Upward Focused Ministries

03/17/2025

03/13/2025

FBCE invites you to our annual community egg hunt on Sunday, April 6 at 2:00 PM at the Enterprise YMCA!
The community egg hunt is open to children 6 years-old and younger.
Skip the lines the day off and get pre-registered at fbcenterprise.com/events

03/13/2025

Registration for Vacation Bible School is officially open!
VBS is for children currently in Kindergarten through 5th grade for the 2024/2025 school year.

Get your children registered today: fbcenterprise.com/events

03/09/2025

🌟 Day Eight: Raising Up More Missionaries 🌟
📍 Bar Nunn, Wyoming

In a town with limited meeting spaces, Tyler and Ashley Martin planted a church in the Hangar Bar and Grill. It might not have been a traditional choice, but it turned out to be the perfect place for reaching people like Trent Fetherston, a self-described “wild dude” who had been kicked out of every bar in town.

Trent knew all about the Hangar. But he knew nothing about Jesus—until he showed up at Outfitter Church. Now, he’s expressing a desire to one day plant and pastor new churches in Wyoming. This is the power of the gospel at work!

How You Can Pray:
🙏 Pray for Trent as he prepares to take his next steps toward church planting.
🙏 Ask God to provide encouragers who will build up Tyler and Ashley as they serve in an isolated, unchurched place.
🙏 Lift up Outfitter Church, that they would receive a dedicated facility for meeting and ministry.

➡️ Step into the story today: anniearmstrong.com

📖 “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field.” – Luke 10:2

💙 Your gifts to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering help plant and sustain churches like Outfitter Church, raising up new missionaries to reach the unreached.

03/07/2025

🌟 Day Six: Meet Osvaldo and Vanessa Lerma 🌟
📍 Laredo, Texas

For Osvaldo and Vanessa, location is everything. Just miles from one of the busiest international border crossings in the world, they serve at the Send Relief Ministry Center in Laredo, Texas.

Alongside volunteer mission teams, the Lermas are meeting physical needs and sharing gospel hope with refugees and immigrants legally entering the U.S. to seek asylum. But their impact doesn’t stop in Laredo. The lessons learned here equip mission teams to be more effective witnesses in their own communities.

How You Can Pray:
🙏 Pray for Osvaldo and Vanessa’s endurance as they serve in Laredo.
🙏 Ask God to use the mission teams’ experiences to help them share the gospel more effectively at home.
🙏 Lift up refugees resettling elsewhere, that they would connect with local churches that share Christ’s love.

➡️ Step into the story today: anniearmstrong.com

📖 “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.” – Matthew 25:35

💙 Your gifts to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® help missionaries like the Lermas share the love of Christ with those in need—on the border and beyond.

03/06/2025

🌟 Day Five: Meet Christian and Laura Rowland 🌟
📍 Langley, British Columbia

Leaving everything familiar behind, Christian and Laura moved from Texas to Canada with a mission: to plant a church in a place with almost no gospel witness. They didn’t know anyone in Langley, a suburb of Vancouver, but they trusted God’s calling.

Now, as they lead New Song Community Church, they can see how God used every step of their journey to prepare them for this mission. Lives are being changed, and the gospel is taking root in a community that desperately needs it.

How You Can Pray:
🙏 Pray for continued unity as New Song Community Church grows.
🙏 Ask God to provide the resources needed to do ministry in one of North America’s most expensive metro areas.
🙏 Lift up Christian and Laura, that they would have encounters leading to gospel conversations.

➡️ Step into the story today: anniearmstrong.com

💙 Your gifts to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering make church planting possible in places like Langley, helping missionaries like the Rowlands bring the gospel to those who need it most.

03/05/2025

🌟 Day Four: Married to the Marines 🌟
📍 Sneads Ferry, North Carolina

The separation, the worry, the weight of what feels like single parenting—Brittany Brown knows the challenges of military life. As the wife of a Marine who served for 20 years, she has lived through the struggles that many military spouses face.

Now, alongside her husband, Joshua, Brittany is using her experiences to reach other military families with the hope of the gospel. At Pillar Church of Topsail, just outside Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, the Browns are building a Christ-centered community where military wives and families can find strength, support, and purpose.

How You Can Pray:
🙏 Pray for acts of kindness and service to lead to gospel conversations.
🙏 Ask God to help Pillar Church of Topsail reach and disciple lost families in their community.
🙏 Lift up military families as they transition to new assignments, that they would find strong, gospel-centered churches wherever they go.

➡️ Step into the story today: anniearmstrong.com

📖 “Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” – 1 John 3:18

💙 Your gifts to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering equip church planters like Joshua and Brittany to minister to military families, helping them carry the gospel wherever they are sent. 🌎

03/04/2025

🌟 Day Three: Meet Josh & Brittany Brown 🌟
📍 Sneads Ferry, North Carolina

After 20 years of service as an active-duty Marine, Joshua Brown understands what it means to be sent. Now, alongside his wife, Brittany, he’s been called to a new mission—planting Pillar Church Topsail just outside Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. 💒

Military families here are finding hope in Jesus, being discipled, and then, through deployments and reassignments, carrying the gospel to corners of the world many of us could never reach. 🌍 This unique “gospel deployment” strategy is spreading the hope of Christ far beyond Sneads Ferry.

How You Can Pray:
🙏 Pray for the team being sent out to plant Pillar Church Fayetteville near Fort Bragg.
🙏 Ask God to call more church planters to serve and reach under-served military communities.
🙏 Lift up Pillar Church Topsail and ask that God would raise up new leaders as current leaders are deployed or reassigned.

➡️ Step into the story today: anniearmstrong.com

📖 “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?” – Romans 10:14

🧡 Your gifts to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering fuel ministries like this, enabling the gospel to go where it’s needed most—even to the ends of the earth. 🌎

03/03/2025

🌟 Day Two: Meet Leo and Miosha Robinson 🌟
📍 Flint, Michigan

Not long ago, Leo and Miosha Robinson’s Flint neighborhood had almost no gospel presence—and not a single laundromat. 🧺 But God brought those two needs together in an incredible way!

Leo and Miosha planted Good Church and then opened Good Laundry, a space that meets a physical need while helping build gospel relationships. ❤️ Today, in a community that was once 80% unchurched, lives are being transformed. New believers are being baptized, teenagers are hearing about Jesus for the first time, and God is bringing hope and healing to a city marked by pain. 🙌

How You Can Pray:
🙏 Pray for the development and discipleship of new leaders at Good Church.
🙏 Ask God to bring healing and hope to those in Flint who have experienced pain and trauma.
🙏 Lift up the many teenagers in the neighborhood who are hearing the gospel for the very first time.

📖 “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” – Romans 10:15

Step into the story today: anniearmstrong.com

03/02/2025

🙏 Week of Prayer Day One: Meet David and Sara Gaskins
📍 Provo, Utah

Provo, Utah, is known as “the heartbeat and hub of the Mormon church.” 🏔️ In a city where evangelicals make up just 0.5% of the population, David and Sara Gaskins are shining the light of the gospel. 🌟

Through their ministry at Mosaic Church, they’re sharing the true story of Jesus in one of the most unchurched cities in North America. Lives are being impacted, hearts are being softened, and the hope of Christ is breaking through spiritual barriers. 💒✝️

How You Can Pray:
🙏 Pray for God to call more missionaries to Utah to share the gospel.
🙏 Ask for wisdom, humility, and boldness for David and the other pastors at Mosaic Church.
🙏 Lift up David and Sara’s marriage, that God would keep them united and strengthened as they serve in a challenging place.

📖 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” – Matthew 28:19

➡️ Step into the story today: anniearmstrong.com 👣

03/02/2025

🚨 The Need Is Urgent. The Time Is Now. 🚨

Today marks the start of the 2025 Annie Armstrong Week of Prayer, a week dedicated to lifting up missionaries who are bringing the hope of Jesus to the lost.

Right now, 286 million people in North America are living without Christ. That’s 286 million souls searching for hope, peace, and purpose—and many have never even heard the gospel.

But you can be part of the story. ✨

All this week, we’ll introduce you to missionaries on the frontlines, faithfully serving in places where Jesus is not yet known. They can’t do it alone. They need our prayers. 🙏

📍 Follow along each day to meet these missionaries and pray for them.
📍 Share this post to invite others to pray.
📍 Give to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and help take the gospel where it’s needed most.

Step into the story: https://s.mtrbio.com/zsjzsfzouw

💛 Together, we can make an eternal impact. 💛