Glory Baptist Church in Winfield, a church plant in northwest Alabama, has seen God affirm its path with “one thing after another” falling into place, said Thomas Hyche, the church’s pastor.
Alan Goforth, who comes from a family of Alabama Baptist pastors, was attending Glory Fellowship Baptist Church in Jasper when a group there decided to start a Bible study closer to their homes in Winfield, about 40 minutes away.
They met on Sunday nights at a local restaurant, and before long it was clear they should explore planting a church. Glory Fellowship Baptist has a goal of planting a church every three years, and members had been praying about the next opportunity.
Launch day
As the pieces fell into place, Hyche agreed to lead the church for one year, knowing that by living in Jasper he could not serve like he wanted in the long term. Glory Baptist Church held its launch day last January in the Winfield Community Center.
“The community center in Winfield is a big, nice building,” Hyche said. “They have rooms for Sunday School classes, and their own people believe so much in our church that they come and help fill ministry needs. They’ll just show up and help.”
Someone donated five acres of land to the church in a prime location, just a mile off the interstate on the main road to Winfield, Hyche said. During Vacation Bible School in July, someone mentioned the land to a volunteer.
“He said, ‘Well, I own a logging company. I can clear all that land.’ It wasn’t timber that could be logged, but he said, ‘I can send equipment because we’re working right down the road.’ He brought his equipment and knocked all the trees, pushed everything up and didn’t charge us a dime,” the pastor said.
Logistics and plans
Later, a church member was talking with the associational mission strategist of the Walker Baptist Association, which Glory Baptist is in the process of joining, and learned the association had a double-wide trailer that another church had used. Glory was welcome to use the trailer until they could construct a building; they simply had to move it.
A church member also learned the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions could send people to move the trailer and set it up on the property. The goal is to have the land prepped, including a road and a parking lot, to start meeting in the trailer on the property in January.
The trailer, which has two restrooms, a classroom and a worship space, is expected to accommodate 75 to 100 people, Hyche said, and Glory’s attendance has been around 40, with the highest being 72 once.
The church has plans to construct an all-purpose building next, and the building fund is growing, Hyche said. On the first Sunday, the congregation gave $25,000. Later, a visiting family gave $2,000 for the building fund, and a church member matched that amount. A church that had closed its doors and sold land and a building had $5,000 remaining and gave it to Glory.
Amid the push to get established, Glory decided to give 10% of its undesignated receipts through the Cooperative Program for national and international missions and ministries, and it gives 3% to the Walker Baptist Association, Hyche said.
In addition, they’re setting aside $10,000 per year for local missions, including feeding a football team and partnering with the Weldy Home in Winfield, which provides emergency services for teenage girls.
“They call us when they need something, and our men jump into action with tractors and everything,” Hyche said. “They’ve been up there several times doing yard work, taking supplies, all kinds of things.”
Giving
Glory had a goal of collecting 200 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child but they surpassed 400. City workers had offered the church the use of a concessions trailer at the annual Mule Day Car and Bike Show in September. Rather than selling hot dogs like the city normally does, the church decided to give away hot dogs, water and chips, Hyche said.
“They cooked all this stuff, and people just started leaving money, donations. We set a shoebox up, and people were coming by, getting a hot dog and shoving a 100 or a 20 or a 50,” he said. “They said, ‘We believe in that shoebox ministry.’ People from all over Alabama. We raised $1,400.”
Later, a church member was shopping at Walmart for shoebox items and noticed a table of toys strangely out of place. When the member inquired, Walmart ended up donating nearly two truckloads of toys for shoeboxes, Hyche said. What couldn’t fit in shoeboxes was given to an Angel Tree ministry.
“It’s been wild watching God take care of all of this stuff. It’s one thing after another to where you look at it and go, ‘It doesn’t even faze us anymore to hear God stories coming out of all this,’” Hyche said.
Another highlight is that Glory has seen nine salvations since its start and six baptisms, including its VBS director. One of those saved, an 11-year-old girl, surprised the pastor one Sunday when he walked in with doughnuts to share.
Hyche thought the girl wanted a doughnut, but in fact she wanted to introduce him to her friend. The friend explained that she had asked Jesus to be her Savior and Lord because of the 11-year-old girl’s witness at their public school.
“There’s just something all the time, so that we know God is at work and we know God is going to do something with this church,” Hyche said, adding that he has been in ministry 40 years and has not seen anything like it. “It’s going to be hard to tear ourselves away from this group of people.”
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