Alabama Baptist churches grow, minister in starting new churches

Bobby Gordon, co-pastor of The Church at Hampton Cove in Huntsville, has been part of two church plants during his 17 years in the ministry. He believes there is no one perfect way to start a new church, but several ways that work under different circumstances.
   
“I think definitely you want to be proactive and not reactive,” Gordon said. “A lot of churches could really be fulfilled if they applied some of their members and resources to start a new church.”
   
Gordon has planted churches two ways. In 1995 he joined two other pastors and launched RocketCity Community Church in Huntsville without the help of an existing church. In 1998 he became one of the founding pastors of The Church at Hampton Cove, which was launched with the moral, financial and prayer support of Cross Point Baptist Church (formerly RocketCity) and First Baptist Church of Huntsville.
   
“Hampton Cove was a healthier church plant, because two churches were very excited and supportive of this work,” Gordon said. “With RocketCity Church, the financial support wasn’t there, which was both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because we (the church planters) felt our dependency on the Lord.”
   
Gordon and Keith Miller, co-pastor of Hampton Cove, followed the example Paul set for starting the church at Philippi. The Madison Association had been praying and asking churches to start a new work in the Hampton Cove area for about four years before the new church began. “Sitting in associational meetings, praying about it, hearing people talk about it, I felt God’s call to go and do it,” Gordon said. Friends introduced him to Miller, who was involved in student ministries at a church but was sensing God leading him in another direction.
   
Hampton Cove started with about five families and now runs about 300 at Sunday morning services. The church is also involved in missions. “We’re helping another church get started across the city,” Gordon said. “I really see us growing to more than 1,000 and continuing to plant other churches. That’s our heartbeat.”
   
Unity Baptist Church of Decatur started from a church split that was handled without the emotional trauma of a blowup within the congregation.
   
“We were at another church, and we didn’t like the direction in which it was going,” explained Larry Alexander, one of the founders of Unity. “About 47 of us left, held a meeting, and … we voted to start a new church.”
   
Unity Baptist Church’s first meeting was during the third week of May, and the group held its first church service on the first Sunday in June 2000, according to Alexander. They called Waymon Fife as their first pastor. (Wayne Penn is pastor now.) They met in homes, then in the banquet rooms of a local motel, before finding a 10-acre piece of land for $135,000.
   
The Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions furnished a double-wide modular unit for the congregation to use as a worship center until the new building could be built.
   
“Now we have a metal building that’s 80 by 150 feet, with 15 Sunday School rooms, a worship center and fellowship hall,” Alexander said. “We have about 124 in Sunday morning worship services. We feel like the Lord has blessed our church.”
   
He had some words of advice to those thinking about starting a new church for any reason.
   
“Try to get enough people together who are all in agreement about what the Lord wants you to do. If you aren’t all in agreement, it’s not the Lord’s will,” he said.