Leadership

Elder
Administration

As a young man God graciously placed people in my life who shared Christ with me in many different ways. As a teenager I prayed a prayer to receive Christ as my savior, but it wasn’t until after being defeated by bad choices that I realized Jesus must have first place and lordship in my life. This began a new lifelong process of learning how to allow Jesus to be my Lord in every day and in every part of my life. I am still on this journey with Christ.
My education follows in step with my journey as a Christian. I struggled to make it out of high school and didn’t graduate from college the first time I attended, but after surrendering to the Lord’s leadership in my life I decided to go back to college, which opened the door to attending seminary to gain a deeper grasp of God’s word and learn the tools for study and ministry.
My formal education consists of a BS from Columbia Evangelical Seminary and an M.Div. from Northwest Baptist Seminary (2009) now called Corban University School of Ministry.
While at seminary, I met Earl Oliver, who was teaching a counseling class. Earl is a former staff member of 45 years and one of the founding pastors of FBC. We began an initial relationship around discussing counseling practice. Our relationship led to the opportunity for an internship at FBC under his mentorship. This started part-time in December 2009, and eventually led to a full-time ministry position in January of 2011. I have been on staff ever since! My main responsibilities are to oversee spiritual formation, counseling, and discipleship. These reflect my passion for people, which includes helping people grow deeply connected to Christ and expressing that connection in continuing growth and service to God and others.  I also have a passion for making sure new people who visit the body are welcomed and connected to the fellowship so that all can experience the love and closeness of the body of Christ.
I have been married to my wife Tyla since 1987 and we have two grown children and 6 grandchildren, who all live in the Tacoma area. We enjoy having family and friends over for meals, conversation, and sometimes board games. We enjoy walks, hikes, reading, and especially camping with family.  
I grew up in the northwest and have lived here my whole life. I first served on staff as a youth pastor for 8 1/2 years in Renton, where Tyla and I were members for 17 years before attending seminary and then joining FBC.

FBC has been home for me since birth. In fact, before birth (my parents were the first two single members of FBC to get married to each other back in 1980). So if I were to list all the ways this church has blessed and served and enriched me and my family over the last 3+ decades, I’d get a hand cramp. Instead, I’ll just say this church is family, and I’m grateful to be part of it.
I’m married to Shawna and dad to Moses, Calvin, Rosemary, and Junia. We live in Tacoma’s central district (near 6th Ave), where we do a lot of family stuff. You can probably find us at the zoo, or parks, or looking for crabs under rocks at Ruston Way. I also enjoy running, writing, hunting, and going on dates with my wife.
My formal education consists of a BS from Seattle Pacific University (2011) and an MDiv from Corban University School of Ministry (2014). If you check out FBC, come say hi after the service – we usually sit on the right side, three rows from the front.

Born and raised in Tacoma, I am excited to serve Jesus here. I met Jesus in elementary school and grew up in church knowing him but didn’t really choose to follow him until 1999. As a parent, coach, teacher, and now youth pastor, I am passionate about helping young men and women through the hard process of growing up. 
I have been married to my beautiful wife Amy for 25 years. We have been attending FBC since 2002. We have 5, mostly adult, children (One is married in!) who have all been blessed by the youth group at FBC. This makes it such an honor for me to be able to serve Jesus through Impact since he has used it to richly bless my family. 
I love to barbecue, travel, and read. I even enjoy most home remodeling projects. Oh, it’s also really awesome to cross things off my Honey Do list. Am I right? Pizza is great, coffee rocks, but ice cream rules!

I am married to the love of my life, Sarah, who I met while attending Seattle Pacific University. We married after undergrad and moved to Denver for me to attend Denver Seminary. We moved back to Tacoma in 2011 to live close to family.  Shortly thereafter, we found FBC and have been increasingly involved ever since. We have five children: Adrianne, Micah, Stella, Robert, and Naomi. I also serve part time as a chaplain in the Army National Guard. It is an honor for me to come along-side others in the ordinary routine of the week, but especially in the highs and lows of life. I love to encourage others to know the love, grace and mercy of God, so that it may be shared with their spouse, children, friends and neighbors.

Any day of the week you may find me with my family: playing sports in the yard, climbing trees, or doing yard work.

I was raised in California by an Italian mother and a Portuguese father. We were Roman Catholic, and I was very involved in the church. My dad mainly worked as a brick layer, and my mom was a homemaker. My mother was diagnosed with a form of cancer called Hodgkin's disease when I was about seven and she was about 27 years old, and she suffered with that until she died at age 33. I was in the seventh grade at the time, and my life was deeply affected by her loss. She was a great mother and my spiritual influence in the Catholic Church. As she drew closer to death, she started asking more questions about her relationship with Christ. That's when an aunt and uncle who were believers came to visit her a couple of times near the end and led her to faith in Christ just two weeks before she died, for which I am eternally grateful.

When growing up, I had always struggled in school, but after the loss of my mother, I didn’t even try. At the end of my Junior year of high school, I too came to faith in Christ, but life was still complicated. After barely graduating from high school, I held various odd jobs, joined the Navy, and eventually was sent overseas to serve for two years on the island of Guam. This was during the Viet Nam conflict, and I was grateful to be able to serve. My time on Guam was a significant time of change for me. Because of the influence of some missionaries there, some friendships that I developed, and God’s peculiar work in my life at that time, major changes were beginning. When I came back to the states, I had decided to go to college to possibly prepare for work with juveniles or church youth. I graduated from the school now known as The Master’s University in southern California, and then moved up to Tacoma, Washington to attend Northwest Baptist Seminary.

While working on my Masters of Divinity degree, my friend Bruce and I started talking and studying about the possibilities of starting a church in the area that might reflect both solid biblical principles, and reasonable cultural sensitivity in our local community. After finishing my three years at the seminary, a small group of us started a home Bible study that grew into Fellowship Bible Church.

My main duties at FBC included counseling, discipleship, some teaching, and miscellaneous other duties. From 2005-2012 I also enjoyed teaching some biblical counseling courses at Northwest Baptist Seminary here in town.

Now that I’m retired from being on staff, I enjoy a variety of activities including attending stage productions, concerts, doing some reading, and the thing I spend the most discretionary time on is various car projects. Restoring old cars occupies much of my attention there. I am married to Diana, and we have three grown children, Ryan, Christina, and Adina, who all live in the Tacoma area.

When I think of the message or purpose I most want to be remembered by, I am reminded of something I heard many years ago that still resonates with me. I would like to be remembered as being:

• Biblical without being fundamentalistic
• Spiritual without being withdrawn from the world
• And engaged with the world without being conformed to it

Rich and his wife BJ have been part of the FBC family for many years, though he has recently become part of our part-time staff. He has worked alongside leaders volunteering to develop local outreach programs, such as the Eastside Community Festival and the Homeless Outreach Program. He is passionate about serving those in need and he works tirelessly behind the scenes to do so.

Michael Stufflebeam is going to help us minister to the body part time in a similar fashion that Jack Willsey by teaching some classes. In addition, he will be available to meet with people and couples for discipleship and counseling as he has time and there is need. Here is some background on Michael to help us all get to know him and his ministry better.

Michael Stufflebeam studied at Moody Bible Institute, Trinity Lutheran College, Fuller Seminary and Northwest Baptist Seminary.  He earned a BS in Biblical Studies, and both an M.Div and Th.M. from NBS.  He has taught as an adjunct instructor at Cascade Bible College, Puget Sound Christian College, Shepherds Bible College and Northwest Baptist Seminary.  He has served as an interim senior pastor at Emmanuel Bible Church in Seattle, Life Church in West Seattle and Valley Church in Renton.  He has served on the board and was part of the strategic planning committee and board that organized and started Shepherds Bible College.  Although he has taught both OT and NT classes, biblical interpretation classes as well as homiletics classes at both the college and seminary level, his area of interest has always been OT history and languages.  He has served as Elder in several churches and has taught various classes in the church:  Discipleship, Elder training, Strategic Planning, Individual biblical book studies, parenting and working with challenging youth.  He has worked in churches with the purpose of conflict resolution and helped one church find its way after years of conflict. Currently, Michael is Classified Manager [Vice Principal] of Renton Academy, a school in the Renton School District that serves students with emotional and behavioral challenges.  He has worked with troubled youth for 15 years and has become the district trainer for de-escalation and interventions with students in crisis. He also counsels couples who are working on strengthening their marriage and communication.  He loves to read, and is always reading several books at the same time.  Usually a history, a counseling help and theological or linguistic study. He is an avid outdoorsman, he loves hunting, hiking and backpacking when he can get away. He is married to Sharon, who at times co-counsels with him. She is a school reform specialist with Success For All and recently worked to plan, train and execute a elementary tutoring program with a Kent elementary school.  He has two boys, Matt and Tim who are both married and his youngest son and wife are expecting their first child in December. They live in Renton and love to have travel adventures.

Michael and Randy have been friends since being elders together some 20+ years ago. They have not only remained friends, but hold each other accountable and spend parts of each summer getting away and discussing some aspect of theology.
Michael has preached at FBC several times in the past as well as provided the study at Men’s Breakfast and with Randy planned and taught 2 Men’s Retreats for FBC.  He longs to see people connected well to each other as well as connected well to Christ.

My journey to FBC started before my husband Scott and I were married.  We were college sweethearts and were looking for a place that taught the Word of God with passion and humility.  33 years later we are still here and are still being amazed at the teaching!  Scott and I have the distinct honor of being the first couple to be married by Bruce, one of our pastors.  We have three wonderful children who are an incredible blessing to us.

I get the opportunity to help lead our music and worship ministry at FBC.  This is near and dear to my heart as I have been involved in music my whole life.  I graduated from college with a concentration in music and spent a year traveling the country in the drama/comedy/musical group “Jeremiah People”.  It was during this time that I learned how important music is in worship.  We have a vibrant “intergenerational” church that loves to sing together and to worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!  Again, we are so blessed to have solid biblical teaching, and it is natural and fitting for our hearts to worship in response to all that He has done for us.

In my spare time, (do moms have spare time?) I love being outdoors, staying active, and hanging out with family and friends.   Eating together is also high on the list!

“Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let is make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!”  Psalm 95:1

I was born and raised in a Christian home in Oregon. I accepted the Lord into my heart when I was six years old. For most of my life I had been going through the motions, attending church regularly, reading my bible every so often, attending church camp and the occasional youth group if it didn’t interfere with sports. It wasn’t until my junior year of high school where I felt the Lord put on my heart to make my relationship with him my own; it was time to stop going through the motions. I was baptized that summer at my childhood church camp and from that point forward began to take my faith more seriously and grown in deeper relationship with Him.

Working and serving youth has always been something that I have been passionate about whether it’s through coaching or mentorship. Navigating your early teens and high school is a challenging time; I know that mentorship and support from a Godly community is something that I could have greatly benefited from when I was this age. I have a passion to love and serve the youth of FBC and remind them whom their identity comes from and that the Lord is their foundation.
I have been attending FBC for the last four years after I married my husband Kellen Westering, in October of 2022! He also serves at Impact. We have a 14 month old daughter named Rowan and she is the joy of our lives! In my free time I enjoy trying new restaurants, traveling, card games, and spending time with friends and family.

I am so incredibly grateful to be part of this amazing Impact team!