The Well Network Story

In the early 2000’s, there was little church-based ministry to the collegiate students at the University of North Alabama. The youth minister at Highland Baptist Church saw this as a real need and decided to start a small Bible study and began praying about ministering more effectively to the campus. That small Bible study, called The Well, became a watering can for dry ground, and quickly grew to over 200 students in a few short years. With that growth also came the starting of a Tuesday night, student-led worship service.

In the winter of 2014, God began to open our eyes to the growing church planting movement that was happening in university cities across the nation. In many ways, God had been preparing The Well for this transition since its inception. In the summer of 2015, with the help of the North American Mission Board, we began the conversation about what this would look like in our context. After over 18 months of prayer, and many hours of planning, we officially launched The Well Church Florence from Highland Baptist Church in August of 2015.

During the 2016 spring semester, the Lord laid an opportunity at our doorstep to launch a second church plant in the neighboring city of Huntsville, AL. With Huntsville being the fastest growing city in Alabama and the largest city as well, the need for new churches was large. Therefore, after much prayer and blessing from the Lord, Ethan & Lexi McCreary moved to Huntsville in 2017 to launch The Well Church Huntsville (which became Church on the Hill in 2024) to minister to the city & the college student population.

What started as a single church began to multiply. It was here that The Well Church Network was formed. A church planting network that seeks to see a church-planting church in every university city in the Southeast.

In 2020, a third church plant in Tuscaloosa, AL called Church at the Oaks was planted to engage the campus and the city. In 2022, a fourth church planting team was sent to Jacksonville, AL to plant The Banner Church to reach the city and the campus of Jacksonville State University.

In 2024, two couples from The Hill moved to Mobile, AL to plant Five Rivers Church to reach the city and campus of The University of South Alabama. Today, multiple church planting residents are joining our churches to prepare to plant and multiply more churches.

God has given us a specific calling to take his Good News to university cities and campuses. The 22 million students walking on university campuses each day solidify our belief that the collegiate campus is the most strategic mission field in the world. We cannot sit back and allow students to spend 4 years (or more…) in our cities during one of the most transformational times of their lives and refuse to engage them with the Gospel. For this reason, God has called us to plant churches in university cities.

We are for the campus, for the city, for the nations, for God’s glory. Will you join in this work with us?