Birmingham-area congregation ‘caught the fever’ for church planting

As the song goes, “it only takes a spark to get a fire going.” That appears to be what happened to Winewood Baptist Christian Fellowship near Pinson.
  
After members planted that church, they realized they were already in the church-starting ministry and just kept going.
  
As a result, this Birmingham Baptist Association (BBA) church, with an average Sunday attendance of 80, has been instrumental in starting four other churches and hopes to plant more.
  
Winewood Baptist was birthed from the congregation left homeless in the 1990s when First Baptist Church, East Birmingham, in BBA closed because an eminent domain issue claimed its property. 
  
Congregants met in hotels and other churches for a while before purchasing property near Pinson and starting Winewood from scratch. Carpenters for Christ helped construct a building, and the church began holding services in it in 1998.
  
“The first plant we ever planted was ourselves,” said Winewood Pastor John H. Davis Jr., who also served as pastor of First, East Birmingham. Members “caught the fever” and since have helped to start Christ for the Nations, Birmingham; Rehoboth Christian Community Church, Pratt City; and Living Faith Baptist Cathedral near Pinson. Winewood is now mentoring Abundant Life Church near the Clay-Chalkville area, Davis said.
  
Christ for the Nations has attained membership in BBA and Rehoboth is currently under a one-year “watch care” period, said John E. King, BBA team leader for networking and stewardship.
  
“Our goal is to plant vibrant, Southern Baptist churches,” said Davis, a certified church planter through the North American Mission Board. Winewood also wants to re-establish congregations in areas where churches have closed, leaving no ministry or evangelism efforts. 
  
Winewood not only is helping other churches get started but is also teaching them how to be church planters, King said. 
  
Davis said Winewood has been told it isn’t large enough in membership and doesn’t have the resources needed to plant churches.
  
But he said God put it on his heart to use what resources the church does have.
  
Davis said it doesn’t make sense to wait until his church grows to the “right” size for planting other churches when people who don’t know Christ are perishing now.
  
Using what is available “is our way of operating,” Davis said. “God is honoring and blessing that.”
  
King commended the way Winewood’s pastor and members are open to the Lord’s leadership and commit what resources they have. “They have a real love for the Lord and a love for people” that goes beyond barriers, he added.
  
Helping to start new churches is one of several need-meeting ministries on which Winewood has embarked. Another is schools.
  
In the late 1990s, the approximately 75 boys who were involved in Royal Ambassadors (RA) basketball through Winewood wanted to participate in tournaments. To do so, they had to complete certain RA work during the year. As the boys worked on these materials, the leaders discovered that some students couldn’t read well.
  
For that reason, Davis said the church began to offer tutoring in reading. Soon tutoring in language was added, then math and so on.
  
He said Winewood continued in that direction, establishing a school. In 1999, it saw its first class of graduating seniors.
  
The church now has two accredited, on-site home-schools — one at Winewood and one at New Generations Church in east Birmingham — and an Internet home-school. Winewood Global Academy, as the Internet home-school component is called, is set to expand its service in the near future to a certain area of the African country of Benin, Davis said.
  
Through Winewood Community Outreach — which is designed to offer tutoring, sports, job preparation, business development and relief to the poor, among other services — the church hopes to reach out to the community even more. Long-range plans also include housing renewal.
  
“Once you start meeting needs, people will flock to you,” Davis said.
  
King describes Winewood as “very creative, on the cutting edge in terms of ministry.”
  
“We’ve got a lot going on,” Davis said. “We’re always into something.”