Knowing that preaching and teaching of God’s Word was to be the central focus in worship and sustaining the church, these families sought a pastor with the necessary training for the task of shepherding. Though few in number, they pledged an amount of giving that could sustain a man in ministry. Having done that, they called Will Thomas, a recent graduate of The Master’s Seminary, to be their first pastor, a role that he began on June 1, 2006. The Mathiot’s downtown art store became the public meeting location for corporate worship on Sunday and Wednesday night prayer, and Bible teaching took place in the Mathiot and Thomas homes.

However, in God’s providence, this young church was shaken when Will was diagnosed with a severe case of Burkitt’s Lymphoma less than a year after coming to the church. In God’s mercy, Will was spared from death and permitted many more years of ministry, albeit with a philosophy of ministry honed in suffering.

Over time, the church grew, and the church moved to a rented storefront location on Simmons Street in New Bern. With God’s blessing, the church continued to grow, and in His kind provision, God provided a permanent location at 2920 U.S. Highway 70 in 2014. In that location, the church matured and continued to proclaim God’s Word. Out of a desire to faithfully minister Scripture to needy lives, the elders established Berean Biblical Counseling Ministries in the spring of 2025, an ACBC-certified training and counseling center that uses Scripture to speak to the scope of sin and suffering that people face in this fallen world.

God has sustained and kept us in the past, and, by God’s grace, He will continue to do so in the future. Our hope is that we will faithfully serve Christ by exalting God, equipping the saints, and evangelizing the lost until the Lord comes or calls us home.

Sola Deo Gloria.