The Life Church officially launched in January.
Johnny and Dockita Mills moved home to Montgomery from Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 2021 to plant a church in the Ridgecrest neighborhood where he was raised.
“The Lord is all over [Johnny],” said Neal Hughes, Montgomery Baptist Association director of missions.
Johnny Mills initially sensed God calling him to plant a church in Montgomery during the time he and Dockita were serving as houseparents for a children’s home near Chattanooga. They were not Southern Baptists at the time.
With each visit home the calling expanded, and Mills prayed for direction. Around that time, he said he dreamed of meeting two men in a stadium: one African American and one Anglo.
Praying for direction
“There was a Black gentleman on one side, a white man on the other,” Mills recalled. “The Black man seemed like I knew him, but I couldn’t recognize his face. The white man told me to go get my Bible. ‘Without it, you won’t understand the people down front.’ I said, ‘OK, I want to get a Bible and come back.’ Then he told me, ‘Never use your Bible to manipulate or control people.’”
The dream didn’t make sense at the time, but Mills kept praying for direction. After subsequent visits to his mother in Montgomery, family members there began reaching out to tell Mills what was occurring, telling him of one young man shot and killed in their community.
“I started feeling in my heart that I was supposed to go back to Montgomery and start a church,” Mills recalled. “I asked God to speak to my wife. It wasn’t long after that she woke me up one night and said God spoke to her in a dream. She said, ‘We need to go back … and you need to do what God has called you to do.’”
He had an unexpected meeting at a Montgomery restaurant with Dewayne Rembert, lead pastor of Flatline Church at Chisholm, whom he soon learned was a church planting strategist.
“Here is where my dream comes in,” Mills said. “I started laughing and told Dewayne everyone kept telling me I needed to meet him because I had moved back to Montgomery to start a church.”
Rembert introduced Mills to Hughes, who welcomed him and introduced him to the association.
“We bring in pastors and planters that are seeking the next steps in their life and give them full exposure to everything MBA does,” Hughes explained. “Then we put them with people like Davey Lyon [pastor of Imago Dei Church at the 45] and Dewayne Rembert.”
‘God’s providence’
“A few weeks later I received a text from Neal out of Psalm 91,” Mills remembered, “and his words were, ‘Brother Johnny, never use the Word of God to manipulate or control people.’ At that point, I saw God’s providence.”
Since then, Rembert, Hughes and others have guided and mentored Mills, who began walking and praying in his neighborhood, inviting community members over for coffee and eventually Bible study.
Flatline Church stepped in as the sending church for The Life Church.
“I educated [Mills] in the areas of urban apologetics,” Rembert noted. “Things I’ve learned along the way I share with him. He spends time with me, and I spend time with men in the church, discipling them.”
The church was recently welcomed into Montgomery Baptist Association following a year of watchcare. During watchcare, the association helps church leaders with training and learning about being a Southern Baptist church. The congregation meets in a building owned by the Community of Hope.
“Every third Saturday we do a Walk for Peace through the community to raise awareness against violence,” Mills said. “A lot of people look for us now. They come out and talk with us or pray with us.”
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