Just a quarter of a mile south of Highway 72 on Slaughter Road, on the eastern edge of Madison, Alabama, sits Haven Baptist Church. The congregation's stated purpose is simple: "We exist to glorify God through the Lord Jesus Christ and are empowered by the Holy Spirit to make disciples of all nations." It is a Southern Baptist church shaped around the careful, public reading of Scripture, and a steady rhythm of gathering to worship and scattering to serve.
What the Church Holds to Be True
Haven Baptist Church affirms The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 of the Southern Baptist Convention as the accurate summary of its beliefs. From that confession the church spells out eleven distinct teachings on its beliefs page, and each one is anchored in specific Bible passages rather than left as a general statement.
The church teaches that the Bible is verbally, completely and sufficiently inspired and authoritative. It confesses God as three persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - and holds to the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith, on the basis of the substitutionary death of Christ; believers are justified and accounted righteous only through that sacrifice.
Two practical convictions follow. First, the church holds to the eternal security of the believer: those born into the family of God cannot be lost. Second, baptism is by immersion, and the only two ordinances the congregation practices are baptism and the Lord's Supper, both administered only to believers. The congregation also confesses the bodily resurrection of Christ on the third day, the visible and personal return of Jesus, and the everlasting conscious blessedness of the saved and the everlasting conscious punishment of the lost.
Two further distinctives are worth noting. The church holds that marriage, as set out in Scripture, is the exclusive union of one man and one woman. And it adopts the Danvers Statement of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood for the roles and responsibilities of men and women in the church and home.
Sundays on Slaughter Road
The Sunday schedule at Haven is built around three touchpoints. Sunday School runs from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m., the morning worship service begins at 10:45 a.m., and a Home Discipleship Group gathers at 4:30 p.m. in homes around the area for further study and fellowship.
The morning service is the heart of the church. The congregation "gathers to grow as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ and scatters to go and make disciples in our community and around the world." Preaching is exposition, working steadily through books of the Bible, and the service is also livestreamed on the church's YouTube channel and Facebook page, with a Watch Live link from the menu for those joining from home. A Connect Card is offered for those who visited either in person or through the livestream.
Matthew 28:19-20 is the church's anchor verse: "So wherever you go, make disciples of all nations: Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to do everything I have commanded you. And remember that I am always with you until the end of time."
Wednesday Nights Around the Word
Midweek, the church opens its Bible study and prayer hour from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Wednesdays. The Wednesday gathering is intentionally prayer as well as study, and is offered in addition to a daytime option. Together with Sunday School and the morning worship service, the Wednesday hour gives Haven three weekly touchpoints for opening the Bible together.
Verse by Verse, Book by Book
Haven's sermon archive, kept on its site, shows a sustained pattern of preaching through books of the Bible, a few verses at a time, week after week. Recent series on the public side include James, Philippians, 2 Timothy, and Ephesians. Earlier in the archive, the same pattern shows up across the church's history: a series on Jonah titled "Jonah: Great Sin, God's Greater Mercy," a five-part walk through Haggai, a five-part walk through Habakkuk, a four-part series on Ruth called "Love Story," an eight-part series on Hosea, a long series through 1 John, and verse-by-verse series through Revelation, Acts, Colossians, Galatians, Matthew, Mark, John, and the Psalms.
Older series in the archive also include "Foundations," a Bible-study track through Isaiah, "Peacemaking" from Ephesians 4, "Core Values" from 1 Peter and 1 Thessalonians, "Church Essentials" from Matthew 16, 1 Corinthians 15, Ephesians 4, Matthew 18 and Matthew 28, "Evangelism" from Matthew 9-10, and a "Fear" series from Proverbs, Psalms, Jeremiah, 2 Timothy and Acts. Evening Worship services have historically been offered alongside Morning Worship, and the archive preserves more than six hundred Sunday morning services.
The sermons can be streamed on YouTube through the Watch Live page or browsed on the sermon page, where most entries are also available as MP3 downloads.
A Pulpit Shaped by Three Shepherds
Three voices are audible in the archive. The longest-tenured, Pastor Steve Grissom, preached many of the 2012-2018 series, including Hosea, Ruth, Job, 1 Petereby, Galatians, the Fear series, Foundations and Church Essentials. Pastor Andrew Record followed, and his voice runs through the Habakkuk, Haggai, Jonah, and James series in the late 2010s and early 2020s. Pastor Danny Dale now serves as Interim Pastor; the April 2025 Sunday morning service is credited to Interim Pastor Danny Dale, and the staff page directs visitors to reach him at pastor@havenbaptist.org.
The day-to-day ministry of the office is carried by a secretary, who can be reached at office@havenbaptist.org. The phone line for the church office is (256) 830-4962.
Reaching the Lost and Caring for the Flock
The church's evangelistic intent is woven into its stated mission and into the Bible teaching. A page titled "The Story of God's Grace" lays out the gospel in plain terms, walking a visitor through Romans 3:23, Romans 5:8, Titus 3:5, Ephesians 2:8-9 and Romans 10:9-10. Visitors who want to follow up are invited to email pastor@havenbaptist.org, and the staff welcomes prayer requests by way of a Share a Prayer Request link that opens an email to the office.
Giving is available on a dedicated give page, and offerings and tithes can be made online. The site also keeps a running list of guest preachers and revival services, including a 2013 revival that featured guest preacher Steve Grissom and Toby Shedd of Smoke Rise Baptist Church in Warrior, Alabama, indicating long-standing relationships with other Southern Baptist churches in the area.
A Quiet Corner of Madison
Haven Baptist Church is the kind of congregation whose address tells you where to find it: 1840 Slaughter Road, Madison, Alabama 35758, a short drive south of Highway 72. The site, the streaming options, the prayer line, and the long sermon archive together point to a body whose center of gravity is the public reading and teaching of the Bible. For a first-time visitor, the simplest plan is the Sunday morning: Sunday School at 9:30 a.m., the worship service at 10:45 a.m., and the chance to stay connected through the Connect Card, the prayer line, the giving page, or the Watch Live stream on YouTube and Facebook.