‘The Grove’ is home for its pastor as well as the neighborhood

By Editor | August 7, 2026 |

By Pamela Permar-Shierling

First Jordan Grove Missionary Baptist Church on MLK Blvd. in Brunswick celebrated the dedication of their new fellowship hall, The Grove Center, last month.

The Church was founded in 1918 and organized under the leadership of Reverend J. W. Whitaker along with building committee members including Reverend H. B. Brown and Reverend A. Pinkney. Reverend Whitaker Served as pastor, and Sister Nettie Gamble served as church clerk. The members met at Little St. James Baptist Church on the corner of “I” and Albany Streets.

On April 13, 1918, a church was organized. The members purchased a lot and began clearing the land to build.

Fast forward to 2012 when Rev. John Fields became pastor of the church then to 2015 when Rev. Fields began to plan for the expansion of the church.

It took a while but ground was broken June 2025 and almost a year to the day The Grove Center was finished.

Up to that point the sanctuary was used as a fellowship hall which meant moving all the chairs out of the sanctuary.

The church also included a small kitchen and a fellowship hall that would hold about 40 people.

The Grove Center has a capacity of 225 people and a large kitchen. It includes classrooms for youth as well as a nursery and Rev. Fields’ office.

There were no classrooms in the original church building.

Members donated toys to furnish the new nursery and classroom. Other books and furnishings came from the FLETC day care center, Fields said.

Under Rev. Fields, Jordan Grove has become a busy, dynamic church.

Every other Tuesday a seniors ministry is held that includes teaching, lunch and bingo. Children can receive tutoring at the church; on the fourth Saturday of every month the homeless are fed breakfast.

“We pray five times a week,” Rev. Fields said. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday an on line prayer meeting is available from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. and on Thursday at noon.

On Sunday prayers are held in the sanctuary from 8 a.m. until 8:45 a.m. Sunday school is held from 9 a.m. until 9:45 a.m. and church at 10 a.m. The 10 a.m. Sunday church service is live streamed on FaceBook® and YouTube.

Baptisms, which are increasing, are held the first Sunday of the month.

There is a mortgage on the Grove Center, and it is being quickly reduced by members in two ways.

Members may contribute through the 1918 Vow or purchase a brick for the walkway.

The 1918 Vow is a pledge of $1,918 to be paid monthly or yearly with the revenue going to reduce the debt.

The bricks are $125 apiece and those moneys also go to reduce the debt.

The man who has pushed this church forward for the past 14 years, Rev. John Fields, was called to the ministry in 2001 while serving on a submarine.

Fields, who served 20 years in the Navy, has the distinction of serving on the USS Stimson which is a Benjamin Franklin class fleet ballistic missile submarine and one of the legendary “41 for Freedom” nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines commissioned by the U.S. Navy during the Cold War.

Fields also served aboard the USS Maryland and USS Louisiana which are both nuclear-powered Ohio-class fleet ballistic missile submarines whose home base is Kings Bay. He did 17 patrols during his 20 years in the Navy.

After Fields retired from the Navy he spent 17 years at FLETC.

Now he is doing solely what he was originally called to do.

“I was called by God during my time on my second submarine, the USS Maryland. I had been studying the word of God most of my life, and I was able to do dual duty as a religious officer on board the sub as well as my job as missile technician,” Fields said.

After leaving the military Rev. Fields spent four years at his first church in Woodbine.

“My parents came to my installation ceremony,” he said.

While Rev. Fields and his wife Tammy make their home in St. Marys and have two grown children, now as pastor of “The Grove” he is doing what he loves and has been for a total of 19 years.