Fellowship of Christian Students (FCS) welcomed eighteen new leadership members for the upcoming school year. The club has dealt with many factors of change over the last year, with new locations of meetings, different forms of communications and newly-required parent permission slips for joining the club.

Senior Jaya Phillipose is one of the two leaders for senior girls this year and has attended and spoken within the club for the past three years. She was chosen as one of the co-presidents after former leader Patricia McGann graduated and served as vice president last year.  

“I feel like me and my leadership team are very close,” Phillipose said. “We are able to make sure everybody else feels included in that.”

The club takes place during DEN on Tuesdays and only includes 30 minutes of speech and communication. To combat this, new leaders plan various community outreach events to get small groups more involved. 

“We’re planning to have a big [event] in November called Revival,” Phillipose said. “We’re not just doing that in Cedar Park. All the other schools from the area will come as well.”

Fellow senior Bennett Patton was given the role of male leader representative and co-president at the beginning of the year. He is one of two senior male leaders in the club. 

“I’m a very encouraging and comforting person,” Patton said. “Whenever people come to me, they can just talk about whatever is going on in their life.”

According to Patton, fellowship within the school’s community is important to FCS. Patton said he enjoys working in his small groups and helping people.

“One thing we’re working on is discipleship,” Patton said. “[We’re working] outside of school and just being around these people as much as we can, so that we can grow the relationships and just let them know we’re here.”

Patton said he highly encourages people to join FCS and get involved within the community. 

”I just think it’s such an amazing community,” Patton said. “For people who don’t know Jesus, I think it’s just such a welcoming environment”.

Junior Bryce Bailey is another leader who leads junior and sophomore boys. He is also one of the speakers that share weekly messages. 

“I just spoke about the importance of community [a few weeks ago],” Bailey said. “At the end of the day, it’s not me speaking; it’s the Holy Spirit speaking through me.”

Bailey also said that FCS aims to be inclusive and appeal to a large audience.

“Our goal is to not just have Christian students come,” Bailey said. “[We want] anyone that’s even interested in Christianity so that we can just teach people what we believe in.”

Bailey said that by being involved in FCS, he aims to share his beliefs with the community around him.

“My goal is to just get out the word of God, and to do it in a way that attracts people,” Bailey said. “Hopefully my words can touch someone out there even if it’s just one person.”