Interview by Lauren Goforth | Image by Justin Hunter
In August 2022, a group of 30 people were without a church. By January 2023, they held their first service in a borrowed building. A year later, they are weeks away from moving into their permanent building on their own land.
This is Glory Baptist Church of Winfield, a church plant of Glory Fellowship Baptist Church in Jasper. It’s a powerful and exciting testimony of God’s work.
Alan Goforth and Adam Brewer share their journey in this conversation with The Walker Leader.
WL – What are your perspectives on how the church plant came to be?
AG – My family had been searching for a church for weeks. One Sunday, we visited Glory Fellowship Baptist Church to experience a good worship service; church planting was not on our radar that day; during the service, I felt a clear message from God: “You don’t have to start a church, you can help Glory Fellowship plant a church.”
AB – Our church was looking for ways to impact the community and meet our space needs. An exploratory team was formed to brainstorm and pray about ideas for six months to a year, and they recommended that we seriously consider church planting. We began specifically praying about it. Then, Alan called me and asked to meet for lunch, but I did not know why. I assumed he was looking for direction on why they were visiting and where to look next; I had no idea he wanted to talk about God’s answer to what we had been praying about for well over a year.
WL – Tell us about what happened that let you know this was God’s plan.
AB – One of the initial things was Alan bringing it up after we had prayed about it for so long. It was exciting to see God open the door. That was confirmation that something could happen from this. We knew we wanted to push this church to be self-sustaining, and confident in making their own decisions.
AG –. When the men from Glory Fellowship came to meet with our group, one thing that was said was, “Y’all are already acting like a church; you just haven’t been calling it that.” He was so right because, for instance, during our time of being “homeless,” we packed 150 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. We thought we would do 50 or 75, but God provided 150. He told us that it was written all over that this was supposed to happen; we simply had to trust God and start meeting. I told him we couldn’t do that because we don’t have a pastor, which is an important part. He said to jump out on a leap of faith and watch God provide that. That gave us the confidence we needed to make this happen.
WL – What are some ways God provided during this time?
AG – We voted to start meeting as a church. We had Bible studies on Sunday nights and went as a group to Glory Fellowship on Sunday mornings; we did this for months. January 8, 2023, was our target date to finally hold our own service, but we still did not have a pastor. We planned to line up different people to preach each Sunday until we found someone permanent, and someone threw out the name Thomas Hyche. I had known Thomas for 20 years and knew he would be a good one to fill in one Sunday, but I honestly got busy and forgot to call him. The following Sunday, as we revisited Glory Fellowship, Thomas Hyche sat 15 feet from me. I laughed and said, “Okay, God, I get it.” I had no idea then, that Thomas would be exactly who our group needed to hold us together and help us. By the end of February, he became our transitional pastor and has been a solid part of making this church work.
AB – I remember that morning. I don’t know how to explain it; it’s almost like God used us as the incubator. We were the ones who were providing a little healing for some hurt folks who had come out of a hurt church, but God was using us as the matchmakers. God gets every bit of glory. I tell folks quite often, that it’s a lot easier to see God’s providence and how he orchestrates things when you look back than it is in the moment. And the more you look back, the more you see how everything began to line up. It was the orchestration of God all along.
AG – It is mind-blowing to think of all the ways God has provided for us, from the community center not charging us anything to meet there, to 5 acres of land being donated to us, to someone volunteering to clear the trees off it for no payment, to the Walker Baptist Association donating a double-wide to us that is already set up like a church. This week, the Alabama Baptist Association had someone moving that double-wide for no charge. It would be costly, and we needed to figure out how to pay for it. We are getting closer to being able to meet on our own property. God did all of that. It has allowed us to see God’s work, but it has also confirmed that this is supposed to be happening. We were skeptical initially, but January 8 was our one-year anniversary since we started meeting as a church.
WL – What is the vision for the future?
AG – Whatever God has for us. God has already outshined more than we could have imagined in this one year. Everything we thought might happen, He did so much more. So, whatever He decides to do next. We hope to build a multipurpose building to become our permanent church, but we don’t know when. It is all God’s timing. We want to continue meeting the needs of the community in Winfield. We want to stay closely related to Glory Fellowship because they are the ones who made all this possible. We are so thankful for everything Glory Fellowship has done, their leaders, staff, and church. God put them in our path.
AB -From Glory Fellowship’s end, we want Glory Winfield to be Kingdom-minded. Our strategies may differ, but we hope to have the same goal of making disciples that make disciples. We hope to see people growing in their faith, learning to walk as Jesus walked and live as Jesus lived. We are thankful God has chosen us to be a part of this, and we get to watch it happen.
WL – Sum up this ministry in one word or phrase.
AB – God’s orchestration. God’s orchestrating all of this so that He gets the glory, but we get to be part of it.
AG – Mine is simply “God.” Because without God, none of this would have happened.
