‘An answer to prayer’: Homewood natives come full circle as leaders of Raleigh Avenue Baptist Church

Homewood runs through the veins of Claude Rhea III and Michael Ent.

Both men grew up at Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, attended Samford University and went into ministry. And while their paths took them away from their alma mater and the city they grew to love, they’ve now both returned to lead Raleigh Avenue Baptist Church in West Homewood.

For pastor Michael Ent, coming home to Homewood served as a respite after troubled times for his family. A graduate of Samford, where he met his wife, Ent spent time planting churches in California for several years until his 15-year-old daughter, his youngest, died in her sleep in 2019.

Ent and his family stepped away from ministry and left California. While working remotely for a secular company, Ent and his family house-sat in Cullman last October. A friend told him Raleigh Avenue was searching for a pastor and he offered to preach a couple of Sundays to help them out.

Ent said he recognized a need for stability at the church and while he wasn’t counting on staying, he became the interim pastor, planning to stay for about six months. But toward the end, he and the church felt his family coming back to Homewood and to the church was no coincidence.

“This was an answer to prayer for all of us,” Ent said. “The things God was doing here just felt right.”

So, earlier this summer, the interim tag was removed from both Ent and Rhea, who came back toward the end of last summer.

Rhea, the music minister, previously served at Raleigh Avenue for five years as the interim music minister. When his successor left to complete his medical residency, the church asked him to come back as the interim music minister.

Rhea has a long resume in ministry. He served with Chuck Colson for 18 years in prison ministry, with the North American Mission Board and several other Christian organizations and now, in addition to his duties at Raleigh Avenue, serves as the director of foundation support at Samford.

“This is really home,” Rhea said about Raleigh Avenue. “It’s our family church.”

Rhea said there is a “real chemistry” between Ent and himself. Ent called Rhea a “Renaissance man,” as Rhea is passionate about a great many things, from his legal background to his joy of “dressing up creation” through projects like the Shades Creek Greenway and tree planting.

For Ent, coming to Homewood followed a time in a “whole different culture” in California. He helped plant a church in Marin County, which is both the wealthiest county and the least-churched county in the United States, he said.

In 2008, he planted a church on his own, which eventually merged in 2013 with a church in northern Marin County.

When he came back to Raleigh Avenue and connected with Rhea, he said it was an “exciting” time as everyone was on board. The church, chartered in the 1950s or 60s, Ent said, has “ministered effectively” for decades. Boasting a “fantastic reputation” in the community, it is now finding its footing following the upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prayer is the “meat and potatoes” of Raleigh Avenue, Ent said. The church is also marked by integrity and a commitment to God’s Word. The church is good about celebrating and singing about Christ, and, as typical Baptists, they “eat pretty good,” too, Ent said.

Being able to have staff members like Rhea helps Ent, who had grown accustomed to doing it all as a church planter, Ent said.

“I get to sink into a better-defined lane,” he said.

Rhea said he has benefited from participating in worship, even after he steps down off the stage. He’s also enjoyed the friendships he’s made over the years and the compassion he feels at the church.

While the past year or so has been a reformative time in the life of the church, it has also been a meaningful time in Ent’s family as well, as they continue to move forward in the wake of their loss.

“We have really experienced God’s people caring for God’s people,” Ent said. “Without the sense of church, it’s all just academic theory. We get to press the flesh.”

Being at the church, he said, has been “life giving.”

“God has cared for us through his people,” Ent said.