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When the hammers rang out in the summer of 2021, as volunteers from around the country helped build an addition to New Palestine Bible Church, Thomas Walker was not there.
He wasn’t part of the church — yet. But a few months after that, he was going through some challenges and “I came to a point in my life where I became a little more spiritual.”
He showed up at a service in New Palestine, thinking it might be a one-time thing, but the pastor said he was starting a series. Walker thought maybe he should stick around at least for the end of that series. He’s still there today.
When the Nail Benders ministry brought its team to New Palestine, church leaders hoped more people would join them in their enlarged worship space. They also began thinking of the day they’d send a group out to help build someone else’s church.
The story lines weave and intersect: the church who hoped to make room for more people, the people like Walker who came, and the opportunity to help another church — which has a story of its own.
‘LIKE A FAMILY REUNION’
Mississippi twins Jack and Mack Honea founded Nail Benders, incorporating it in 1994. They pick a different project each summer and schedule teams of volunteers to visit in successive weeks, carrying out different phases of the building project. The result is a five-week building blitz between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.
Trailers with showers, washers and a stove arrive to accommodate visiting teams, who share meals and morning devotions near the work site.
Some people volunteer each year with the Nail Benders, either as individuals or as churches sending mission teams. There are enough team members with construction experience booked for each week to help guide any newcomers.
“It’s like a family reunion,” Jack Honea said when the Nail Benders were in New Palestine. They built an addition that tripled the church’s square footage at 5954 W. County Road 300S.
SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED
The people of Quinton Baptist Church, all 45-50 of them, have been meeting in a smaller building, where they sing holding red hymnals on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings.
Yet they see growth edging closer to their community northwest of Birmingham. It’s made them think that someday, there might not be room to welcome their new neighbors.
“They’re trying to expand and bring in more people to the word of God,” said Mark Keith, one of the local volunteers who went to Alabama.
“God gave the church a vision for building a church,” said Donny Littleton, building chairman for the Quinton church. They began a small building fund.
Then a sister church, an older congregation that dwindled as members passed away, closed its doors — and donated $100,000 to the Quinton church.
It’s been a winding journey, with starts and stops. One possible building site needed a lot of work. Someone donated 3.6 acres to build on, but it was challenging to find an affordable bid, especially amid a surge in building materials prices during and following COVID.
Littleton talked to a contractor about a 65-by-130-feet building, but a $1.4 million price tag seemed steep for a congregation Quinton Baptist’s size.
One day, though, Littleton was browsing Facebook Marketplace and noticed a building kit, in a way. Another church had bought pieces of a building to assemble. Then COVID came, and amid the delay the church found an already-existing building. They moved and prayed another church would be able to build with the parts they’d bought.
The unbuilt building cost $98,000 and measured 125 feet by 60 feet — close to the desired dimensions, for a much lower price.
“God has been doing this the whole time,” Littleton said.
‘WATCH GOD MOVE’
While the Quinton church members picked up the unbuilt building pieces in Mississippi, they ran into someone who knew the Nail Benders.
The Nail Benders bring an influx of volunteer labor and generally leave with a building about 70 percent done. New Palestine Bible Church senior pastor Brett Crump estimated their work saved the Hancock County church $350,000 to $450,000 in free labor. Littleton thinks his church’s dream of being debt-free when the first sermon is preached in the new building is attainable now.
“Sometimes we just have to stand still and sit back and watch God move,” Littleton said.
Walker, one of the New Palestine volunteers, has been doing some of that too.
‘LIFE HAS BLOSSOMED’
On June 18, Walker was baptized at the close of the service in New Palestine. It was the day before he would board a van to Alabama.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever had my whole family in church,” he said. “That was a blessing in itself, and the love and outpouring I got from the church community was just amazing.”
Yet he found more reasons to be grateful over the days that followed: getting to know other team members on the trip, having his mother come along and work on the church too, meeting the “good group of people” that is the Quinton congregation.
He thinks about the Nail Benders and how they helped New Palestine Bible Church. “To be able to be part of paying that forward, to allow another church to feel what my church felt, was great.”
He thinks about how what’s now “my church” wasn’t his church yet when that addition was built. “At one point in time they were trying to grow, and it might have seemed like a crazy thing.”
Yet there he is, being baptized in New Palestine, Indiana, and then installing framing for a drop ceiling in Quinton, Alabama. Like Quinton Baptist’s Littleton, Walker is watching a story unfold.
“It’s not me doing it. It’s God doing it … through him I’ll be able to do what he needs me to do,” Walker said.
“It’s such a blessing. My life has blossomed spiritually, and it feels so good to see that tree bear fruit.”
