Garywood Assembly of God
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Garywood Assembly of God is a large church in the western suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama.
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[edit] Founding
Garywood Assembly was founded in 1947 during a tent crusade by evangelist Dorine Justice. The church began with just 14 members. Justice served as pastor for the first year. Between 1950 and 1979 there were eleven different pastors, during which time church growth was slow. In 1979, Pastor John A. Loper, then an official with the Alabama District of the Assemblies of God, accepted the pastorate. During this time the church's radio outreach, Garywood Alive, was aired. This soon evolved into a television outreach as well.
[edit] Annual events
The church is known throughout metro Birmingham for its annual Easter Drama, which began in 1977 and produced each year since, except for 2005. The church also hosted an annual Garywood Camp meeting, which for many years was billed as the largest "spiritual gathering" in Alabama, featuring well-known figures Vestal Goodman, Marvin Gorman, Jesse Duplantis and John Kilpatrick (of Brownsville Revival fame).
[edit] Attendance
Under Loper's pastorate, attendance at Garywood grew from 250 to nearly 1,500 people, making it one of the largest churches in Alabama as well as one of the fastest growing churches in the nation. In 1981, construction began on a new 1,600 seat sanctuary. It opened Easter Sunday 1982 to a capacity crowd.
[edit] Property acquisitions
In 2003 Garywood's congregation overwhelmingly voted to buy property on I-459 near McCalla, Alabama for relocation. Original plans currently include a 2,500-seat state-of-the-art auditorium, large facilities for youth, children's ministry and greatly expanded capacity for Garywood Christian School. However, the church sold the property to Colonial Properties Trust in 2006, and now plans to use the proceeds of the sale to build a new facility approximately one mile away from the first site.
