{"id":2204070,"date":"2025-12-18T13:04:49","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T13:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2204070"},"modified":"2025-12-18T13:04:49","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T13:04:49","slug":"kornegay-grateful-for-full-circle-moment-in-music-ministry-chance-to-start-new-tradition-at-west-end-baptist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/kornegay-grateful-for-full-circle-moment-in-music-ministry-chance-to-start-new-tradition-at-west-end-baptist\/","title":{"rendered":"Kornegay ‘grateful’ for full-circle moment in music ministry, chance to start new tradition at West End Baptist"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

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Paula Kornegay says it\u2019s a story only God could write.<\/p>\n

When she stood up to lead the choir at West End Baptist Church<\/a> in Clanton during their Christmas presentation Dec. 13-14, some special people were among them.<\/p>\n

\n

For more stories at your doorstep,\u00a0subscribe to The Baptist Paper<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

SIGN UP for our weekly\u00a0Highlights emails<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Paula Kornegay directs this year\u2019s Christmas presentation, The Greatest Gift, at West End Baptist Church in Clanton on Dec. 14. (Photo by Jill Green)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe neatest thing to me, some of my childhood Sunday school teachers are there in the choir,\u201d she said. \u201cThe lady who taught me how to go \u2018one, two, three, four\u2019 in children\u2019s choir is with me now. It\u2019s just a God story. It\u2019s incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a young girl growing up at West End Baptist, Kornegay took that \u201cone, two, three, four\u201d to heart, and at 18 she started leading choirs. She continued to lead music in various ways in Kentucky until moving back to Alabama and serving for a decade as worship leader at First Baptist Church Pelham<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From there, she moved back to Clanton, and after taking on the role of director of music ministries at West End Baptist in 2019, the church started a different kind of Christmas outreach \u2014 their annual Christmas presentation.<\/p>\n

Pastor James Watkins said prior to that, the church had been known in Chilton County for the Living Christmas Walk it held at the local Goosepond Park each year.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we were dealing with weather \u2014 rain, cold \u2014\u00a0and Paula had the idea to move it inside,\u201d Watkins said.<\/p>\n

A new tradition<\/h2>\n

That was the start of a new tradition for West End and for local residents \u2014\u00a0a Christmas musical and drama, written each year by Kornegay and her daughter, Liv Meany.<\/p>\n

\"\"
(Photo by Jill Green)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cPaula does it differently every year, and it\u2019s done beautifully,\u201d Watkins said.<\/p>\n

Kornegay said after Easter each year, they start praying about the idea for that year\u2019s Christmas presentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try to go to conferences and listen to new music, and I have a big box of music from over the past 30 years,\u201d she said. \u201cI also start thinking about our people and what would fit them.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s presentation, \u201cThe Greatest Gift,\u201d was maybe her favorite yet, Kornegay said. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s just the season I\u2019m in \u2014 I\u2019m so grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said West End Baptist viewed their Christmas presentation as a missions trip this year and involved everyone in some facet of the production \u2014 most of all the outreach.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw it as we are on mission as a church, a churchwide mission trip,\u201d Kornegay said. \u201cOur people got out there with thousands of invitations throughout the community, just talking to people \u2014\u00a0and they came. There were a lot of new faces in that room, and we pray that we were able to plant seeds and share the gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
(Photo by Jill Green)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She said that\u2019s the point every year, and because of that, they choose not to stop the story at the birth of Jesus \u2014\u00a0they go all the way through the cross to Jesus\u2019 second coming.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of these people, that\u2019s their one time a year to go to a church, and when they walk out of the doors I want them to have heard the whole gospel of Jesus Christ,\u201d Kornegay said.<\/p>\n

\u2018So grateful\u2019<\/h2>\n

She said the choir, which ranges in age from 15 to 88, also does an amazing job with the task they\u2019re given.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir heart for worship stands out to me more than the sound they make, even though it\u2019s absolutely beautiful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said she thanks God because she has \u201cthe best seat in the house, and this is why \u2014\u00a0I can look out at the 102 people, and I know the story of what they\u2019re going through. I know what\u2019s happening in their life, so many who are hurting, so many widows in my choir. They worship God through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said it\u2019s a blessing to her to have the \u201cwonderful privilege\u201d to lead and encourage them and work together to put on the Christmas presentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t ask for more,\u201d Kornegay said. \u201cI\u2019m so grateful. Every year it\u2019s just, \u2018Let\u2019s share it one more time; thank you, Lord, for one more opportunity to see who is in our path that we get to share Christ with.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source thealabamabaptist.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paula Kornegay says it\u2019s a story only God could write. When she stood up to lead the choir at West End Baptist Church in Clanton during their Christmas presentation Dec. 13-14, some special people were among them. For more stories at your doorstep,\u00a0subscribe to The Baptist Paper. SIGN UP for our weekly\u00a0Highlights emails. Paula Kornegay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2204071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2204070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Kornegay-grateful-for-full-circle-moment-in-music-ministry-chance-to.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2204070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2204072,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204070\/revisions\/2204072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2204071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2204070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2204070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2204070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}