Church History
In July of 2013, the Lord began to deal with Pastor Armstrong about Pastoring. He informed First Lady Armstrong of what God was speaking into his spirit. After much prayer and seeking the face of God, Pastor Armstrong and First Lady Armstrong began to explore what it would take to start a ministry. God strategically placed people in their path to assist them in accomplishing the vision for the church.
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While researching a name for the ministry they both knew it was to be a ministry where the lives of men and women could be restored, through the power of the all mighty God, thus the name Restoring Lives Bible Fellowship Church was born. The vision of the church would be to restore the lives of both the believer (the spiritually injured) and non-believers (the man that does not know Christ), and to bring them into the awareness of God’s unfailing love. This church would be a church founded on true love, love for God and love for God’s people. The church would not just talk of loving, but would rather model the love of God.
On December 4, 2013, a Certificate of Formation was filed with the State of Texas and Restoring Lives Bible Fellowship Church was formed as a Nonprofit Organization. Pastor Armstrong was listed as the Founder/President. One day while out driving Pastor Armstrong was led to look in the Garland area where he had attended services before. God lead him to our first location, 1105 Stonewall St. #503B here in Garland.. After making some phone calls, he was informed that a space had just been vacated which housed a church and the doors were opened for us to move in.
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​As Pastor Armstrong and First Lady Armstrong began making preparations for the date and time of the first service. There was a lot of work that needed to be done. God began to send help. Leading up to the first service there were long nights hanging the curtains, setting out chairs, hanging pictures, etc.... getting the church ready for our first service. During those nights we further bonded with food, fun and fellowship. We all worked together to make the vision of Restoring Lives Bible Fellowship Church come to fruition.
On June 1, 2014 the inaugural service was held, and the Lord added five (5) families to the church, the Brown’s, the Jackson’s, the Thompson’s, the William’s and the Winston families. These are the Charter members. The Restoring Lives Bible Fellowship Church family was underway. Bro.Rodney Williams took the helm as the first Deacon, Bro. LeCoreyon and Sis. Teneiseya Brown served as the first Ministers of Music and Sis Teronica Winston took the responsibility as our first Usher President.
In 2015, the church continued to grow as God promised. The church celebrated its first year anniversary on May 31, 2015. Our speaker was Superintendent Michael Clerkley of the Lighthouse C.O.G.I.C. On June 14, 2015 the church experienced its first adversity as we were informed that our Pastor was in the emergency room fighting for his life, but what the enemy meant for evil God used for his glory. While the Pastor was recovering in the hospital God told him to send a word to the church which was simply to stay encouraged and fight on. Even with our shepherd recovering God added to the church. The members rallied together with First Lady Armstrong at the helm. She and Minister Henry Mingo took on the load of preaching and teaching the word in the absence of our leader Pastor Armstrong and the church moved forward.
Over the next few years the church would experience the highs and lows on ministry. We have seen members come and go and yet God continues to show his favor on our church. Since our inception God has called others out to assist in the ministry, pastor has licensed Minister Shadana Mingo and Minister Teneiseya Brown-Osborne. Pastor has also ordained two Deacons, Deacon Anthony Piper and Deacon Randy Willis all who now serve our congregation.
In early 2017 God began to deal with our pastor to look for another location that would meet the growing need for space. We searched for a new location as our lease was due to expire. As God would have it a space would open up just a stone's throw away from where we were located. Not only did God provide the space but he had the leasing agent to cover the cost of the renovations needed as well as cover all cost associated with our move, look at God. The space would meet our needs and provide a larger sanctuary for service. In September of 2017 we moved into our current space.
We continue to have our Annual events such as our family day in the park held each year during the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and we conclude the weekend activities by having our friends and family service on Sunday morning. We had our 3rd Graduates Acknowledgement service on May 20, 2018, where we honor our seniors who accomplish the goal of completing their High School education
We had an awesome third year of ministry, we thank God for all the lessons learned, we are so overjoyed that God is so mindful of his people and that he continues to take Restoring Lives Bible Fellowship Church higher and higher in him. We see our future bright with God as our guiding light, and as we move forward into our fourth year we trust God to continued to grow the Restoring Lives ministry, and anticipate even better days to come.
We have accomplished many milestones during our three-year journey and we refuse to be satisfied. We look forward to more historical milestones in our days ahead. The best is yet to come because God has more in store for us. This church is on a mission to impact the community, the city, the nation and even the world in so form or fashion. As stated in our motto we are working to “restore lives one soul at a time”.