First Baptist Church of Leesburg: Meet Needs. Share Christ.

Editor’s Note: The following article originally appeared in the fall 2025 issue of Southwestern News alongside a larger feature about the work of alumnus Cliff Lea at First Baptist Church of Leesburg. 

Begun in 1985, the mission of the Christian Care Center at First Baptist Church of Leesburg “is to meet needs and share Christ,” says Tony Hoffman, executive director and local missions pastor of the congregation.

Serving about 10,000 people each year with about 300 volunteers primarily drawn from First Baptist’s congregation, as well as other area churches, the center is comprised of seven different ministries: Men’s Residence and Women’s Care Center, both offering residential drug and alcohol treatment; Samaritan Inn, offering transitional housing for women and children; Pregnancy and Family Care Center, ministering to women in crisis pregnancies; Children’s Center; Benevolence Center; and Jobs Program.

Additionally, the Community Medical Care Center is a free and charitable clinic for the medically indigent in partnership with Leesburg Regional Medical Center.

The congregation regularly recognizes graduates of the seven-month programs offered by several of the CCC ministries. In July 2025, six graduates were honored by the church, concluding with a prayer over each graduate by Pastor Cliff Lea.

“Often, I hear people say, ‘Why don’t we see God performing miracles today,’” Jamie Shear, director of the Men’s Residence, told the congregation. “I tell them, ‘Come spend a few hours at the house of miracles and see just what God is doing.’”

Bud Norton came to the Men’s Residence in 2019 from North Carolina only interested in the “rehab part” to fix his drug and alcohol addiction that began as a 12-year-old. One month later, “I gave my life to the Lord.” He learned how to “have a relationship with Christ and how it applies to every aspect of our life … not just rehab and recovery.”

Today, Norton is a college graduate, married, and recently returned as the assistant director of the program from which he graduated, which can accommodate up to 32 men at one time.

Norton says Lea is accessible to the men in the program, even with the demands of pastoring a large congregation.

“One of the best qualities that he has as a pastor and a mentor in my life is his humility,” says Norton, who notes that Lea has “moved from pastor to mentor through college and then also friend.”

Hoffman says Norton’s experience with Lea is typical.

“For this amazing, godly pastor and preacher who’s leading a megachurch to come alongside a guy that a week ago was literally living in the woods and struggling with drug addiction, it’s just amazing to see the humility and the compassion of him engaging the least of these amongst us,” he says.

Hoffman notes Lea is on the CCC campus several times a week.

“Pastor Cliff is instrumental in the ministry of the Christian Care Center because his heart is so aligned with what we do at the Christian Care Center that he is always talking about it,” says Hoffman. “He is always promoting it.”