By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Alabaster’s Westwood Baptist Church welcomed a new leader during its May 19 service, marking the end of a more than one-year search.

Matt Brooks took the reins as the church’s senior pastor after 98 percent of the church’s membership voted in favor of naming him to the role. Brooks is the church’s first full-time senior pastor since former senior pastor Les Hughes stepped down to lead Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky.

Brooks came to Alabaster from the First Baptist Church of Roswell, N.M. , where he served as senior pastor for several years. Before serving in Roswell, Brooks was the associate pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas.

Brooks is married to Bren Brooks, and the couple have a 3-year-old son, Major, and a 1-year-old daughter, Maggie Joy.

“Church family, it will be a privilege and honor serving as your senior pastor, and I am humbly excited about what the Lord has in store for his church at Westwood,” Matt Brooks wrote in a letter to church members. “All staff, ministries, budgets, and programs of our church will align in fulfilling the mission and vision that God has given our church to make global impacting disciples of all nations.”

Matt Brooks, an Oklahoma native, entered the ministry in 2002 after pursuing a career in professional baseball, and holds a master of divinity degree from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Chapel Hill, N.C. He currently is working to earn his doctorate of ministry degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.