Church plant, partnership thriving in Montgomery community

Church plant, partnership thriving in Montgomery community

Dewayne Rembert says he’s tired sometimes, but he can’t help but smile. The miracles just keep coming.

It’s been about nine months since Strong Tower at Washington Park, Montgomery, sent him out with associate pastor Keelan Adams along with their families and six other core team members to plant a church in the city’s Chisholm community.

And in those nine months, they’ve seen an aging congregation — Chisholm Baptist Church — welcome them into their building with open arms. They’ve observed a community soften as they’ve met some of their physical and practical needs. They’ve baptized and discipled new believers.

And they’ve officially become Flatline Church at Chisholm.

“We’re just seeing God do miraculous things,” said Rembert, who was Strong Tower’s first church planting resident. “The church is growing faster than we anticipated.”

On Sundays, around 100 show up for services, sometimes more. And often so many people come to the altar for prayer at the end of the service that there aren’t enough people ready to counsel them.

“Sometimes some of the worship team will have to come down and help us pray with people,” Rembert said. “It’s a good problem. We look around and so many people are showing up and responding to the gospel.”

Through Christian hip-hop, food distribution, volunteer legal assistance and other ministries, they’ve built diverse relationships in the community and discovered people who are hungry to be discipled, he said.

Terrence Jones, pastor of Strong Tower at Washington Park, said that’s what their church wants to repeat over and over — to identify places that need a gospel presence and send out members to plant a church there.

“We feel called to plant churches because we felt called to significantly impact the world for Christ,” Jones said. “God has called us to make disciples. The church is the one institution Christ has promised to build and protect in its disciple-making endeavors.”

Cameron Bell, Strong Tower’s current church planting resident, is one of those. He’s being mentored by Jones and gathering a team to plant a church in Montgomery’s Cloverdale area in late 2020.

Future plants

“I’m spending 15 months at Strong Tower learning from them and learning what it looks like to build a multicultural church with multicultural leadership,” he said. “We want to be able to plant a church in Cloverdale that is representative of the diversity of the community.”

For more information, visit flatlinechurch.org. (Grace Thornton)