WEEK OF PRAYER: New believer finds recovery and his calling through church planting mentor

5 min read
03 Mar 2026
By Tony Hudson

TAPPAHANNOCK, Virginia – 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.

Fred Weymouth had a plan when he asked Will Buchanan if he could drive him everywhere he needed to go. “That’s how discipleship happened,” Weymouth says. “We rode everywhere together. And all those hours in the car—that’s how I was able to pour gospel truth into his life.” (NAMB photo by Ben Rollins)

“But that’s definitely not the case,” he says. “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 says. “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.”

For two years, Will Buchanan drove Fred Weymouth everywhere he needed to go. Buchanan now knows that was Weymouth’s discipleship strategy. “All that time we spent together in the car is when Fred really took me under his wing,” Buchanan says, “and that’s how I got to a place where I eventually told him, ‘I feel like God’s calling me to preach.’” (NAMB photo by Ben Rollins)

When he showed up on The Fix’s doorstep, Buchanan says 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 says. “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,” Fred says. “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.”

Not long ago, Fred Weymouth’s church plant, The Fix, sent out Will Buchanan to pastor another nearby church. “I never thought we’d be raising up men to pastor other churches,” Weymouth says. “But it’s happening. And that’s more than I ever imagined would be possible.” (NAMB photo by Ben Rollins)

“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 says. “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 says, “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 says. “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.'”

Will Buchanan has come a long way. He used to be a heroin addict, but now, he’s the pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church in Hanover, Virginia. “When I was in the dregs of addiction, I felt pretty sure that that was the lot I was dealt in life,” he says. “But now, I’m living proof that God can do exceedingly more than we can ask or imagine.” (NAMB photo by Ben Rollins)

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.”

Now, it’s not an uncommon Sunday morning sight to see a bus from The Fix pull into the Hillcrest Baptist Church parking lot. Fred’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,'” he says. “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^® provides half of NAMB’s annual budget, and 100 percent of the proceeds go to the mission field in North America. The offering is used for training, support and care for missionaries, like Fred Weymouth, and for evangelism resources.