Hello!  My name is Wes Carpenter and I work with the teens and outreach here at EMCC.  The teens are wonderful and they have a heart for outreach.  It is my hope and prayer we further position ourselves to be a ministry whereby teens reach teens in East Marion!  

I grew up in Midland, NC and Jesus became my Lord and Savior when I was ten years old.  I knew then I wanted Him to be my Lord.  It wasn't until I was around 18 and working as a summer camp counselor that it made sense that He had to die for me; that that was the only way to bridge the gap sin had created between me and my Father.  I completed my undergrad studying math and political science at UNC where I met my soon to be wife, Andrea.  I then took almost a year of seminary courses at Gardner Webb University.  Thereafter, I married my love and we later began a family.   We are now the proud parents of three boys ranging from elementary to high school.  She teaches kindergarten and I work FT teaching math and PT ministering to teens.  

My testimony most definitely includes the hardest part of our lives when we lost our daughter at full term and the ensuing heartache and anxiety that swallowed up our lives.  During this time, I hit such a low and life was so out of control, that God taught me in the brokenness.  He taught me that "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me, and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave His life for me."  I was not in control, He was, and the only way forward was to allow Him to live through me as a vessel.  Forget the legalistic control.  Forget the worry.  I had no control.  Life was up to Him.  He began restoring my soul and rebuilding my family.  

I love sharing my testimony, because while it is hard to share, it encourages me and hopefully encourages others that through trial, God reveals Himself and can restore any situation to bring Himself glory as the God of all hope!

To contact Wes, please email: wes@eastmarioncc.org

I was raised in a Christian home and came to Christ in second grade during children’s worship at our local church. Throughout my childhood and youth, I was very involved in both church and an area-wide youth group where I served and through which I memorized chapters and books of the New Testament. In middle school, I began to drift toward the idol of popularity and prioritize friendships at school. God used a season of being bullied to show me that I cannot put my trust, hope, and identity in things or people of this earth, a lesson I am still learning. While I am a work in progress and inevitably fail, He has graciously drawn me closer to Him throughout my life. Although there are many passages I can no longer recall precisely, God used my childhood of scripture memorization to speak to, convict, encourage, and comfort me throughout my adult life through His word.

I received my Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 2006 from Malone University in Canton, Ohio. After college, I worked for the executive branch of the federal government in Washington, DC. I received my Juris Doctor in 2013 from the Charleston School of Law in Charleston, SC. After admission to the South Carolina bar, I practiced family law in Charleston, SC.

I have a wonderful husband, Jeremy. We’ve been married since 2008. After struggling with infertility for a period, we were happily blessed with two children: Caroline and Calvin. Our family moved to Marion, NC in 2021 and have been so thankful to be a part of EMCC since that time.

To contact Maggie, please email: maggie@eastmarioncc.org

During an elementary school lunch hour a man came to my school and proclaimed the reality of our sin and the good news of Jesus Christ. I was convicted that I was a sinner in need of repentance and marvel now looking back at that miracle because that would have been the last thing on my heart apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. Several years later God called me to ministry with the simple words he had spoken to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” Since then I’ve had the privilege of studying at Bible college and seminary and being on staff leading worship in Baptist and Presbyterian churches. His Word continues to affect my philosophy of worship. Andrew and I have been close friends for 14 years and enjoy much unity in ordering services that incorporate both hymns and contemporary worship anthems.

The Lord has given me three incredible children and a wife who is the goodness of the Lord to me in the land of the living. Come join us for worship and before you come pray for a sense of the presence of God.

To contact Jack, please email: ramjack815@gmail.com

I was raised by a very devoted and hard-working single mother and had two very involved grandparents. I made a profession of faith as a very young child and believe that God began a slow work of growth at that time. As a young teenager, I became very involved in my youth group, but in my later teen years began to drift from God and my interest in the things of God began to decrease. At the age of 17, at a time I wasn’t walking with the Lord as I should, I sensed a call on my life that I would one day be involved in ministry, and more specifically that I would be married to a pastor. Fast forward one year, at 18, I re-committed my life to Christ and began an ebb and flow journey of following Him. I met and married Andrew in 2007 and we began dreaming of the day that he and I could work together in full-time ministry. In 2020, I started working at EMBC as the Administrative Assistant, and we were able to see the desires of our heart fulfilled (Psalm 37:4).  

Andrew and I have two wonderful children - Leah, who came to us by the blessing of adoption, and Everly who surprised all of us when we discovered she was coming. Her extremely premature birth in 2017 has forever changed my life and my faith in Christ. At a time of great fear and anger - I cried out to God in my desperation. He was so kind and merciful to meet me in that moment and brought me to this simple, yet profound conclusion -- He is good and He is sovereign; therefore I can trust Him with all things. This truth is the bedrock of my faith and the thing to which I most dearly cling.

To contact Danielle, please email: danielle@eastmarioncc.org

Growing up I was raised in a churchgoing family. My faith centered on being morally upright - for me, being a Christian was about being "good enough". Because of other insecurities, I also placed most of my identity in being intelligent. Always drawn to the sciences, I eventually came to the belief that the Christian faith was false. As an "intellectual" I convinced myself that I was unable to believe in something equivalent to a complex fairytale - I decided I was agnostic. In time this led to existential despair and deep depression as I realized that the natural consequence of this belief was complete meaninglessness. Providentaily, it was during this time that my eyes were opened to the truth of the Gospel for the first time - it's not about being good/moral enough or smart enough, it's acknowledging that I am in fact neither, and am in desperate need of a savior. A decade and a half later, I still frequently struggle with my faith - I constantly pray "I believe, help my unbelief" (Mark 9:24). The Lord has been merciful to me however, and despite all else that I struggle with, He has given me a deep trust that Jesus provides us with all the answers (and meaning) that we need. 

I am blessed to live here in Marion with an incredible family, my wife Erin and two daughters Julia and Elise. I work here locally as a primary care physician which is an incredible privilege. EMCC has become a wonderful home and a church that I am proud to be a part of and serve in. Despite all our individual differences, struggles, and failures, it is a church body that prioritizes the one who should be the priority above all else - Jesus. 

To contact Paul Fletcher, please email: jpfletcher2015@gmail.com

My name is Robbie Hensley. My wife Sarah and I have attended East Marion Baptist since May 2017. We have 3 wonderful children.

I am a believer in recovery for substance use challenges. Because of these challenges i have experienced incarceration, unemployment, and temporary loss of parental rights. In the process of earning back my rights i was invited to attend Celebrate Recovery at EMCC. At that time I began to go along with God's leading hand. I discovered that He had a plan for my life that was so much greater than my own. In fact He was willing to give the life of His own Son Jesus Christ just to show me how much He loved me and wanted to be in relationship with me. 

The definition for recovery in my opinion means this: God is recovering to Himself what was once lost. My path back to the Father consisted of a series of outpatient groups like Celebrate Recovery and SAIOP as well as inpatient stays at places like Bethel Colony of Mercy and Neil Dobbins.

Today I am a men's group leader in Celebrate Recovery and an elder at EMCC. I continue to find victory in my recovery through prayer, scripture reading, accountability partners, and the hope that is found in Jesus Christ our Lord.

To contact Robbie, please email: motorcraft17@gmail.com

I have lived here in McDowell County since 2016 and love it. My wife, Cheryl, and I have been blessed with four grown children, who have wonderful spouses, and a pile of grandchildren. For about 30 years I served in teaching and leadership roles at Christian colleges, and now teach high school biology.

I grew up in a Roman Catholic family in Buffalo, NY, and had 12 years of Catholic schooling. Yet I never knew Christ as a personal savior. Church was all about rules made by men.

Then in graduate school one day I said to another student that I was a Christian. That other graduate student suggested I might want to read the Bible and bought me a New Testament. Being a skeptical scientist type, I read the whole New Testament over the next few months. That is what God used to draw me to Him, to show me my sin and His salvation. Then I married that other graduate student!

We have found EMCC to be a place where Gospel truth is connected to practice, to life; where real people, who, as Paul wrote to the Philippians, are “working out [our] salvation with fear and trembling.”

To contact Greg, please email: gregorypkerr@gmail.com