Winewood church commissions seven pastors as church planters

Ask Pastor John H. Davis Jr. to describe Winewood Baptist Christian Fellowship, Birmingham, and he will say the 65-member congregation may be small but it has a huge heart for missions and evangelism.

Founded in 1998 with a desire to birth new congregations, Winewood Baptist, a member of Birmingham Baptist Association (BBA), commissioned seven pastors as church planters in a Sept. 30 covenant confirmation service.

Those commissioned were Walter Lockett of Grace Baptist Church, Birmingham; John Adams Sr. of Rehoboth Christian Community Church, Pratt City; Terence Davis of Abundant Life Church, Clay; Johnny Williams of Living Faith Baptist Cathedral, Birmingham; Roderick Sales of New Direction Baptist Church, Calera; Wilton Cauthens of Christ for the Nation, Birmingham; and Samuel Kamau Njuguna of The Lord’s Army Ministries, Nairobi, Kenya.

During the program, John King, the networking and affinity team leader for BBA, encouraged the pastors to stand firm in the face of discouragement and trials.

“It’s your calling that will keep you going because you know that God has called you and kept you and sustained you for such a time as this,” King said.

Gary Swafford, director of the office of associational missions and church planting for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, said such services raise awareness of a need for church planting and highlight the importance of partnerships in the process.

“The local church is where the process starts with God calling the individual. The association helps the church determine the best site for a new church, and the state convention and North American Mission Board facilitates the process by offering training,” he said.

According to John Davis, Winewood Baptist will now work with the newly commissioned pastors to begin developing the churches they serve. “We are an alliance of churches who work together and share our resources — economic and human — to plant churches.”

For more information on church planting, contact Swafford at 1-800-264-1225, Ext. 323. (Erin W. Tunnell contributed)