Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Founder: Bishop Alden Gaines and Co-Pastor Marie D Gaines, Senior Pastors of Consolation Baptist Church

1st Corinthians Chapter 13
Jeremiah 3:15
Thought for the day: Faith is an action; its always moving!. - Galatians 5:6
Bishop Alden A. Gaines is the Pastor and Founder of Consolation Baptist Church; he accepted the calling of the ministry in 1965. Bishop Gaines began his ministry in the living room on September 3, 1967, with his own family and seven others.  Bishop Gaines’ mission was to affect peace and harmony within the community.
As the drug epidemic ravished the city, Bishop Gaines decided too take a firm stand to fight drugs, especially in the South Philadelphia area. Bishop Gaines founded Direct Truth Anti-Drug Coalition, a community-based organization set up to combat the drug epidemic in Philadelphia. In addition to counseling drug abusers and their families, Bishop Gaines developed a resource bank that provided the addicted with rehabilitation care.
In 1989, Consolation experienced a rapid growth in membership and under God’s guidance Bishop Gaines and Consolation Baptist Church Family purchased an empty Thriftway supermarket. After renovations we marched into the new edifice in October 1991.
Bishop Gaines, has received numerous awards, citations, appointments and positions some of which included: Advisory Board of Philadelphia Anti-Drug Network, Mayor’s Leadership Council (Mayor Wilson W. Goode); Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, Citations from the City of Philadelphia, State of Pennsylvania (House of Representatives), the State of Pennsylvania Governors Office, as well as, many others. In 1997, Eastern Theological Seminary awarded Bishop Gaines with an Honorary Doctorate Degree for his work in Urban Ministries.
Bishop Gaines is now the founder of Bishop Gaines Ministries, with 42 years in the ministry.
Today, as overseer of New Consolation Christian Center, where his son, Apostle David J. Gaines is the current Senior Pastor, Bishop Gaines fathers many daughter churches, establishing them in the foundation truths of the Gospel and in ministry excellence.
Bishop Gaines is the caring husband of Pastor Marie Gaines and the loving father of six children, four girls and two boys.
Pastor Marie D. Gaines accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord in 1966. While working at the side of her husband, Bishop Alden A. Gaines, they founded the Consolation Baptist Church in their home in 1967. She was born-again of the Spirit in 1967 and experienced a greater calling to minister the word of God. Under her pastor’s leadership her trial sermon was conducted and she became licensed in 1997. Over the past seven years the Lord has put an even greater anointing on her life for women’s issues and she lives to fulfill this purpose.
Pastor Marie D. Gaines directed the Women’s Ministry of Consolation Baptist Church and is the founder of the “Women in Deliverance Soaring toward Their Destiny Conference,” which began in 1997. She is a seminar speaker, workshop teacher, and an influential Women’s Day speaker for over 20 years. She is involved in the ministry of the arts and has been the coordinator for the “AMACHI” youth mentoring program.
Pastor Marie D. Gaines has received many awards for outstanding work throughout the Philadelphia area. She has been a recipient of the Four Chaplains Award, the Philadelphia Tribune Newspaper’s Citizen of the Month Award, and the Pepsi Cola and Philadelphia Housing Department award presented by the city’s former Mayor W. Wilson Goode, Senior, just to mention a few.
In 1998, she received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theology from Heath Mission School of Theology. Word mission and modern issues that confront humanity was the concentration of her studies. Pastor Marie received a very high honor of recognition for her work in ministry when she was acknowledged alongside her husband, Bishop Alden A. Gaines, as he received the Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary award, Doctoral degree for “Outstanding Ministry” in 1999.
Currently, Pastor Marie Gaines is working along her husband with promoting Bishop Gaines Ministries. She is the mother of six children and the proud grandmother of eleven beautiful grandchildren.



Consolation "Holy Ghost" Baptist Church
"Bishop Alden Gaines Square"
2500 Wharton Street, PO Box 32126
Philadelphia, PA  19146
Bishop Alden A. Gaines and Pastor Marie D. Gaines Founders/Pastors
215.465.4224 (church)    215.465.3470 (fax)