The Observer Newspapers | Heritage Fellowship Church Looks to the Future

Nov. 27, 2009

Heritage Fellowship Church Looks to the Future

By Leslie Perales

Observer Staff Writer

On Sunday Reston's Heritage Fellowship Church began a new chapter of its story in the local community by holding a consecration ceremony at the site of the original church, along Fox Mill Road.

The building will be demolished in the coming weeks as construction on a new facility begins, but the church's history of getting to this point is long. The congregation outgrew the worship space in 2001 and for about seven years had to hold services in local high school auditoriums on Sundays, including in South Lakes and Herndon high schools.

Rev. Norman Tate said he, his staff and the church's congregants began the process so long ago that to see the beginning of the construction process brought about a feeling of great joy. "There was this feeling that 'somebody pinch me, is this really going to happen,'" he said. "I'm really grateful to God because it's all because of him."

During a time when many religious groups began moving out to more spacious places, Heritage Fellowship Church made it a point to stay within the Reston-Herndon community. "We would like to think we're an integral part of the community at large," Tate said. He said the church felt the need to stay in the area, even though parishioners come from as far as Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Leesburg.

Tate said the church has a longstanding presence and history in the Reston community, beginning in 1978 when the church began as Christian Community Fellowship Church and through the years it was known as Heritage Fellowship United Church of Christ. He said Reston is where the church's identity was formed.

Heritage Fellowship Church has worked throughout the community to find jobs for those in need, support local schools with students in need, as well as a school in South Africa and an orphanage in Brazil. Congregants recently went on a medical mission trip to Mozambique, Tate said, and they are expanding their efforts in Liberia.

"What we're doing is really only what the scriptures tell us to do," Tate said. "It's not enough." He said working to better the community as well as helping others across the world serves as the foundation of ministry and is simply the right thing to do. He said it is important for him to be involved in a church that sees the community's issues as "critical and mandatory."

The church also works to provide meals to those in need both in the local community at the Embry Rucker Community Shelter and in Washington, D.C. Tate said they are looking forward to being able to expand on their ministries once the congregation moves into its new space. "Families are in trouble today and we want to make family a focus for us," he said.

Heritage Fellowship Church's new structure will include four buildings, including an 844-seat sanctuary with state of the art equipment, a full basement with a kitchen and classroom space, an education wing, an administration building and a total of 47,000-square-feet of space. The church's capital funding campaign for the project began in 1998, starting with the leadership then reaching out to the parishioners, Tate said.

Tate said the years Heritage Fellowship Church's congregation has spent in other spaces throughout the community facilitated growth. "You must first be the church and to be the church had nothing to do with the physical structure," he said. "We are ready now to return to the church site but with a greater understanding of what the church really is."

During the reconstruction of the church's original home, located at 2501 Fox Mill Rd., Heritage Fellowship Church is leasing space in Herndon. They moved into the space in summer 2008 and expect to be there for 18 to 24 months. Visit heritagefellowshipchurch.org or call 703-620-9515.