SOUTHWEST BIBLE FELLOWSHIP

HISTORY

1999 – 2009

Southwest Bible Fellowship was started as a simple Bible study on October 5, 1997 in the former home of Pastor Rick and Linda Jordan, located in Mesa, AZ. The following year, we began meeting at the present home of Pastor Rick and Linda Jordan. Southwest Bible Fellowship officially became an incorporated church on August 2, 1999. The founding signers on the incorporating papers were Pastor Rick Jordan, Gerry Frye and Doug Blaheta.

In attendance for the first meeting was Rick and Linda Jordan (Ricky, Danielle, Emily), Gerry and Delores Frye; Doug Blaheta; Mark Fields; Melva Fields, Brian Unnewehr and Claudia Leverance.

The next year saw many new faces come and become a part of Southwest Bible Fellowship which caused the living room to become very small. We held our first public meeting (not in a living room) on the first weekend of September 2000. Pastor Richard Jordan from Shorewood Bible Church in Chicago, IL spoke at this meeting. We had moved to the La Quinta Inn at Superstition Springs Road and the US 60 in Mesa. We meet at the Inn from 2000 until 2004. During this time we began to sponsor the radio program, “The Riches of Grace” (Richard Jordan, Shorewood Bible Church). Pastor Rick was ordained as a minister by his home church, Shorewood Bible Church, in April 2000. We also started to hold Wednesday night meetings at the home of Nick and Susie Markosian. After a year, we moved to the home of Tami Shipe for Bible Study. Our web site, butnow.org, was launched in 2001, we placed several ads in local newspapers to let the community know of our existence, and we started a newsletter “The Oracles of Grace.” Once again we began to grow and see many new people come and join our assembly. This resulted in the search for a new location with more room.

In 2004 we moved to a new location at 1250 E. Baseline Road, #203 in Tempe, AZ where we carried on our ministry. Our first meeting at the new location was in February 2004. Since 2004, we have had children’s Sunday school outings, women’s fellowship meetings, men’s fellowship meetings, and have had various outreach ministries through swap meets and newspaper ads. In 2006 and 2007 we had a radio program called “the Oracles of Grace” and started a branch of Grace School of the Bible. We bought a piece of vacant land in Tempe to build a new church home and also held our first annual Bible Conference in 2008.

2010 – Present Day

We moved to our present home at 700/704 W. 10th Street, Tempe, AZ in May 2011 and sold the vacant land. At this location we have seen the ministry continue to grow. We continued to have Bible conferences as well as Men’s and Women’s Fellowship meetings. We have added to our outreach in the area of social media, adding Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages. Our 1st Marriage Seminar was held in early 2016 and we have hosted several Financial/Money Seminars. In 2017, we began monthly topical seminars.