Charita Avery always thought there was one thing she wouldn’t be able to live through — losing her only child.
And then in 1990, it happened. Her son, Denis, was killed in a car accident when he was 19 years and 19 days old.
But she said over the years, she has felt God’s care for her in ways she never would have otherwise. One of them is this.
“One day I was standing at my window, and I was so distraught and crying, and I heard God say to me, ‘Charita, one day you’re going to have lots of children,’” Avery said.
She didn’t understand what that meant, but now — 34 years later — she said she thinks she’s starting to see. In January, her church, University Baptist Church in Huntsville, merged with a collegiate church plant to become Church on the Hill.
“I don’t ever get lonely — God is filling my life with all these young people,” said Avery, who is 82.
A month after the churches merged, Natalie Dinkins, groups director and office administrator for Church on the Hill, called Avery and asked if she had ever thought about mentoring young people.
Avery said for years her motto has been “never say no — just say, ‘I’ll try it.’”
So she tried it. In February, two young women — Lauren Aday and Claire Goddard — started coming to her house once a week for dinner, Bible study and prayer.
Now, they “just love each other to death,” Avery said. “I’m learning from them — I like to hear what they think about things. It helps me grow. And I hope they’re learning from me.”
Not finished yet
Bobby Burt, associate pastor of Church on the Hill, said he’s found himself in a similar situation.
“I’m meeting with three guys every week — talking about the Bible and talking about life experiences. It’s a mentor-type relationship; that’s what they’re hungry for,” he said.
Nearly 18 years ago, Burt became the pastor of University Baptist and began working toward the revitalization of the aging church.
“We tried a lot of stuff and did a lot of things. We prayed a lot. But it just kept declining,” he said.
But somewhere along the way, he felt God telling him that He wasn’t finished with the church yet. Not too long after that, Ethan McCreary came to talk with Burt and told him they were looking for a place for their church plant, The Well Church Huntsville, to meet.
TWC Huntsville started in 2017 and was the second church plant of The Well Network. The first was The Well Church Florence, which Highland Baptist Church planted out of its weekly student worship service in 2016.
The idea was to help college students become disciple-makers who build the Kingdom through the local church.
Burt and University Baptist loved that vision and said yes, they’d love to host TWC Huntsville.
From there, “it became a no-brainer to me to begin to think about how this is the future, how God put them here and we need to do something,” Burt said.
That became official in January when they merged to become Church on the Hill and Burt stepped into the associate pastor role with McCreary as pastor.
“It’s going really well,” Burt said. “It’s growing and it’s reaching a lot of college students.”
They’re also hosting a Spanish-language church plant, Iglesia Bautista Familia de Fe, which celebrated its first anniversary Oct. 27.
McCreary said the whole situation has been “incredible” and that it was “beautiful to see how well received” the merger was.
“We felt we both had strengths and weaknesses,” he said. “University Baptist Church had wisdom and maturity, and we were young and growing.”
Growth
Since they combined their congregations, they’ve “experienced a very fruitful season of growth,” McCreary said.
Right now, they’re averaging a little over 300 on Sundays.
“We have baptized more this year than any year I’ve been here,” McCreary said.
They’ve also already sent out a team to help plant the sixth church in The Well Network — Five Rivers Church in Mobile.
McCreary said he thinks Church on the Hill’s growth has been deepened by its multigenerational roots.
“Our college students have a desire to have relationships with adults and senior adults,” he said.
Burt said he thinks this kind of thing “can happen anywhere.”
“I know there are a lot of churches in the same place where University was — a lot have plateaued or are declining,” he said. “One of the ways to revitalize is to partner and merge with another church that has like beliefs and has a vision where you could do more together than you could separately.”
Avery said she’s grateful University Baptist made that decision. She said she loves Aday and Goddard like grandchildren, and she loves the hugs she gets from the other young adults she’s gotten to know at Church on the Hill.
“This is my joy,” she said. “The Lord is filling my life.”
For more information, visit thehillhsv.com.
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