How Pilgrim Home Baptist Church turned an empty field into a ministry space through the fruit of faithful ministry and an eagerness to see where God leads next.
Two warehouses. That’s what stood on the field next to Pilgrim Home Baptist Church in Wicksburg (just outside Dothan) when a trucking company sold the church its property. Today, those same buildings are repurposed, debt-free, and already hosting Vacation Bible School. It is the reason the church is dreaming about what comes next.
The Spirit of the Lord is moving powerfully at Pilgrim Home Baptist Church, providing all the needs the church has to grow into the future, though you may not notice it if you simply drive past on US-84. The open field could be misleading in this way, but a visible external seed has been planted. PHBC’s new multipurpose facility stands alone in the middle of a field adjacent to the historic church property. As we drove across the grass during our visit, appearances indicated we might have been headed to a future ministry center more than a church worship space. Once we heard from Pastor Singley during our visit, what we were driving toward became much clearer.
“Our next step is to put in our parking lot,” Singley told us, “which will have the spaces we need now and for the adjoining future worship space we hope to one day build.” That single sentence reframed the whole project. This wasn’t a one-off building. It was one step in a longer plan.
A full industrial kitchen, exterior hookups, multipurpose furniture, Sunday school rooms, and staging have already been installed. The multipurpose facility can serve mission teams, Disaster Relief responses, special church ministries like VBS, and the church’s normal Sunday services. The space is built not just for today’s needs, but wherever God leads next.
None of it happened overnight or by accident.
God’s movement and provision for the church are what made all of this possible. Pilgrim Home does not have the resources to simply bring this all about without blinking an eye. No, the reason this has all come about is faithful stewardship of what God has made available to them, both corporately and individually.
When the property came up for sale, the church intuitively said, “Why wouldn’t we secure land next to us for what God could use us for?” Many churches feel the same inclination, but Pilgrim Home was wise to steward the moment and take on the added responsibility and expectation of what God might do.
The two warehouses left behind became the literal building blocks of the new facility. The foundation and structure of both are still visible in the finished space today. Reusing them instead of building from scratch meant the church avoided a construction cost that could have put the project out of reach.
That decision mattered even more once it came time to pay for it. Pastor Singley shared that the loan Pilgrim Home took out through TBFA to build the space has gone largely unused, thanks to a combination of steady congregational giving and the return the church earned on funds it had invested with The Foundation. The Foundation facilitated the loan; the church’s own faithfulness, corporate and individual, is what’s paying it off ahead of schedule.
This wasn’t a one-time campaign, a single gift, or a year of abundant giving, but the stewardship of the church’s own congregational faithfulness over the years. When the moment to move came, it yielded the fruit that is this multi-purpose space.
Hearing all of this from Pastor Singley made it clear to us that God was moving at Pilgrim Home. A church that has learned over time to steward both what it has and what God places in front of it, without creating a financial burden that would limit ministry down the road. Pilgrim Home is preparing for growth; they can already see what is coming in their community. And they’re doing it debt-free, standing on two warehouses they stepped out in faith to purchase.
So the reflection on this story is: praise God. Praise God that He is moving with His people at Pilgrim Home, and they are preparing for what appears to be more people to reach in their immediate area due to population growth. Praise God, He moved through their investments and provided the earnings they needed to supplement faithful giving to make this project possible. And we, as The Foundation, praise God that He allows us to use our giftings and resources as an organization to help churches just like this accomplish works that are stepping stones to where God wants to lead His people next.
If we at TBFA can partner with you in similar ways, it would be our privilege and blessing to do so.
