Alberta Baptist and Open Door Baptist churches to merge in November

Members of Alberta Baptist Church gather for a Bible study on "Churchology" led by pastor Colby Mouchette in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014. On Sunday, Oct. 26, 2014, Larry Corder will announce his retirement during the service and on Sunday Nov. 2, members of Open Door Baptist Church will merge with Alberta Baptist as one congregation.

The pews should be filled at Alberta Baptist Church on the first Sunday in November.

Alberta Baptist and Open Door Baptist churches will officially merge on Nov. 2 after sharing the Open Door facility for almost three years. During that time, the Alberta church was under construction after it was destroyed in the April 27, 2011, tornado.

The Rev. Larry Corder, Alberta Baptist's senior pastor, said that before the tornado Open Door Baptist had planned to sell its property and move to a smaller location. That plan was put on hold while Open Door Baptist served as host for the Alberta Baptist congregation.

The Alberta congregation moved into a new building at the same location as before on University Boulevard in February and invited the Open Door congregation to join them.

The churches formed a task force to discover if the merger would be beneficial to both parties and, on Sept. 28, they decided to merge.

"We merged because we believe we're better together," Corder said. "Either church could exist on (its) own, but we believe we can be more effective together than we are separately."

Corder said, among other benefits, the churches as one create a better staff with pastors from both churches coming together to share pastoral duties.

Sunday will be Corder's last time to preach at Alberta Baptist. He will retire, and Colby Mouchette will step up as senior pastor alongside Keith Pugh, the current pastor at Open Door. The two will alternate preaching at different services.

"Both of these men bring different strengths to the pastoring ministry, but they have the same philosophy of ministry," he said.

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Alberta Baptist and Open Door Baptist churches to merge in November