Presiding Bishop of the Holiness Christian Church in Jamaica, Bishop Dr Alvin Bailey, is frustrated when he sees children dropping out of school because of financial challenges and the infiltration of ungodly moral practices in the family and the society in general.
He has sought to address both issues by forging partnerships with those who have similar concerns, including members of his church who are assisting him in the quest to transform lives and shape the moral fabric of the society under God.
Bishop Bailey, who is the senior pastor of the Portmore Holiness Christian Church (PHCC) in St Catherine was saved at 19 years old and was called to ministry when he was 30. He pastored alongside Bishop Dr Samuel Vassel at the Bethune Avenue, now Rose Town Holiness Christian Church and after a few years, he was asked to start the church in Portmore, St Catherine.
“My response to my call was interesting. I thought if I had said no, the Lord would have called me home. I felt obligated to give my life to full-time Ministry when I was asked to pastor the church. I believe the call was inevitable. It was inevitable because I was doing pastoral work, but not acknowledging it as pastoral work. I was visiting the community in which the Rose Town Church was located, and leading people to Jesus Christ, and persons were getting saved by the numbers,” he told the Freedom Come Rain newspaper.
After relocating to Portmore, Bishop Bailey and his wife would lead a small group in bible studies and prayer at their house. The group increased in number and services were eventually relocated to the physical church which was completed 12 years ago and is now one of the largest in Portmore. Completing the church was fraught with challenges, but today, Bishop Bailey said it is a testimony of God’s goodness and His ability to work miracles.
“While we were building this church, we were told that there is a don who poses as a contractor, who was coming to extort our workers, and we got report that he was indeed extorting some of our workers, and he was threatening to invade our space and our place. We heard about him and when we had a meeting, his response was he was doing his work and he wouldn’t want anyone to stand in the way,” the pastor recounted.
“We prayed for him and asked the Lord to change his life, save him from his sins or to take him home to glory, and the man walked into a church one day, sat down and listened to the sermon and then walked forward and gave his life to Jesus Christ. That man has not looked back since,” he said.
Bishop Bailey said he is called to live by faith and to have confidence in the Word of God and in the power of God as a pastor. He loves seeing the transformation that is taking place in people’s lives as he and the other leaders of the church shepherd the congregation.
“A man walked into my church, two weeks ago [and] he was sick. He was being diagnosed and so he had tests outstanding, and he would have come to an altar and prayed. He couldn’t see properly. He had difficulty driving to work. He had excruciating pain and yet that man, came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and everything went instantly,” he shared.
