Our Story

In the spring of 2014, Paul & Linda Linzey sensed that the Lord wanted them to do something different for church.  Paul was a former pastor and a retired military chaplain. Linda was a literature and humanities professor at Southeastern University.  As they talked and prayed together, it became clear that the Lord was asking them to start a new church.  So, in March of that year, they started meeting in their own living room for church—just the two of them.  Within a month, two people from SEU joined them.  On Mother's Day,  Craig & Marcia Posey agreed to help start the new church with Craig serving as treasurer. In September 2014, Section and District officials approved the first church plant in Section 11 in more than 25 years.

By January 2015, there were about twenty people meeting in the Linzey home, so they started looking for other places to meet. They met briefly at the Imperial Swan Hotel on Sunday mornings.

Shortly thereafter, they prayerfully selected the small building in the Shoppes at Hallam, at the corner of Hallam Drive and Cleveland Heights Boulevard, as a permanent location. They began meeting there in May 2016.

In September 2016, Paul and Linda realized that the they had completed the role that the Lord had called them to at Friendship.  Paul found Nick Mathes through a mutual friend.  On November 6, 2016, Nick and Kandyn Mathes and family celebrated their first Sunday as the pastors of Friendship Church.  They found in the church a family to serve alongside and engage the community. Under their leadership the congregation continued to grow and thrive. Nick and Kandyn served as the lead pastors until 2022.

Nearing the end of the lease at the Shoppes at Hallam, they began to prayerfully search for the next location for Friendship Church.  Although we love the Lakeland area, God had been preparing our hearts and paved the way for Friendship to move to a building, rich with history, in Mulberry.

This building was home to First Assembly  Mulberry before it was bought by Badcock Furniture.  Once Badcock donated the building to the City of Mulberry, it became a community center for non-profit organizations.  While it still houses some of those non-profit organizations, Friendship Church brings new programs and opportunities to the Mulberry neighborhood while working in tandem with the other organizations.