Fruit Cove Baptist Church


Pastor Tim's Blog

Fostering Hope Volunteer Interest Form

Fostering Hope Volunteer Interest Form

Please identify your areas of interest for volunteering with Fostering Hope.

Email(Required)
Name(Required)
Member of Fruit Cove Baptist Church?(Required)
Would you like to volunteer on a Family Support Team that serves our church's foster and adoptive families?
If Yes, please check all ways you are interested in serving.
Would you like to volunteer for Fostering Hope Events?
If Yes, please check all events at which you are interested in serving.
Would you like to be included in other volunteer opportunities?
If Yes, please check all opportunities you are interested in.

HRC Volunteer page

Hope Resource Center Volunteer Application

This application is to be completed by anyone who desires to volunteer with the Hope Resource Center, Fruit Cove Baptist Church. Our goal is to provide a safe and secure environment for the children and families we serve.

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About You

Your Name(Required)
Your Address
Your Email Address(Required)
Please choose an option
Availability - check all that apply(Required)
Frequency of Volunteer Time - check all that apply(Required)
Hope Resource Volunteers are required to be background checked. Do you have a background check on file? If not, please complete one and email it to hrc@fruitcove.com or drop off at the church office.(Required)

2024 Mission Trips

2024 Mission Trips

If you would like information on any of our 2024 Mission Trips please select the trip(s) from the list below and a member of our team will be in touch with you.

2024 Mission Trips

If you would like information on any of our 2024 Mission Trips please select the trip(s) from the list below and a member of our team will be in touch with you.

NEW! Hope Resource Center

Big News! We are delighted to announce the grand opening of Fruit Cove’s new Hope Resource Center located on the church campus in one of our newly renovated villas located behind Building B.

The new center originated from the Fostering Hope Diaper & Clothing Closet ministry, which supplies foster and adoptive families with much-needed diapers, clothing, and essentials. What started in a small closet on the third floor of the ROC Building quickly expanded to an offsite storage unit and is now growing into a resource center that will reach more families in need of our support. God is on the move!

The Hope Resource Center will allow families to shop, selecting items their children prefer, giving them choice and dignity.  It will also bring them onto our campus, extending our support past meeting tangible needs to offering conversation and encouragement. We have an excellent opportunity to share the love and hope we have in Jesus and introduce them to other programs on campus.

Please join us on July 16th as we celebrate what God started as a Fostering Hope ministry but is now expanding to serve all vulnerable families in our community!

  1. Open House, 12:15 – 1 pm – We invite our church family to drop in and tour the new Hope Resource Center and learn how to get involved. There will be an official ribbon-cutting ceremony to commemorate the day!
  2. Grand Opening Event, 2- 4 pm @ Parking Lot A & B – For foster and adoptive families, agencies, and community partners to tour the new Hope Resource Center and celebrate with us! Bounce houses, Kona Ice, face painting, games, and more! Register for the grand opening event HERE.

Give

Thank you


Thank you for your faithfulness in giving and for supporting the mission and ministries of Fruit Cove Baptist Church.

Giving is a vital part of the Christian walk and a tangible expression of our worship, obedience, and faith. We offer both in-person and online options for giving:

  • In-Person

Offering envelopes are available in the Worship Center and in Building A. Drop boxes are also located in the foyers of the Worship Center and Building A, as well as in the Fruit Cove Kids building and in the ROC by the elevators.

  • Online

Please click HERE to give online. There are options for one-time and reoccurring giving. For regular tithes and all undesignated gifts, please select the “Budget Fund” option. 

If you have any questions, need further information, or would like to request personalized offering envelopes, please contact Michelle Ford in the church office 904-287-0996 or michelle@fruitcove.com.

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Prayer Walk

#LOVEJAX Send Relief Serve Tour, Prayer Walking Jacksonville

The city of Jacksonville has been chosen as one of the Send Relief Serve Tour cities in 2022.  On September 16-17, 2022, hundreds of people will come to Jacksonville to join us in loving and serving our city in the name of Jesus.  This missional experience is the result of a partnership between Send Relief of the North American Mission Board, Love Jax of First Coast Churches, and the Florida Baptist Convention.  We have the unique opportunity to partner with First Coast Churches in Prayer Walking communities and streets within the 295 Loop, in preparation for this special event.  For the next few Sundays, there will be a table in the Pavilion with more information.  You will have the opportunity to sign up to prayer walk an area of Jacksonville, within our church’s zones, inside the I-295 loop.

You can recruit a team or prayer walk as a family.  You can walk, ride, bike these areas.  Get creative! If you want to participate but are unable to pray on-site, you can pray from your home for specified areas.  We highly encourage you to do the prayer walking if you are able.  When you sign up, you will receive an email with important information in preparation for your prayer walk.  If you miss signing up in the Pavilion, just email april@fruitcove.com for information!  

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LOVEjax100 is designed to promote prayer walking as a positive and powerful step into the First Coast mission field. The challenge to  prayer walk 100 miles that is being promoted in conjunction with the LOVEjax Send Relief Tour scheduled for Jacksonville, September 16-17, 2022. We are making intercession on location as we pray in the streets asking God to move in the homes, schools, businesses, and recreational facilities in our neighborhoods.  Are you up to the challenge of doing 100 miles?  Click below to read more about how you can Prayer Walk your 100 miles!

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A Statement Concerning the Supreme Court’s Decision

As a church family, Fruit Cove Baptist Church rejoices with and affirms the Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe vs Wade.  This decision has long been prayed for and we rejoice in the decision that now outlaws the taking of preborn life in the United States.  The impact of this decision will be felt for years to come.  It is a needed course-correction in the moral fabric of our nation.

But the battle has only begun.  Many will push back, some with violence, against this decision.  It is not our place to meet violence with violence but instead with prayer.

Fruit Cove Baptist Church is strongly pro-life.  We not only support the effort of opposing abortion on demand but we also stand supporting mothers who chose to carry their children to term…and to minister with grace to those who do not.

At Fruit Cove adoption is a high value.  We support adoptive families and those ministries that aid in helping adoption take place.

Our Fostering Hope ministry is one of the largest ministries of its kind in our area, supporting families who choose to foster children.

Embracing Grace is a new ministry that allows us to walk with pregnant Moms who have no partner or family support network.

All of these ministries of FCBC are responses to our pro-life views.  It’s easy to oppose a position but much more costly to support those affected by that opposition.  We oppose abortion. But more than that we support the mothers and children who are impacted by our position.

Please join us…both in celebration of this historic ruling, but now more than ever…let’s show the world what a true pro-life and pro-family position look like!

We Are At War

WE ARE AT WAR

Ephesians 6:10-20

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. (Lewis, The Screwtape Letters)

My hope in this series is that we will come away reminded that spiritual conflict in our life on this earth is real. This world is a battlefield. It is a war taking place in an unseen realm, but the effects are being lived out through your life on earth. And in reality, it’s intensifying.  Some of us are completely unaware that such a war is taking place. Some Christians live in denial about this and some live in unconscious disbelief.

I certainly do not want to move us into an unhealthy obsession over the devil and demons. Let’s be real.  We can’t blame they demonic for everything that goes wrong in our life.  Demons don’t make your washing machine break down.  But it’s dangerous to go to the other end of the spectrum and deny that the enemy exists.

And if there is a spiritual war, what do you need to know about it? What do you need to do about it?

An old story is told about a farming community in a drought. The churches all came together one Sunday afternoon in a large, sunbaked field for a prayer meeting to ask God for rain.

As the first old preacher got up, he stood in silence on the platform hooked up behind the tractor. Then he said, “I noticed as I came in to begin this prayer meeting asking God for rain that, in all this crowd, that no one brought an umbrella.”

But I wonder, in much the same way, how many of us show up each day expecting, not rain, but a war? Did you bring your armor this morning, your weapons? Are you aware that we have a very real, very dangerous enemy lurking who wants to “steal, kill, and destroy?”  Possibility is, for some of you, he rode to church in your car!

You may have heard that on Wednesday of this week, Russian media declared that we are now in WW 3. According to their media pundits, the war with Ukraine has now grown larger and is now a war with the US, with Britain, and with NATO. WW 3. It’s on!  I would say most of us aren’t worried about it.  It’s not real to you.

In the same way, many Christians live oblivious to our battleground and the existence of our spiritual enemy. As the old hymn by Martin Luther says,

“And still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe
His craft and power are great
And armed with cruel hate
One little word shall fell him.”

You gained a very real enemy when you gave your heart to Jesus. Since he will never regain ownership of your soul, (demons cannot possess a person the Holy Spirit lives in) he seeks to lie, accuse, and torment and defeat those he has lost. He seeks to separate you and isolate you because you really can be manipulated if you aren’t under the covering of a spiritual family.   And he will take you down and discourage or disqualify you if you don’t learn to fight spiritually.

THERE IS A REAL ENEMY

Billy Graham used to tell the story of a boxer getting pounded in the ring by his opponent. When the bell rang, he went into his corner bleeding and bruised, and said “You’ve got to throw in the towel!”  His trainer yelled in his face, “He’s not touching you!  He’s never laid a glove on you!”  But through swollen lips, the boxer said, “Well I wish you’d keep an eye on that referee then, because someone in there is beating me half to death!”

There is a real enemy. He’s not made up, not a fairy tale, not simply a myth or legend.  He’s a real, smart, and powerful being.  The Bible calls him “The Adversary.”  In some places, he’s called “The Accuser.”  And in others, “Apollyon—the Destroyer.”  He hides. He wants you to believe that he’s some old guy in a red onesie with a goatee and horns and a pitchfork.

He has a strategy.

The Bible tells us that our enemy disguises himself, sometimes as “angel of light.”  He can come in religious packaging, be a moral crusader if it furthers his purpose which is to deceive and to hide. But let’s be clear.

The Devil is not equal to God, nor is he omnipresent meaning, he can’t be everywhere at once.  So, there is a hierarchy in this cosmic war…he commands demons.

Jesus confronted him in the wilderness and wrestled with him for 40 days and 40 nights. He resisted him with the Word of God. You will only win as you do the same. Now let me be quick to remind you again the devil is not responsible for every bad thing that happens to you. We have three enemies as believers:  THE WORLD, THE FLESH, and THE DEVIL. (1 John 2:16)

We live in a fallen, broken, sinful world. It’s a perfect environment for the enemy to work in.  One day God is going to end it, but until then we live in an imperfect and broken world.

You live in a fallen, broken, sinful body. “The things I want to do, I don’t do….” Also, a perfect situation for the enemy to work against you. But sometimes the problems you faced aren’t Satanic, they’re just sin.  They come because we live in a world that is yet to be transformed by the resurrection of Jesus. The same with your body. So, let’s not give the devil more than his due.  He’s not orchestrating every bad situation.  We sometimes suffer from self-inflicted wounds.

But let’s remember we have a very real enemy working against us, who has come to “steal kill and destroy.”  Jesus said, “Satan was a murderer from the beginning.”  The first sins committed by humanity were instigated by this enemy.

THERE IS A RELIABLE STRATEGY

Our warfare is not against flesh and blood…. you know what that means?  That means that the person you’re mad at this morning…the individual that frustrates you continually…the person that is making your life miserable right now…THEY ARE NOT THE ENEMY!  Our warfare is not with flesh and blood. Stop hating on people!

Now people can be pawns to the enemy if they are unaware of what this tells us today. And Satan can use any person…the person closest to you sometimes…to speak lies into your life; to keep your focus off the Lord and His purposes (get behind Me Satan).

He does this to keep you angry, and unforgiving, and depressed. The demonic realm needs a physical body to work through. We are told that Satan used a serpent in the Garden of Eden. He needs the cooperation of a person who is not aware of his devices:   DON’T BE IGNORANT of his “methodia.”  Don’t let him use you.  He can do nothing to you that you don’t give him permission to do!

We win spiritual battles with spiritual weapons. We are to live armed with the full armor of God. We can choose to access this armor or go into the battle without a helmet to protect us or a weapon to wield. We can walk barefoot onto the battlefield, or without covering for our chest.

So, what are we supposed to do? There are six weapons, each of them to be energized with prayer. Six weapons:  Two groups of three—

  • Having…Wear these all the time
  • Taking… Pick them up as you need them    (Tony Evans, Victory)

But God has given us armor…He has supplied us with weapons. But He won’t dress us!   Parents may I make an urgent suggestion? Instead of worrying about your children, dress them before they leave home. Pray the spiritual armor over them…as they leave the house, or your car, or as they are stepping on the school bus. Pray the spiritual armor over your children before they go out on dates, or as they are stepping onto a college campus for the first time.

2 Corinthians 10 reminds us that many of the battles we fight take place in our minds:

  1. When we believe the enemy’s lies
  2. When we surrender to the threat of fear
  3. When we yield to the pressure of temptations
  4. When we fight people as though they are the enemy
  5. When we are dealing with depression
  6. When we are struggling with our temper
  7. When we are gripped by addiction

Satan operates in the spiritual realm.

Everything that occurs in the visible, physical world is directly connected to the wrestling match being waged in the invisible, spiritual world. “The effects of the war going on in the unseen world reveal themselves in our strained and damaged relationships, emotional instability, mental fatigue, physical exhaustion and many other areas of life. Many of us feel pinned down by anger, unforgiveness, pride, comparisons, insecurity, discord, fear. . . and the list goes on. But the overarching, primary nemesis behind all these outcomes is the Devil himself.” (Shirer)

We don’t fight people.  People are not the enemy. That’s the lie the devil wants you to believe.  If you can just destroy that person that you are continually angry with, leave your spouse, quit your job, your life would improve. That’s the lie we must reject.  Our warfare is not with flesh and blood.

THERE IS A REMARKABLE STRENGTH

The enemy wants to destroy you because of the presence of Jesus Christ in you, but “greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world!”

The war we fight is not our battle…it is not our fight. It is not by power; it is not by might but by My Spirit says the Lord.

Our strength is not in our own might. It is there when we learn how to get out of the way and let God fight the battle through us!

You see, we work from a position of a victory that has already been won! The cross, the death, the resurrection of Jesus secured our victory. So, we need to learn to live out the victory that God has already won for us through the blood of the cross and Jesus’ victory over the grave.


(Resources:  Kent Hughes Commentary on Ephesians; John Stott The Bible Speaks Today; Tony Evans; Priscilla Shirer; Ray Stedman, Spiritual Warfare; Chip Ingram, The Invisible War; CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters; Billy Graham)

Caregiver’s Seminar

We are excited to present Caregivers’ Conference

Registration is now full!

This seminar will be presented on Saturday, January 21, from 9am-2pm.

  • Registration cost is $10/person and available online only.
  • Check-in will be from start at 8:30.
  • Seating is limited!  We will not be able to accommodate walk-ins.

The conference will include professionals from legal counsel, Alzheimer’s Association, and Hospice.  There will be Q&A (question and answer) sessions during the presentations so bring your questions with you.  A light lunch will be provided to include a vegetarian option.

Registration is available until Monday, January 16. 

Parking at the Cove is very limited.  We will be providing golf-cart shuttle from the church parking lot to the conference in the Cove.  Coffee will be provided during check-in.  Registration and payment are only available online.

We look forward to bringing you some of the information you need for you and your loved ones. 

We’ll see you there!

For more info: email Judy Wilder, Caregivers Support Group Leader, bugnfl@gmail.com

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