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Hayneville Baptist Church welcomed Dr. Brad Doss as pastor Sunday, June 15, after almost  a year of prayerfully searching for the right person to fill the pulpit. Doss joyfully stepped into the role, delivering his first Father’s Day sermon to the congregation that welcomed him with open arms.

“First of all, I want to thank you for trusting in us as your next pastor,” Doss said in a media release. “It will be our joy to serve the Lord at Hayneville Baptist Church. Our hearts are full, and we are ready to get started serving the Lord at HBC.”

Doss fills the position vacated by Andy Hepburn, who announced his retirement last year. Lowndes County District Judge Adrian Johnson, chairman of the deacons at First, Hayneville, described how the church’s search committee witnessed God’s hand in the process. The committee met with representatives of the Alabama State Board of Missions, where they received training and guidance for following God’s will to find the right person to lead their congregation.

“At every step in the process, we were prayerful that God would guide our deliberations, that He would show us the way that He wanted us to go,” Johnson said. “At every point, we were seeking His will and not our will for our church.”

Doss and his wife Connie come to Hayneville from Perdido Baptist Church near Foley after 30 years of ministry in Baldwin County.

“We will be renting a house with the ultimate goal of planting our roots [in Lowndes County],” Doss said. “We plan to become ingrained in the community.”

The couple served south Alabama as church planters before COVID-related restriction transitioned their ministry to service as interim pastor and ultimately to Perdido Baptist. Throughout the move to Hayneville, Doss said he and Connie experienced God’s complete peace and direction in knowing which direction to turn.

“We felt like it was a move of God to direct and bring us together,” he said. “It’s always been tough to leave one church, and leaving Perdido was especially painful. We realized this is really what God wants, and we knew the Father was going to take care of us while preparing someone for Perdido.”

Doss brings with him a degree in pastoral ministries from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary as well as masters and doctorate degrees in theology.

“I think the Lord revealed to him that this is where he was called to be, and that’s the way we have tried to pursue this,” Johnson said. “This is the Lord’s church in our community, and we wanted to make sure that we are being obedient to His will.

“We are planted here to be salt and light in our community. We needed the right person to be here to lead God’s people, and we feel like the Lord led us in that direction, that Brad’s the person He wants us to have at this particular season in the life of our church.”