We come alongside several pastors as they plant churches and grow ministries in cities around the world. Through building deep relationships, mentoring, networking, and financial commitments, we are privileged to support growing these leaders and the local church in these strategic cities.
Click and drag below to view all of our Global City Churches.
Daniel Escobar is Fairfax’s Director of Latin America and leader of the La Red Network. He planted two Latino churches in the Washington D.C. area, and is now living in Williamsburg, VA with his wife and children after spending a year in Buenos Aires, Argentina to invest in and raise up leadership for a new church plant called HUMAN Church. God has continued to multiply these efforts, leading to a second church plant in Buenos Aires and one in Guatemala City. Through La Red, God is at work in 4 countries, 15 churches, and over 2,000 individual lives – the kingdom of God is expanding in these areas!
Juan Santos is the senior pastor of Iglesia Accion Misionera, Los Palamares in the Dominican Republic. This was the first church we helped to plant over 20 years ago and this church has now helped to plant 17 churches throughout the Dominican Republic. Juan and his leadership team have been focused on multiplying the church in various areas and developing leaders and have seen much fruit over the years. Focused on the next generation, Juan lives in Santo Domingo with his wife Miriam and their grown son where they continue to grow the local church in the Dominican Republic and beyond.
Samir Salibi planted a missional church focused on responding to the refugee crisis in Paris called AtHome Ministries. Samir was born in Beirut, Lebanon and currently lives in Paris with his wife Joanna and their three children. Samir’s Lebanese heritage has uniquely positioned him to pastor this growing multicultural church. AtHome is creating a transformative community in Paris focused on reaching refugees with the gospel demonstrating the love of Christ in practical ways. In 2021, they began renting a large home in Paris that provides housing and Christian community for refugees. The “house parents” are a couple from Columbia and the U.S., and other residents include refugees from Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Kuwait.
Daniel Bartz is the church planter and lead pastor of Haven in Hamburg, Germany and Fairfax’s Director of European Church Planting. Daniel was born and currently lives in the city of Hamburg with his wife and two daughters. Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany and the eighth-largest city in the European Union. Daniel planted the Hamburg Projekt Church in 2009 which developed into a thriving city church. Several additional churches have been planted out of this project in parts of Germany as well.
Leipzig is a center of culture and commerce in what was formerly East Germany. André and Larissa Meyer and their young son moved to Leipzig in 2018 and officially launched a new church plant, Leipzig Project. They were a part of a church-planting residency at Hamburg Projekt Church and now work with an amazing team to engage the extremely post-Christian city. Since 2018, they have seen God at work in so many ways and the church has grown extensively. They are regularly engaging with neighbors, receiving new members to the church, baptizing new believers, and seeing a growing vibrant children’s ministry blossom. They are truly living out their vision of “church for the city.”
Daniel Escobar is Fairfax’s Director of Latin America and leader of the La Red Network. He planted two Latino churches in the Washington D.C. area, and is now living in Williamsburg, VA with his wife and children after spending a year in Buenos Aires, Argentina to invest in and raise up leadership for a new church plant called HUMAN Church. God has continued to multiply these efforts, leading to a second church plant in Buenos Aires and one in Guatemala City. Through La Red, God is at work in 4 countries, 15 churches, and over 2,000 individual’s lives. The kingdom of God is expanding in these areas!
Peti Kiss is the Senior Pastor of Budakalasz Evangelical Fellowship in Budakalasz, located in the northern gate of Buda. This wealthy growing area attracts thousands of people who move from the city centre to the northern suburbs each year. The vision of this local church is to influence Budapest spiritually, socially and culturally by reaching its people with the Gospel. We began a relationship with Peti when he was a teenager in the youth group in Budakalasz, and he went on to become the senior pastor in 2008. The church that we helped to start is now planting other churches throughout the city.
Fairfax is helping to support two new church plants among the Muslim community in the Near East. Muslims are coming to faith in record numbers despite many being persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ. These churches in the Near East are comprised of refugees, many who are Muslim born believers, and who are now openly worshiping together, growing in their faith and serving their communities. God is doing an incredible work in this volatile region of the world.
Alejandro and Carmen de Francisco are church planters leading the Church of God back into Spain. Together with the Three Worlds team, they have a vision to plant a network of healthy, self-sustaining, self-replicating congregations across Spain over the next 10 years, beginning with the launch of a church plant on the south side of Madrid.
In 1988, in a time of civil war, Gary Skinner and his wife Marilyn planted Watoto Church in Kampala, Uganda to speak hope and life to the nation. The church became the center of a beautiful community of Christ caring for the most vulnerable around them. Over the past 30 years they have placed thousands of orphans in families, empowered vulnerable women to reach their communities, rescued babies and former child soldiers, and sent children’s choirs across six continents. Their mission has been clear and powerful. Rescue. Raise. Rebuild. Watoto has become a beacon of hope in their city, and an incredible model of church and ministry for churches all over Africa and the world.
Our missionaries are the extension of our congregation serving around the world. We are privileged to support people who have been called from and connected to this congregation to use their gifts and talents in cross-cultural vocational ministry.
Brittney serves as a missionary at Hakadota, Hokaido in the country of Japan at the IAI Women’s Academy, Junior and Senior Girls school. Brittney has been attending Fairfax for over 15 years and has been in Japan for the last four years. She has had a love for the Japanese people since she was a child and living there has always been her dream. An ESOL teacher for many years in the states, she is at IAI as an English teacher. She is currently getting her Cultural Biblical Studies Masters at Fuller Seminary online and very active in the Japanese Church she attends.
Stephen serves with a church plant in the heart of Tokyo, Japan. Stephen was born and raised in Northern Virginia and has been at Fairfax Church since he was a child. Stephen has had a deep sense of calling to the people of Japan since he began learning the Japanese language 2006 and visited for the first time in 2007, and has spent the last several year preparing for ministry in Japan. He recently spent 5 years teaching English in Japan. He is currently studying online with Fuller Theological Seminary’s Intercultural Studies Program. He is thrilled to now be at Awakening Church and be a part of seeing those in Tokyo being raised to life in Christ!
In January 2020, John and Gwen Johnson took on the role of regional coordinators for Africa for the Church of God. They are responsible for facilitating healthy spaces for the Church of God in Africa to thrive. To that end, they travel throughout the region, working in collaboration with national leaders to develop regional ministry strategies and country-specific strategies, cultivating relationships within the Church of God across Africa, connecting the church across the region. They also oversee projects and missionaries in the region, providing pastoral care and supervision.
In June 2021, after eleven years as regional coordinators for Europe and the Middle East, Parick and Jamie stepped out of that role to return as missionaries in ministry in the Europe and the Middle East region. They will continue to work with the Three Worlds Team, walking alongside pastors and local leaders, encouraging and mentoring them, and engaging and empowering young leaders in the church.
While most recently serving as regional coordinators from 2010 to 2021, the Nachtigalls have extensive experience as missionaries and a deep understanding of missions and of global culture. Previously, they served for nine years as missionaries in Hong Kong, with outreach into mainland China as well. And both Patrick and Jamie grew up on the mission field, though on opposite sides of the world. We are excited for this next season for Patrick and Jamie and how God will continue to use them.
Nate and Stacy serve as regional coordinators for Europe and the Middle East for the Church of God. They are based in Madrid, Spain where they moved with their family in 2020. They travel extensively throughout the region, working in collaboration with national leaders to develop regional ministry strategies and country-specific strategies, cultivating relationships within the Church of God across Europe and the Middle East, connecting the church across the region. They also oversee projects and missionaries in the region, providing pastoral care and supervision.
Nate and Stacy, and their entire team, commonly known as the Three Worlds team, focus ministry through a prism of three points: They work to engage young people in cross-cultural ministry; support empowered and accountable leaders, especially under the age of 45; and create interconnectivity within churches, countries, and the entire region.
We are privileged to support and partner with wonderful organizations that are on the ground and making an impact in some of the places of greatest need. Our strategy is to resource and encourage the work our partners are already doing. We do this through building deep relationships, generous financial commitments, and sending Global Impact teams to serve the needs of our partners each year.
Heart for Lebanon was founded in 2006 as a natural response to the devastation left behind after the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. The focus was to provide a holistic approach to ministry for people to have a better future. They began a student scholarship program to help students attend a Christian School. When civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, sending over one million refugees into Lebanon, they began providing holistic care to help refugee families. Through the Children at Risk Initiative, Hope on Wheels, and a hub of warehouse space for their food packing operations, they have been serving refugee families in Lebanon for nearly a decade. They have poured into thousands of people’s live through home visits, holistic care and spiritual development. Fairfax has been privileged to support with them since the beginning and has seen this ministry grow in powerful ways. We have traveled to Lebanon in different capacities and with global impact trips and have seen first-hand the impact H4L in having. In 2019 they opened a brand-new Hope Ministry Center in the Bekaa Valley. Through this center they are reaching hundreds of families in crisis and have been able to be a true light in darkness at this epicenter for refugees arriving in Lebanon.
TeacHaiti is an organization empowering Haitian children to emerge from poverty through education. The educational needs in Haiti are truly great indeed. Compared to the average literacy rate among Latin American and Caribbean countries (90%), Haiti’s national rate of 53% represents the severity of the country’s dire need. While primary education in countries like the U.S. are provided free of charge to all children, families in Haiti must often pay school fees out of their own pocket, which for many families simply can’t be done. As a result, primary school enrollment is a mere 67%, with less than 30% of children who attend school reaching the sixth grade. TeacHaiti’s founder Miquette Denie, was one of these statistics growing up in a poor family. As a child, she remembers, at the beginning of each month a teacher would call all the students together and read a list of those who must stand up and go home. Their families had not paid tuition for that month because there was no money to be found. When her name was called, her face burned with shame as she began the walk home by herself. Miquette’s story changed because of a very rare opportunity to attend high school in the States that many in Haiti would never dream of. She knew how very fortunate she was and through this the dream of others in Haiti having access to education began. That dream became a reality as Miquette founded TeacHaiti in 2007 and now TeacHaiti educates more than 440 students across Haiti! More than 200 of these students attend their School of Hope in Port-au-Prince, 34 attend their School of Hope in St. Michel and the rest attend partner schools across Haiti.
Out on the beautiful African bush in the Chibomba District, 50 kilomoters north of Lusaka, lies a beacon of light – Villages of Hope. VOH is a community raising Zambian orphans and vulnerable children to become successful young adults, leaders, and followers of Christ. There are 1.6 million orphans living in Zambia. In 2006, 230 acres were purchased there to start Villages of Hope. Since then, the village has taken in at-risk children who have no one else to care for them, started several medium-sized businesses to financially support the village, and founded the School of Hope. Villages of Hope has created an holistic model where children live in loving homes led by house parents and are equipped with the knowledge and skills to succeed as adults and to create an economically sustainable community through hands-on job experience. It is a beautiful place of rescue, care, hope and restoration.
Pink Door is a faith-based not-for-profit organization that provides a long-term recovery program for women transitioning out of prostitution, sexual enslavement or sexual exploitation. Based in Berlin, Germany, Pink Door is an incredible program with multiple phases of recovery to help women heal and build new lives of hope and purpose. It values personal empowerment, restoration, advocacy, and connections to significant support.
Children of Promise is an incredible locally-shaped, globally supported child sponsorship program that works with local leaders in more than 30 countries around the world, supporting over 4,500 children. Children have the best chance at wholeness when they have their basic needs met and when they are part of a loving community, and that is the mission of Children of Promise. Through these child sponsorship programs, they focus on meeting the needs of children and their families in four core areas: Nutrition, Education, Healthcare and Discipleship. Fairfax is excited to enter into this new partnership in 2022, and we hope to put together several impact teams to visit various child program sites over the next few years.
In the hills of Kisumu, on the western coast of Kenya, Kima International School of Theology (KIST) stands as a landmark in the community. It’s been there for more than twenty years, and the goal has always been the same: be an excellent school of theology led by Africans that trains Church of God leaders in Africa. Fairfax has supported KIST for over 25 years and God is at work in some exciting ways. In 2021, the all-African led faculty and leadership team saw its highest level of enrolled students ever in it’s history!
Capstone Ministries was founded in 2005 with a vision to restore street children and their families in Kisumu, Kenya. More than 1000 children, mostly boys, live full‐time on the streets, begging and stealing to survive. They sleep in open parks, on the sidewalks in front of shops and even in the sewers. Dan and Patty Schmelzer have worked with street children in Kisumu since 2002. They are the founders and directors of the ministry with 12 indigenous staff. Capstone has to date reconciled more than 400 boys from the street since 2005.
Capstone Camp is an opportunity for former street kids who have been reintegrated with their families to come together for a week of spiritual enrichment, scouting activities, crafts and games. The intention of the Camp is to build up the children in Christ and help them to become better children at home and school. FCC has been the primary sponsor for this Camp for the last several years and it has been a privilege to see how God is bringing hope, healing and restoration to the lives of these street children and their families living in Kenya.
Sundays 9:30am + 11:15am
Online Sundays at 5:00pm
11451 Braddock Road
Fairfax, VA 22030
