Kima Jude & Eric W. Ramsey

Photography by Morris Abernathy

Through his full-time job as Chief Parole Hearing Officer for the State of Tennessee, God seemed to point toward a new ministry assignment. "My job gives me a perspective that a lot of pastors may not have," says Bester. "It keeps me in the loop of what's going on in the world—what the enemy is doing to our people and our children."

Sensing God leading him into a different role, Bester resigned the church he'd pastored for almost 10 years—with nowhere to go and no plan in mind.

After taking a month-long sabbatical to pray, Bester's attention turned to a church facility abandoned by an Anglo congregation in Ripley, Tennessee. Sensing a specific need in the community, Bester zeroed in on "the hip-hop generation." With people ages 13-35 in mind, he started a Tuesday night Bible study, including his wife Shirley and 16-year-old son, T.D. Hearing God's specific instruction to invite her, Bester also asked his granddaughter, Takesha, to be one of the core members in the new church plant. "She's 19 and full of the world," says Bester. She also was a symbol of the population Bester hoped to reach—"the sagging-pants and the bling-bling generation."

It was a church Bester initially tried not to plant. When he learned the church building would become available as the Anglo congregation relocated, he talked up the possibilities with other young pastors. "I really tried to give the ministry away," he recalls. "No one would touch it." He talked to God about it, too. "I asked the Lord, 'Lord, why won't anybody take this opportunity?'"

The answer eventually became clear. After spending several years driving 60 miles to his church field, Bester had been praying for two years to live among the people he pastored. He realized God was answering his prayer by giving the ministry to him rather than another pastor.

The seeds of Forerunner Baptist Church actually began in Bester's heart through a mission trip he took to the Philippines. While on the plane, he was reading his Bible and was stirred by Luke 1:17: And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord (NIV). 

"Before God does something He sends somebody," Bester says, "and we feel like God has sent us to make a way for the people in our area."

Forerunner is atypical, as Bester characterizes it, because "we'll do anything necessary to meet you at your point of need except change the gospel." To that point, Forerunner avoids rituals. "We don't want people to wake up thinking they know what's going to happen during our worship services." To that end, Bester also hopes not to be preaching to the same congregation a few years from now. The church's priority is discipleship.

He takes responsibility for his own discipleship, scheduling study "just as I would any appointment on my calendar. I make time." Only in extreme emergencies does he alter that schedule.

Interestingly, Forerunner not only has members of the congregation who have been on parole, some have come before Bester or dealt with his wife Shirley, who also works for the state in the same agency, although in a different capacity. Bester actually declined parole for one man—forcing him to serve another two years in prison—who later became one of his most faithful church members. "When people see him leading in prayer, they realize God can change lives."

At 52, Bester marvels at the changes God's made in his life. "It's kind of weird, God using an old man to draw young people. It's only by His grace."

Now that he's accepted his new assignment as church planter, Bester also has embraced the big picture. His vision is for Forerunner to become an incubator church, giving birth to a string of other churches in Tennessee. He envisions himself training other church planters. Forerunner is already in the process of initiating its first church plant in Covington, Tennessee.

Bester balances the demands of work and church "by placing the ministry in the people's hands. I see myself at Forerunner as the main trainer." To aid with that, the church conducts spiritual inventories and helps members develop their spiritual gifts. Although Bester characterizes it as a small church, it offers 20 different ministries. "It's not a situation where you've got the same faithful few serving in every ministry." Instead, people once considered "outcasts," according to Bester, are finding a service niche. "Once they find out 'God can use me,' they go at it."