Aaron Cockrum is planning “to do something radically different” in central New Hampshire.
When he and his wife, Linda, a chaplain with Marketplace Chaplains, decided God was leading them and their three children to uproot their comfortable lives in Greenwood, Missouri, and plant themselves 1,400 miles east in the rocky soil of the Granite State, it was because their commitment to follow the Lord to spiritually challenging places.
‘For the city’
Beginning with public worship services in March, they and a small group of likeminded Christ followers are planting “a church for the city, not just in the city” of Hooksett, a small, middle-class bedroom town on the Merrimack River between Manchester and Concord.
One of the first tasks for the former ironworker foreman — who calls himself an “undeserving yet completely grateful and forgiven sinner” — was visiting town leaders, police and fire department staff to discover ways he and his soon-to-be congregation could serve the community.
The response was thankfulness because, as Cockrum noted, “town officials said they never had a church ask how they could help the community.”
Changing the view
Fellowship Church-Granite State’s desire, he noted, is to “change this view of the church from simply a building to a vital piece of the community.”
Cockrum said he often is asked, “What does it mean to plant a church?” and “Where is your building?”
“Planting a church,” he responded, “simply means a group of people gathering together to create a new church with the intent to share the gospel.”
He acknowledged that, while there are other churches in the area, including another Southern Baptist congregation — Harvest Baptist Church, on the other side of town — “there simply aren’t enough churches to meet the needs of a city the size of Hooksett” (14,871 as of the 2020 census).
Discover and develop
Cockrum and his small group have been networking with other evangelical pastors in the region, and welcomed visiting missions teams who painted and repaired baseball fields. They hosted Family Night Out events at the town hall, providing a place for families to gather and play games, do crafts and hear the gospel.
Fellowship also partnered with five churches to host a “trunk or treat” that drew more than 2,000, and planned to host an Easter egg hunt involving 10,000 eggs — all to help build relationships.
His foremost desire is for his neighbors to discover and develop meaningful relationships with Jesus Christ, which “begins with relationships with those in the community.”
‘Major life changes’
Fellowship Church had its beginnings in “the ashes of brokenness in Kansas City, Missouri” when Cockrum, an atheist, was on the verge of divorce.
“Not long after I turned 40 I fell to the lowest point my life has ever been,” he acknowledged in an online post. “I was blind to the fact that my wife of 10 years was unhappy with the husband and father I was — or that I actually wasn’t. I didn’t realize how withdrawn from my family I had become until she told me she wanted a divorce. I was crushed.”
Cockrum, now 45, sought “any help I could find,” which turned out to be a pastor who talked about forgiveness and Jesus. Over the next couple of months Cockrum “kept attending church, even though I had no idea why. My wife and I kept going to counseling and church. We found a way to forgive ourselves and each other for what had happened and made major life changes for the good.”
He noted, “We are happier now than ever. Two months after my first time going to that church, I asked the pastor to pray with me to ask Jesus to forgive my sins, and I accepted Him as my Savior.”
Now Cockrum describes himself as “a man changed by the grace of God, a man who answered the call of God to take the gospel to the people of New Hampshire.”
Called to ministry
A “Southern Baptist by conviction,” the church planter found not only a faith in Christ but eventually a call to pastoral ministry. After a successful career at Lico Steel in Kansas City, he enrolled in Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and received a master of divinity degree in 2022.
Fellowship Church-Greenwood in Greenwood, Kansas, ordained Cockrum to the gospel ministry, and the family moved to Hooksett in August 2021.
He has been “living out the vision of the church” as the church planting intern at FaithBridge Church in Manchester, where Rich Clegg is senior pastor. Clegg also leads New England Baptists as a member of the Baptist Churches of New England staff.
‘Radically different’
The Cockrums’ “radically different,” community-focused church in the heart of the Granite State became a reality March 26. The inaugural worship service was held at the Hooksett Town Hall.
Nearly six years after their journey began, Cockrum said it is “amazing to see how God has been a part of it all along the way.”
Fellowship’s story, he tells anyone who will listen, will be “a testimony that God will be glorified in all that He does. It will simply remind us of God’s glory, goodness, grace and providence — time and time again.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Dan Nicholas and originally published by Baptist Churches of New England.
