Bible-study class led by Pastor Dave, gathers in the sanctuary and explores the basic teachings and practices of following Jesus, with childcare available on request.
The Rock and Boulder: From Infants Through High School
The Rock, Fellowship of Faith's children's ministry for infants through fifth grade, is built around the conviction that "kids matter to God." Each week the team creates a sensory-friendly, age-appropriate environment where children encounter Jesus through story, music, hands-on activities, and prayer. The teaching is interactive and uses multiple approaches for different learning styles, and the curriculum cycles through both the Old and New Testaments over a three-year span so children hear from all parts of the Bible.
Safety is taken seriously. Every adult volunteer is screened with a background check, and more than twenty volunteers help teach and engage every child who comes through the doors. Parents can sign kids in and out through a monitored check-in area. Take-home cards, do-at-home projects, and weekly videos extend the lessons into the family week, with a dedicated YouTube channel, an e-news, the Parent Cue app, and a parents-only Facebook page.
Boulder, the church's student ministry for sixth through twelfth graders, meets in three rhythms during the school year. Boulder AM runs Sundays at 9:45 AM, using engaging BibleProject videos and Scripture to walk students through foundational topics like the Ten Commandments. Boulder Midweek meets Wednesdays from 6 to 7 PM, working through the New Testament with short Heyo Jesus videos and discussion. Boulder PM gathers Sunday nights from 5 to 8 PM, beginning with one-to-one mentorship at 5 PM, dinner at 6 PM, and large-group teaching from 6:30 to 8 PM. The meals feed a crowd every week; donations to help offset Boulder food costs are accepted online. NextGen Director Gwen Johnson oversees both the Rock and Boulder, and the dual focus is summed up by the church: "help your kids meet Jesus as kids" and "help students find their place in this world as key people in the church of today."
Wednesday Nights: Dinner, Discipleship, and a Broom Closet Bible Study
More than 100 people gather at Fellowship of Faith on Wednesday evenings. Dinner is served in the coffeehouse from 5 to 6 PM, and small groups and age-level ministries run from 6 to 7 PM. The Rock offers children's ministry for infants through fifth grade. Boulder Midweek runs its student Bible study. Among the adult Wednesday-night groups are Women and Prayer, a women's group exploring different ways to pray and learning new strategies for talking with God; Men Living Psalm 119, a ten-week video series by Matt Chandler on the power of God's word for men; Romans, a walk through Romans 1 to 7 using a JD Greear video series; and the now-famous Broom Closet Bible Study with Pastor Dave.
The Broom Closet Bible Study, born out of the church's space crunch, meets each Wednesday in a small MEC room. Each session is a stand-alone conversation on a passage picked by Pastor Dave or the group. The name has stuck because it illustrates what is happening across the church: Fellowship of Faith has literally outgrown its building, and that pressure is part of what drove the Mission 247 expansion campaign. Childcare is available for many of these groups, and the weekly dinner turns an ordinary midweek into a family-style gathering.
Twenty Groups and Counting
Small groups are a major pillar at FOF, and the church lists more than twenty active groups meeting across McHenry and the surrounding area, in homes, at restaurants, and on campus. Groups run every day of the week and are designed for both relational and spiritual growth. Many offer childcare on request, and all are open to newcomers.
Sample groups include: Young Adults (Tuesdays at 6:30 PM, for ages 18 to 29 and out of high school, with dinner and regular events); Vertical Marriage (every other Thursday at 6:30 PM at a home in McHenry, for couples at any stage, childcare on request); Faith, Hope, and Love Bible Study (Mondays at 7 PM, walking through 1 Corinthians 13); Fellowship in the Word (Mondays at 1:30 PM, a Bible study on Genesis for seniors with coffee and dessert); Duct Tape Disciples (Tuesdays at 6:30 PM, a brotherhood of men pursuing Jesus together); Single Senior Discipleship (monthly on Tuesdays at 11 AM, for widowed, divorced, or single women); and Power Up, Pray it Up (Tuesdays at 7:15 PM, a full-body strength workout followed by prayer and fellowship for women).
Men's ministry also extends into the week through Men in the Word, a daily Bible-reading rhythm of three to four chapters with weekly text check-ins and monthly meet-ups. Women's ministry includes the Wednesday-night Women and Prayer group. Family and couples ministry is anchored by Vertical Marriage. For seniors, Fellowship in the Word and the Single Senior Discipleship group fill out the offerings. Many groups publish their own contact and a registration link; new attendees are encouraged simply to show up.
Care Ministries: Deaconess, Parish Nurse, and a Care Team
A dedicated Care Team at FOF supports people during major life events, ongoing challenges, and personal crises. Team members make pick-me-up calls and texts, visit shut-ins, deliver meals to new mothers, and send hand-written sympathy cards when a loved one has died. Elder ministry and a prayer team supplement this work: anyone with a prayer request can submit it, and an elder will follow up.
Sally Roth serves as the church's deaconess intern. She is completing a four-year program remotely through Concordia Seminary in St. Louis while serving as an elder and an active partner in FOF's spiritual life and ministries, particularly in one-to-one prayer and discipleship contexts. Mariann Hisel, the parish nurse, brings more than thirty-eight years of clinical experience as a registered nurse and a doctorate in organizational development and leadership to the Health and Wellness ministry. She coordinates Nourish for Caregivers, a monthly gathering for those supporting loved ones, plus monthly blood-pressure screenings on the first Sunday of each month, and broader wellness initiatives that connect the FOF community with local health resources.
Mondays at Celebrate Recovery
Mondays at 7 PM are set aside for Celebrate Recovery, a Christ-centered program designed to help people find healing from hurts, hang-ups, and habits. The night begins with worship and teaching at 7 PM, followed by open-share small groups at 8 PM. Open-share groups at FOF address chemical dependency, co-dependency, sexual addiction, food and body image issues, freedom from anger, gambling, love and relationship addiction, and physical, emotional, or sexual abuse for women. There is no official start or end date, and newcomers are welcome any week. Each small group has a leader who has walked a similar path and who facilitates discussion around a particular step, and an accountability partner or sponsor is available for those who want one.
Locally and Globally: Mission Partners and MissionGo
Beyond Sunday mornings, FOF runs a mercy-based outreach called MissionGo. Members serve locally through projects like Adopt-a-Highway clean-ups on Crystal Lake Road between Mason Hill and Bull Valley Roads (twice a year, Saturday mornings at 9 AM); Habitat for Humanity builds in McHenry (second Saturdays from 8 AM to 3 PM); and Veteran's Dinners in partnership with Veterans Path to Hope, which supports veterans in McHenry County with meals prepared at home and delivered to a Crystal Lake location. MissionGo is led by coordinator Bob Marckese.
Fellowship of Faith also keeps its eye on the wider world through ten mission partners, including:
- 1st Way Life Center in Johnsburg, a pregnancy resource center serving women in crisis with confidential services, maternity and baby clothes, parenting support, and a Moms group.
- Firm Base, a McHenry and Lake County ministry that helps homeowners with repairs they cannot afford or do not know how to fix.
- Good Samaritan Ministries, a Christian community center serving Washington Park in East St. Louis with education, children's ministry, basic services, and homeless housing.
- Salam Christian Fellowship, a DuPage County ministry reaching Muslims and Middle Eastern immigrants in the Chicagoland area with word and sacrament ministry.
- Sparkplug Ministries, a Crystal Lake outreach to motorcycle clubs with the gospel, plus clean-water initiatives in Europe and Pakistan.
- Compassion India Outreach, supporting local Indian pastors planting churches in the unreached villages of West Bengal, India, and Nepal.
- The Hope Center in Uganda, which rescues and rehabilitates abused, abandoned, and orphaned children.
- One Collective in Athens, working with refugees from the Middle East and supporting Henk and Allison Oosterhuis with teen and young adult ministry.
- One Day Revival in Honduras, mentoring young people away from gangs and toward Christ, with mission trips typically each September.
- Operation Christmas Child, distributing shoebox gifts worldwide through Samaritan's Purse.
What FOF Believes
Fellowship of Faith holds to one divine being eternally existing in three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - who created and preserves all things and is moving through history to redeem and restore. The church teaches that sin has broken the world and that we cannot earn our way back to God; salvation is wholly the work of God through Jesus Christ, who took on flesh, died on a cross for us, rose on the third day, ascended into heaven, and will return again to judge the living and the dead. Those in Christ are promised eternal life in communion with God; those who continue to reject God's salvation face separation from him.
The church holds the Bible to be the true and inspired word of God, without error in the original manuscripts, and the authoritative source for faith and life. As a member congregation of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, FOF affirms the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, along with the writings in the Book of Concord, as accurate summaries of biblical teaching and faithful guides for doctrine and practice. The Book of Concord is described as a collection of documents put together by the sixteenth-century evangelical reformers to express the gospel and other pertinent teachings of the Bible in greater clarity.
The church teaches that all who come to faith in Christ are a new creation and that the Spirit is at work making them more like Jesus. The church is not a building but a community of Jesus followers gathered in his name, part of a greater people of God that transcends time, place, and culture. Christians are called to "make disciples who make disciples" - to pour into others as they have been poured into, creating an endless stream of disciples until Christ comes again.
Building Room for the Harvest: Mission 247
Because Sunday attendance has climbed close to 400, FOF is well past what its current footprint can hold. Two Sunday services have not solved the problem: the sanctuary is full, and there is no room for an expanded coffeehouse, additional NextGen space, or the storage the ministries need. The answer is Mission 247, a $5.9 million facility expansion campaign named for Acts 2:47. The new construction includes a 660-seat worship space with a mezzanine, a sensory room, more parking, an expanded coffeehouse and catering kitchen, more bathrooms, dedicated NextGen space, production rooms, and AVL infrastructure. The current sanctuary will be retrofitted into additional fellowship space. The project is financed in part through the Lutheran Church Extension Fund, the LCMS's lending ministry.
FOF is paying for this with the gifts of its own attenders. As of the most recent update, just under $3.8 million has been pledged, with more than $2.5 million already raised; the rest is expected from additional pledges and an estimated $2 million LCEF loan. FOF members are also encouraged to give of their hands: painting, demolition, landscaping, light carpentry, plumbing, and other sweat-equity projects could save the project well into six figures. Gifts can be made online, by texting GIVE to a short number, by check, by securities transfer, by automatic bank debit, by Qualified Charitable Deduction, or through Thrivent Choice Dollars. The campaign runs through December 2027, and every gift, whether $100, $1,000, or much more, moves the project forward.
Visiting Fellowship of Faith
Sunday morning services are at 8:30 AM and 10:30 AM at 6120 Mason Hill Road in McHenry. Services are identical and last roughly an hour to an hour and ten minutes. Dress is casual. Children's ministry for infants through age five runs during both services; nursery through fifth grade meets between services at 9:45 AM. Online viewers can join either service on FOF LIVE, with the live feed opening ten minutes before the music starts.
Weekly small groups run every day of the week and are open to newcomers. Wednesday-night ministries include dinner, children's programming, student study, and multiple adult groups. Celebrate Recovery gathers Mondays at 7 PM. The Care Team and elders receive prayer requests any time. Anyone interested in serving can take a short online survey to be matched with an opportunity, from coffee-bar service and hospitality to worship production, NextGen volunteerism, and Mission 247 sweat equity.
Senior Pastor David Gaddini oversees preaching, vision, and staff leadership and is usually available at the Connect Center after services. Worship is led by Worship Director Steve Wells, who joined the team in 2019. Children's, student, and parish ministries are coordinated by NextGen Director Gwen Johnson, Missional Pastor Todd Wielgos, Deaconess Intern Sally Roth, and Parish Nurse Mariann Hisel. Hospitality is led by Bill Tranchita. Together they make up a team whose work is summed up by the church's own tagline: seeking to be disciples of Jesus today.