Celebration Church

Celebration Church
Location	Main campus: Jacksonville, Florida
Denomination	Non-denominational Christianity
Weekly attendance	nearly 12,000
Website	www.celebration.org
History
Founded	1998 (1998)
Founder(s)	Stovall Weems
Architecture
Status	Active
Clergy
Senior pastor(s)	Stovall Weems
Laity
Music group(s)	Celebration Worship

Celebration Church is a global, multi-site church. Founded by lead pastor Stovall and Kerri Weems, Celebration began in 1998 in Jacksonville, Florida and now has nearly 12,000 in attendance weekly. Celebration is based in Jacksonville, Florida with other regional and international locations. The vision of Celebration Church is to lead people to experience a God-first life. This is done by connecting people with Jesus Christ through an accepting atmosphere and by creating an environment where people can experience the presence of God in true community.^[1]

Celebration Church is a member of the ARC (Association of Related Churches).^[2]

Beliefs

Celebration Church follow the Bible, and see God as "Creator of all things".^[3] The Celebration Church has faced some criticism in regards to their views on homosexuality and transgender people, stating "Rejection of one's biological sex is a rejection of the image of God within that person" and comparing homosexuality to both incest and bestiality.^[4]

Location

Celebration's central offices and main campus is located in Jacksonville, FL and broadcasts to campuses throughout Florida and abroad. Celebration also serves several international locations in Zimbabwe, Costa Rica, Northern Ireland, and Greece. Sunday services are broadcast online, reaching out to the global Internet community.

Celebration Worship

Celebration Worship has a passion for connecting people with Jesus Christ by creating an environment where people can experience the presence of God through worship.

Albums

Awakening (2008)
Kollide: Make It Loud (2009)
Greater Than All (2010)
Fuse EP (2011)
You Amaze Us (2012) (single release)
Our God, Our Mountain (2016)

Ministries

Celebration offers a variety of ministries in order for you to connect and live the most fulfilling God-first life possible. Each ministry is specifically designed so that you can build meaningful relationships with other believers and experience God. They also have many small groups.^[5] Ministries are available for kids, youth (FUSE), young adults (sub30), singles, marriage/family life, men and women. leaders. Celebration also serves the needs of local and global communities through outreach and missions.^[6]

Growth

Celebration Church began in 1998 with only 7 people^[7] and grew to 4,500 by 2004. In 2006 the church was one of the nation's fastest growing churches because of Celebration's aggressive multicultural outreach.^[8] In 2008, Celebration Church was listed at the 96th largest church in the nation with 7,000 in attendance^[9] and currently claims to have nearly 12,000 in weekly attendance.

In August 2011, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for its new location, a 7,000 square foot facility on 30 acres near 9A and Baymeadows Road. The $15 million building project will feature 3,000 seats in the arena-style sanctuary, state-of-the-art broadcasting and audio visual capabilities and environmentally friendly civil design. The second phase of the project of the construction will include a 1,000-seat youth facility, church offices, adult classrooms and a wedding chapel.^[10] The first services in the new "Celebration Arena" was held November 11, 2012.^[11]

Because of Celebration's size and rate of growth in the past decade, Celebration Baptist Church, also in Jacksonville, FL, decided to change its name to The Fellowship at Celebration Baptist Church to reduce confusion.^[12]

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, February 27, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.