Antioch East Baptist Church held its annual Discipleship-Now Weekend on Jan 12-14. Discipleship-Now is a weekend-long retreat for youth that includes worship, games, and bible study classes. Youth Minister Blair McBride said, “We focused on the church from the New Testament.”

In an effort to unite the churches in the area, McBride invited several churches to the event. “Other churches that came were Brushey Creek and Southside. At worship the first night we had about 40 students.”

The main message of the weekend was “Be the church where you are called to be the church. It’s not a building, it’s a group of people,” said McBride.

After Saturday morning bible studies, the youth spent the afternoon in Montgomery at Rock N’ Jump. “It was a time to have fun and decompress from the worship […] it was true christian fellowship,” added McBride.

Madison Langford, girl’s bible study leader said, “It was my first time attending a D-Now […] the band was definitely my favorite part. They were amazing.” Close friends of McBride, the band named Less and Less traveled from Henderson, Tennessee for the event.

Each night there was a separate speaker, Randy Harvill, pastor of Brushey Creek Baptist Church on Friday and Sergeant Reggie Williams, pastor of Bible Baptist Church in Georgiana on Saturday.

Both pastors focused on emphasizing the true meaning of the church and what that looks like in the community.

Mcbride explained his purpose for focusing on the community. “[We wanted to] get everybody together to realize the unified mission. One body of Christ with different churches.”