In 2010, the Kelseys had a vision for planting a church in New York City. As youth and young adult pastors at C3 Sydney, Josh and Georgie Kelsey prepared for three years before moving to NYC in February of 2013 with their 6-month-old son, Brooks.
After the sunny beaches of Sydney, landing in snow-covered Brooklyn was disorienting. How do you plant a church in a city and culture that’s unfamiliar? They started with a Dinner Party. New York is notoriously challenging to secure venues and plant a church, but Jesus met around the table and invited people to follow Him over a meal, so with five people attending the first Dinner Party, FOUNT was born.
FOUNT still gathers for Dinner Parties today! On Wednesdays, the church meets in homes, parks and rooftops over a meal to create community and build each other up in faith. As the church family grew, so did our locations and services over the next five years. Spreading from Williamsburg, the church expanded across Bushwick, downtown Manhattan, downtown Brooklyn and Queen
But in March 2020, the world came to a standstill as pandemic lockdowns closed businesses, houses of worship and entire cities. Regular Sunday gatherings were canceled, but we opened our doors online. Even our Dinner Parties continued over video calls. Seeing our city in need, FOUNT launched our first food partnerships to provide meals to frontline workers. This catalyzed our Love New York ministries, where our church volunteers make a difference in our local communities through food and clothing drives, homeless outreach, juvenile justice ministries and our rooftop urban garden.
Before the pandemic, God had already put on the Kelseys’ hearts a vision to reach cities globally, and even with the uncertainties of 2020, a series of divine connections led to open doors for new locations in both Paris and Berlin. We are 1 church, 3 cities!
As we celebrated our 10th Anniversary in September 2023, we changed our name from C3 NYC to Fount Church. We have always longed to be a church whose very name points to our savior—every time you share our new name, you reveal who Jesus is to you. Our new name is who we are, a church connected to the fount and pointing our city to Christ.
