about | marketplacefc

MFC
Marketplace Fellowship Cathedral
“Transforming Lives Through Faith & Purpose”

Our Theme:
“More than just another Church”

Marketplace Fellowship Cathedral MFC proclaims the good news of Jesus Christ within the city of Baltimore by using creative Evangelism and Ministry, imaginative Fellowship opportunities, Discipleship and inspired Worship.
Our Goal:

We will go into our target communities and use different modalities to share and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ so that people will have opportunity to experience and restore a new life in Christ in Jesus. We will do this by focusing on the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, following Kingdom principles centered on prayer and relationships.

Our Purpose:
MFC exists to glorify God. Our primary goal is to expose people of all races and backgrounds to the Love of God, offered through his son Jesus Christ through our outreach ministries.
While our Church and its ministries is open to all, our outreach efforts are primarily focused on the people who suffer due to poverty and those who have not yet found a church home in the city of Baltimore.
God has called MFC to be a resource that directs people to the Source, Jesus Christ. We will as 1 Corinthians 9:19 suggests (become all things to all people) by continuing to seek to understand and meet the needs of the general population of Baltimore’s inner city families.

Our Values:
MFC strives to be God’s platform – one of His delivery points for accomplishing our purpose as outlined above. We value: Biblical concepts and teachings about love; the importance of a relationship with Jesus Christ and with each other; hope; the ever present gift of God’s forgiveness; outreach ministries; redemption; and revival. We know that to reach our target communities, we will need to share God’s message using the diversity within the various cultures and languages of the city making sure to use strategies that are most efficient in reaching and maintaining the interests of those we seek to serve. Simply put: “Our job is to love people where we find them. God’s job is to change them.”

Our Vision:

"Transforming Lives through Faith & Purpose”.

Our goal is to become a cutting-edge community-focused church & ministry that reaches others by leading them to experience a new life in Christ. This new life will be the stepping-stone in supplementing the process necessary for accomplishing their life goals within the context of their newfound faith.

We will do this through inspiring worship services, effective outreach and fellowship opportunities and sincere relationship building activities.

We will work toward becoming a church with a membership that encompasses 100 inner city families that will be nurtured to become actively engaged in ministry to one another and active towards seeking out other families within the community.

“Our vision is to have a church family that sees the individual’s life goals achieved through the incorporation of the scriptural truth: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Progress Of The Church:

MFC was formed in 2016 as the result of a merger between Sanctuary Church and New Dimensions Church & Ministries. Apostolic Covering and Spiritual Father Apostle Stanley M. Butler and his spiritual son J. Orlando Gardner join forces to further the mission of our governing body (Marketplace Fellowship and Churches). We stand in the front lines of the Baltimore city communities providing ministries that meet social and economic needs of the less fortunate and imparvished. We are attempting to share Christ and meet the needs within our immediate community. We are currently operating at 802 N. Fulton Ave. Baltimore, MD 21217 with plans to build and move into our new location move in date of 03/28/2021. We believe God is going to provide exactly what we need as we are open to his will. We have found our new community to have a large number of multicultural unsaved residents as well as Christians that do not currently have a church home. We feel God has placed us in that community to fulfill our vision & mission statements effectively.

We currently have 10 core families represented and several members who currently attend without family presence. We are a growing body excited about the life changing power of God. We will continue to reach out to those in this area and other areas in Baltimore City that meet the criteria of our mission and goal.

We are a “widow’s mite” church; grateful to receive whatever we receive from those who give each week. Our church community strives to be there for each other. However, most of our population resides in what can only be defined as a poor inner city community. (ground zero of the Freddie Gray riots in 2015)

During the year of 2016 -2017, we plan to begin the training of teachers and leaders from among our members to help further our evangelistic outreach. To the exception of Bishop Gardner, most of the church family does not possess evangelistic and/our biblical training.

Our situation has compelled us to use innovative strategies to accomplish what we have so far. We have had persons accept Christ and we have a number of people who we have baptized in Gunpowder State Park in years past. However, we have been unable to do so consistently during our growth period. Our strategies are simple, designed for extremely limited resources, and focused on the long term.

Our experience during the last several months has demonstrated that we can reach a large number of people but because of our limited resources, we are seeking more ways to grow while we develop the body.

We have previously been active in creating an annual Christmas Drive, Back to School Drive, as well as a soup kitchen to feed the Homeless and less fortunate at several different times during the year. Our prayer is that our outreach and evangelism endeavors can become more consistent. We are becoming heavily involved in the West Baltimore Community and Pastor Gardner is now seeking new partners for more opportunities for the ministry to serve this area.

We are currently developing a 2016 strategy. We hope to sponsor a VBS, utilize mission teams to assist with outreach and evangelism, block parties and other events.

Forecast of active and planned ministry opportunities

In time, we would love to:
• Open a transitional housing for men and women being released from prison
• Run and operate transitional safe house to assist homeless brothers and sisters as they restart their lives in faith
• Run G.E. D. training program,
• Provide employment assistance; resume writing, and interview skills workshops
• Continue to be a site for Process & Promise Recovery Ministry: a Christ based program to help brothers and sisters bound by substance abuse or any addiction.
• Revamp our Beyond the Bars prison ministry geared towards pre-release inmates. We will make contact share Christ and help in the transition while providing opportunities for worship.
• Restart a MFC school adoption initiative: we would like to adopt a school to assist with the needs of less fortunate students. We pray to enhance the kids’ school experience by providing uniforms and school supplies to as many impoverished children as possible.
• Support our Meet the needs social resource Ministry. We actively look for people in our adopted communities with need that we can meet or find resources to meet.
• Maintain My Sisters’ Keeper : a women’s ministry geared toward women helping women through sharing and fellowship.
• Continue with the Earth to Glory Media: a media ministry that insures that the gospel is spread, that outreach can be seen in action, and that those who are computer illiterate get the training needed to be effective in society while modernly making new disciples.