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About Us // Our Story
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In 1997 God began stirring in the hearts of Pastor Rich & Paula Fennelle to move to North Carolina and plant a church. After much prayer, many divine appointments and connections, in September of 1998 Rich and Paula along with their two children at the time, packed up and moved to Burlington, NC and a new venture of faith began.
After a few months of preparation, we held our grand opening service on January 17, 1999 at the Country Inn & Suites and began with 17 people attending regularly.
Ten months later we relocated to New Directions International building in downtown Graham. At this location we grew to about 50 people.
In September of 2000 we relocated once again to our current location at 2761 Longpine Rd where we leased 5,000 sq ft of the 20,000 sq ft building. It was during this time that we developed our system for involvement starting with our “Getting A Grip On The Basics” and “Getting A Grip On The Basics of Serving God.”
The church continued to experience steady growth and in October 2004 WOL purchased the entire 20,000 sq ft building and 8.5 acres of land and soon after remodeled the entire facilities.
Pastor Rich and Paula operate as a husband and wife team, sharing leadership and teaching responsibilities. They have surrounded themselves with a great team of staff and volunteers and together WOL continues to grow and increase in numbers and in areas of influence.
The vision for WOL is to be a multi-cultural church, one that demonstrates the undeniable presence and evidence of Jesus Christ in a loving atmosphere where we respect the nonbeliever and we are sensitive to their need for a Savior.
At WOL, we are zealous and excited to invite our friends and co-workers so they can experience the same wonder that we get to experience each week. We want those friends to be confronted with the clear reality of Christ’s redeeming power and ultimately accept Him as their Savior. Because of the heartfelt worship and the life-applicable teaching of the Word of God and our love for the lost… we envision hundreds and even thousands of people coming to Jesus Christ through the influence of WOL.
Today over 550 people call WOL their church home and we have an average weekly attendance of 430. WOL is an independent, non-denominational, charismatic Christian church! We are not affiliated with any one denomination and in fact, our church is filled with people who were raised in a number of different denominations: Methodist, Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Assembly of God, Christian Reformed, Nazarene, Church of God, Episcopal and numerous others. The thing we all have in common is that we exalt Jesus Christ as Lord and we believe the Bible is the Word of God and we have no doubt that Jesus is building His Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.