The Beginnings of Pine Crest

By: Jimmy Milum
Recorded By: Beth Willis

In 1961, I was a home preacher at Corinth Baptist Church. I had been called to preach for six years. Our family enjoyed worshipping the Lord at Corinth but God had laid a burden on me to start a new church. I walked the floors with the pent up desire to preach and pastor this church. My wife Bonzie was willing to go wherever God led us. I didn’t talk about it much but when I did, God opened doors. He was there every step of the way. One day I told Major Burruss that I wished I knew of somewhere to build a church. He said he knew of a place and we went together to the end of 14th street.

I will never forget my first sight of the land. It was covered with pine trees and had a trash dump on it. As I walked onto the property, I felt the presence of the Lord and knew this was the place He wanted the church. Times were hard and I didn’t know how I’d pay for the land My wife Bonzie and I had four children at the time and cared for several foster children. The land belonged to Mark Heard Jr. so I visited him. The price was right at $350.00 an acre so I told him I wanted three acres. I asked Thad Pickett Thomas, a deacon at Coal Mtn. Church, to survey the land. As he and I walked the property, it dropped off real bad so I just took two and a half acres. It was hard to walk because the land was covered with blackberry bushes and briars. I visited my neighbors in the Coal Mtn. Community and around asking for donations to buy the land. Many gave and others prayed for us.

After buying the property, I cleaned up the trash dump and put up a sign that said Future Home of Pine Crest Baptist Church hoping no one would dump their trash there anymore. My wife Bonzie and I sat down at the kitchen table one night and named the church. The land was at the crest of a hill and was covered with pine trees so we named it Pine Crest. We started having prayer meetings in peoples’ houses and many were saved at these meetings. One day as I was working on my job, the Lord burdened me so strong to ask brother C.F. Caine to help me in this mission that I laid my tools down and drove to his house. God was working on his side as well and he agreed to co-pastor the church. We didn’t have the money to build the church right then so he and I drove many miles looking for a temporary place to start it. We saw a little chicken house on a corner near the property. It belonged to Roy Otwell. C.F. asked him if it would be alright for us to have services there. He said yes so we cleaned it up and filled it with sawdust. We had a new church family and were so blessed in this spirit led church. Later, Pine Crest built the basement to the church on the property bought from Mark Heard, Jr. Some of the men, including preachers and deacons, would go out in the woods to pray on Sunday afternoon then sit back Sunday night and watch God answer those prayers. The power of the Lord drew people to Pine Crest. It was always full of folks eager to be blessed.