Wilks celebrates 20-year anniversary as pastor of NorthPark, Trussville

Bill Walks

Wilks celebrates 20-year anniversary as pastor of NorthPark, Trussville

When Bill Wilks was called as pastor of Roebuck Park Baptist Church 20 years ago it was in the middle of a lot of change.

“They had a great history, but the community was changing and the church was declining,” he said.

Together they followed through on what the church had already voted to do — they moved to Trussville from Birmingham, built a new facility and changed their name to NorthPark Baptist.

“We put our hand to the plow and didn’t look back, and we’ve seen God do some great things over the years,” Wilks said. “We’ve seen a lot of growth.”

One way that’s happened is through a disciple-making model Wilks started called D-Life.

“We have been able to train a lot of people to live a lifestyle of discipleship,” he said.

That goes for NorthPark, where they’re seeing conversion growth, but it also goes for the roughly 500 churches in seven countries now implementing the D-Life model.

“The key to revival in America is not the megachurch but the many churches we have across the nation. If they would adopt a disciple-making culture we would see revival,” he said.

Wilks noted that he’s thankful for a church home that would lead out in that grassroots effort.

“We are grateful for the people at NorthPark. They’re loving, they’re kind and they’ve been a wonderful family to my family,” he said. “We feel incredibly blessed to have been here 20 years.” (Grace Thornton)