First Baptist Church in Ashville recently called Ken Alford as Interim Pastor. Alford is a native of Montgomery and a graduate of Troy State University. He earned both a Master of Divinity degree and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He began pastoral ministry in 1981, and he served churches in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Georgia prior to his retirement from full-time ministry in August of 2020. He has served in denominational leadership positions such as a member of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the North American Mission Board, and President of the Florida Baptist Convention. He also served as the President of the State Pastors’ Conferences in both Mississippi and Florida. He and his wife Cynthia live in Alabaster. They have two married children and two grandsons.
Having a father who is in the ministry, Kevin Reeves has always had a passion for serving the local church. God called him into full-time Christian service in 1991 and he has loved ministering to others ever since.
“I am passionate about what I do,” says Reeves, worship leader at FBC. “Being a worship pastor in this day and age, I minister to a wide range of individuals. From old hymns to the new praise, I strive to provide an environment where the youngest to the oldest can come together each week and truly worship God.”
Reeves has served at various churches throughout Alabama since 1993. Many of those years were as Music and Youth director, but for the past 11 years, he has been a Worship Leader. That’s his official title since coming to FBC in 2019.
- Born in in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Reeves lived in that city until his family moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, when he was six. Four years later, when he was in the sixth grade, they moved to Gadsden, Alabama, where he graduated from Coosa Christian School in 1989. He spent two years at Gadsden State Community College before transferring to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. He graduated in 1993 with a degree in Church Ministries with a concentration in Youth. “I was saved at the age of 12 at Whites Chapel Baptist Church, Gadsden, during our annual Alabama Jubilee Revival,” Reeves says.
Married 1994, he and his wife, Christina, have two children. Samuel is 12 and Kristen is eight. Going through the COVID-19 pandemic has handicapped their ability to get to know church members on an individual basis as much as they would like.
Reeves’s personal goal is to grow spiritually each day and to be the godly husband and father that God desires and that his family deserves. He wants to see the choirs at FBC (preschool through adult) grow numerically and spiritually. Multi-generational worship is important for the future of the church, Reeves believes. “I also have a desire to see a church orchestra established,” he says.
Outside of church, he enjoys painting, the kind requires a bucket and a roller brush. “I have been painting for over 15 years, anything from small projects in homes to larger commercial buildings.”
Hers is the voice you usually hear when you call FBC, and the first face you see when you stop by during the week. Paula Brown strives to serve everyone who comes into the church office with a smile and a loving heart, and most folks who meet her would say she succeeds.
“I love ministering to my church family in any way that I can,” says Brown, who is FBC’s church administrator. “I want to be known as a trustworthy person.”
Born in Meridian, Mississippi, in 1960, Brown grew up in Collinsville, Mississippi. She asked Jesus into her heart when she was 8-years-old during a revival at her home church, Midway Baptist Church, in Meridian. She graduated from West Lauderdale High School in Collinsville, and attended Meridian Community College.
She has been married to her high school sweetheart, Glenn Brown, since 1979, and the couple has two children, Eric and Emily, and four grandchildren: Seeley Rae Brown, twins Hank and Darcy Brown, and Harvey Goodman.
“I began serving the Lord in ministry at Clearview Baptist Church as the receptionist and education secretary in May of 1990,” she says. “I was at Clearview for eight years and then on May 1, 1998, started my ministry at FBC Ashville. God opened the door for me to serve at Clearview and I fell in love with doing God’s work through helping and ministering to the church staff, church family and people in the community.”
She wants to be a faithful servant for God and to be used where God wants to use her, Brown says. “It thrills my heart to see young families with children be active and involved in church life. I want to see our church grow and disciple everyone who steps through our doors to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ.”
In her leisure time she enjoys walking and spending time with her family.
When God provided the call and the opportunity for Mary Evelyn Coker to help FBC’s children’s program continue during a period when it had no director, she didn’t hesitate to answer Him.
“As God would have it, I have been blessed to continue serving our Lord in this capacity,” she says.
Born in Magnolia, Arkansas, in 1960, Coker moved to Albertville, Alabama, in 1967. She accepted Jesus during a revival at FBC Albertville in 1970, and was baptized there. She graduated from Albertville High School in 1979, then received several undergraduate degrees/certificates (Early Childhood Education, Elementary Education, and Physical Education), from Jacksonville State University. She also holds a master’s degree in Education Counseling from JSU.
The widow of Randy Coker, who died in May of 2018, she has two daughters. Lacey is 31 and Scout is 19. She has been Children’s Director at FBC since January of 2018. Coker also teaches physical education classes for grades K-4 at Ashville Elementary School. She will be retiring from that position in December of 2021.
“The mission of the Children’s Ministry at FBC is to prepare and train children to be lifelong followers of Christ,” she says. “We strive to provide a loving, safe environment for all children. We share the love and life of Jesus, foster a personal relationship with Jesus, and endeavor to prepare them to tell others about Jesus.”
Personally, she wants to act in ways that enable others to see that she loves and serves Jesus. She also wants to see all families take their children to Sunday School and church services at the church of their choice.
“It’s a precious blessing to see the children at FBC make the most important decision in their lives by choosing Jesus as their Lord and Savior,” she says. “Hearing young children tell what they have learned from the Bible is also a treasure,” she says.
In the rare time that she has for hobbies, Coker loves to cook, spend time with Scout, hang out with her dogs, and watch college football, especially when Alabama plays. “Most everything else I do is related to a job or ministry God has blessed me with,” she says.
Calvin Bailey’s computer screensaver tells a lot about FBC’s Youth Minister. “God is the only reason I have made it this far,” it says. It’s not that he has had lots of bad times in his life. He just knows that he has to rely on God to meet all his needs.
“Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow,” he says. “So, sharing Him with others is my philosophy. Anything outside of that, I'd just mess things up.”
Bailey was born in Steele, Alabama, in 1971, and grew up on Chandler Mountain. He holds an associate degree from Gadsden State Community College and a B.S. in Sociology from Jacksonville State University. He lives in his family’s old home place with his wife, Kathryn, and their three children: Brooklyn, 22, a registered, nurse; Caleb, 18, a student at Jefferson State Community College; and Emma, 16, a junior at Ashville High School. During the week, he is warehouse and logistics manager at Metals in Motion, a foundry supply distributor in Ashville. He has been with the company for 20 years.
Saved at the age of 12, Bailey taught Sunday School for several years before accepting the position of Youth Minister in 2004. “Having three kids of my own, I love being around them and their friends and students in general,” he says. “I have a platform to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that's the coolest thing I could ever do for anyone!”
He tries to reveal Christ to the students using modern examples as analogies to biblical Scripture. “My favorite part about this ministry is seeing the students for the first time see Christ for who He is and believing in Him, and then seeing all of them grow in their faith,” he says. “From the time they enter our youth ministry in seventh grade to the time they graduate from high school, the maturity that takes place in their lives is so amazing!”
He really doesn’t have any hobbies, unless you’d call playing golf twice a year a hobby. “I dabble a little bit into everything,” he says.