CARBON HILL - Christian Fluker, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Carbon Hill on Second Ave NE, said at a baby shower Saturday, Feb. 20, that he and his wife, Sherae, were having triplets.
"All girls - so I have six girls," he said in a pink shirt, laughing. "Pray for me. Pray for me."
The following Monday, the family of three became a family of six - at a time when Fluker's church is putting in a daycare next month. But he has already overcome a more serious challenge in life, involving a year in prison that led to his salvation experience and an active church ministry.
Christian Fluker, 31, and Sherae Fluker, 32, who live in Jasper, already were busy with not just a growing ministry but three children: Elaysha Fluker, 14; Christiana Fluker, 4; and Alayah Fluker, 1.
The names for the new triplets came easy enough: Faith, Hope and Charity.
Fluker noted he was fine when told of what was coming, saying he has always looked at life that if God gives you something, He will make a way. But asked if his wife was shocked when they told her about having three babies, he noted he was at work and she had to give him the news.
"She was in tears, and I was like, 'What's going on?'" he recalled. "She was like, 'Ah, we're having triplets. I don't know what we're going to do.' I said, 'God is going to make a way.'"
He said while the couple was not planning on three, that is what God gave them. "So I knew it was God, and I'm thankful for it. I know He is going to make a way," Fluker said.
Fluker, the son of Carrie Nalls and the late Thomas Wilson, was born and raised in Fayette County. The Fayette County High School graduate acknowledged the real father figure in his life was Malachi Nalls, who is now married to his mother.
He played basketball at Lawson State Community College for a year and then joined the Alabama National Guard, serving as a heavy equipment operator. He had wanted to go into active duty but never got the chance - although now he understands it was all at God's direction for his life.
Fluker came back home to Fayette County from advanced individual training and got into trouble selling drugs on the streets, he said.
"I ended up having to go to prison" for a year, Fluker said. "That's where I found God."
He gives credit to an area minister, whom he only recalls as Mr. Terrell, coming through the prison, telling about the Lord.
"One day I was praying and God ended up changing my life," he said, adding that Fluker helped him as a new Christian. "One day I just asked him, 'Man, how have you done right? How do you get right?' He said, 'Do you believe in God?' I told him, 'Yeah.'
"He said, 'Do you love Him? Do you believe He is the son of God? Do you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth that you've done that?'" When Fluker said he had, Terrell said, "You're saved then. Ask God to teach you and to give you the Holy Spirit to teach you and guide you.'
"And I've done just that. Every since then, God has been blessing me in every area of my life."
Terrell encouraged him to pray freely to God as his release date approach. Fluker told God he didn't want to live the life he had been leading, and wanted to serve God in whatever way God wanted. "I never thought preaching was going to be it," he said.
When Fluker was being released in Nov. 29, 2014, he had a job at Pizza Hut waiting on him. He recalled vividly telling the jailer about the job.
"He looked me in the face and told me, 'You'll be back in here.' Those are words I'll never forget," he said.
Fluker resolved never to go back to streets, even if he had to flip burgers, and asked God to make a way for that. By January 2015, he had a better job at Ox Bodies in Fayette.
At the same time, he met his wife through a mutual friend.
"That was an amazing thing, because she wasn't going to talk to me," he said, nor was the friend going to mediate for him. "You're not going to do right. I'm not going to do it," the friend said.
Fluker noted he kept trying for a month and finally got the phone number. The couple was married in May 2016.
During the dating process, he started going to a church. A member there started noticing Fluker, saying, "There is something special about you." He started mentoring Fluker spiritually, encouraging him to get up in church and read scriptures.
"But the person who really poured into my life and helped me along with my ministry is Brian Savage," he said. He noted that Savage, who is also from Fayette, has been a pastor, a father figure and spiritual advisor, helping Fluker to mature in his faith and learn how to live the gospel in his life. He helped ordain Fluker in 2017.
Savage said at the baby shower the couple's love and compassion, and how they make people smile, has been a hallmark of their work.
The Flukers are "an awesome and beautiful man and woman of God," he said. "They have been a blessing to our ministry. To see them grow and to see them develop the way God would have them develop has been an awesome experience. We are definitely proud of them."
November marked Fluker's second year at the church, which has about 60 members.
"It has truly been a blessing pastoring there," he said. "I love the people there. It's a family. That is something that I say is unique about our ministry because it is actually a family. When we say we love each other, it is real." He noted Chapter 2 in Acts teaches when any number of people is of one accord, the Holy Spirit comes in.
"When we get on one accord, we can invoke His presence, man, and he can come in and really move and change lives, change attitudes, change motives, change every aspect of people's lives," he said. "That's what is so special about our ministry. I really believe the presence of God is there."
He notes that he knows he can depend on the church for his needs now that the triplets are here. He is not just a full-time pastor with a growing family, but he also works at Jasper Forest Products as a debarker/crook saw operator.
"I have an awesome congregation that takes a lot off of me. Like I told you, we are truly a family," he said. "My wife and I have an awesome support system between my mom and her mom, and the First Baptist church family and friends. We can't be who we are without them."
Fluker said the church does much outreach that it doesn't publicize, following biblical principles. However, it is also about to open a daycare in the church basement, which is being renovated. "Hopefully it will be ready by March 15," he said, handling 21 children. (With the babies, he is already getting kidded around the church that it won't be hard to find children for the daycare.)
The daycare will be affordable and have a set price, "but we're going to deal with people on where the income is," he said. "So the price is $95, but if you can't handle that, we can sit down and come up with something. That is what it is for. It is not about the money, but about helping people."
He said the church is "hoping and praying" to get a drug rehab center underway. "We have everything in line. We have the paperwork. All we are doing now is looking for a place, and then we can get rolling," he said.
Asked about how Sherae Fluker helps with the ministry, he laughed and said, "Oh, she is a very good help. Actually, man, she probably does more than me. I work a lot and she pretty much handles everything anyway. But she has been a real major help."
She already works as the executive director of the Jalayah Hackman Foundation, which he said successfully mentors students. University of North Alabama student Jalayah Hackman, 20, of Jasper, who was Sherae Fluker's niece, died in Yerkwood as a result from a 2017 shooting where two men were reportedly firing at each other, striking her in the neck. The foundation helps the students with their homework and tutoring, and also tries to teach that violence is not an answer to problems.
“We want to mentor youth about gun violence, since that’s how [Hackman] was killed,” Sherae Fluker said in 2018 to the Eagle. “Put down the guns. We don’t want another family to go through what we’ve been through.” (The foundation, which has received support from the Walker Area Community Foundation, has a Facebook page.)
Sherae Fluker indicated at the baby shower her husband is about reaching out to others.
"He's passionate about people. He has a heart for people. Words can't describe him, really. He loves people - (he will do) whatever he can do for anybody," she said.
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