EDITOR’S NOTE: This year’s Week of Prayer for North American Missions is March 1–8 and is focused on the theme “More Than a Gift” and the theme verse of Ephesians 3:20–21. The emphasis spotlights the spiritual needs and ministry taking place on the North American mission field leading up to the annual Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. All gifts given to the offering support missionaries and resources on the mission field. The AAEO provides half of the annual funding for the North American Mission Board. Gifts to the Annie offering can be given through local Southern Baptist churches or online at give.anniearmstrong.com. This year’s goal is $80 million.
He stood behind a traditional pulpit and looked out over a traditional congregation sitting in traditionally padded pews. He wore a traditional Southern Baptist pastor uniform — gray suit, neatly pressed white button-down shirt, and a red silk tie — and he preached a traditionally structured three-point sermon on Hebrews 1:1–4.
If they didn’t know any better, everyone attending Hillcrest Baptist Church in Hanover, Virginia, that Sunday might easily think Will Buchanan’s path to the pastorate was traditional.
“But that’s definitely not the case,” he said. “If you had seen me several years ago, I was so lost in addiction. First it was marijuana, then pills, then heroin, and if I could’ve found anything worse, I would’ve done that too. But then, God radically changed me, and now I don’t even look like the person I used to be.”
Pastor Buchanan is one of Fred Weymouth’s favorite success stories — or as Weymouth puts it, “I’m Will’s number one fan.”
Weymouth is a church planting missionary who, several years ago, started The Fix in Tappahannock, Virginia.
“The Fix is first of all a church plant,” he said. “But we’re also a residential recovery and discipleship program. We bring men and women into our treatment program and share Christ with them. Then we spend the better part of a year walking with them through recovery and helping them grow in their faith.”
‘Ugly cycle’
When he showed up on The Fix’s doorstep, Buchanan said he was, “trying so hard to keep my head above water. I would try to get help, and then I’d fail. And then I’d try to get help again, and I’d fail again. I was stuck in this ugly cycle.”
Weymouth is a former heroin addict who knows all about ugly cycles. “The only way out is Jesus,” he said. “That was true for me, and when Will showed up here, I knew it’d be true for him too.”
It would take a lot of time and effort to pull Buchanan out of his “one step forward, two steps back” cycle.
“By the time we met Will, he’d already been in and out of programs most of his adult life,” Weymouth said. “So, he didn’t need another program. He was programmed out. What he needed more than anything was someone who could disciple him and pour gospel truth into his life.”
“Gospel truth” for Buchanan came behind the wheel of Fred’s ’66 Chrysler Newport.
“I decided the best way for us to spend time together would be for him to drive me everywhere. So that’s what we ended up doing,” Weymouth noted. “When I had to go to a pastor’s lunch, Will came too. When I had to go preach somewhere, Will came too. For at least two years, wherever I went, he went, and we got to know each other intimately.”
Spend that much time in a car with somebody, and things happen.
“Yeah, I don’t know how to explain it,” Weymouth said, “but Will just became like a son to me.”
That’s how God finally broke Buchanan’s ugly cycle and began pulling him in a better, but unanticipated direction.
“Fred really took me under his wing,” Buchanan said. “I was taking classes at a Christian college, and I was asking Fred all kinds of hard questions, and we were riding in that car and talking for hours and hours every day. That’s where the discipleship happened, and that’s how I got to a place where I eventually told him, ‘I feel like God’s calling me to preach.'”
In April 2025, Hillcrest Baptist Church called Buchanan to be their pastor. “I was nervous my first Sunday,” Buchanan says. “But this is a wonderful church with loving people, and I know God’s called me to this.”
Not an uncommon sight
Now, it’s not an uncommon Sunday morning sight to see a bus from The Fix pull into the Hillcrest Baptist Church parking lot. Weymouth’s church plant meets on Saturday nights, so he can bring his men to churches like this on Sunday mornings and show them people like Will.
“God has a purpose for all our guys that’s more than just, ‘Get off drugs,'” Weymouth said.
“And when they see Pastor Will standing up there preaching, he’s like an altar of remembrance for them. They can tell themselves, ‘Wow, look what God has done in his life — I know he must have a purpose for me too.'”
The Annie Armstrong Easter Offering is used for training, support and care for missionaries, like Fred Weymouth, and for evangelism resources.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Tony Hudson and originally published by the North American Mission Board.
