The miracle of Dreamworks brings massive workout facility to Bladen

ELIZABETHTOWN – Jason Williams, senior pastor of Foundation Church in Elizabethtown brought the county a gift that most small towns never experience.

Dreamworks is a 24/7 workout facility and came by way of perfect timing and inspiration. Maintaining it, on the other hand has taken faith.

There are three pastors that are responsible for keeping the facility open and running smoothly. The first being Williams, the second is his son, Caleb Williams and the third is Pastor Brian Dicicco.

Most smaller communities don’t have the clientele or the numbers to make a large facility like Dreamworks profitable or feasible. The impressive gym is clean, it’s modern, it’s available 24 hours a day and it’s run as a nonprofit ministry.

A lot of people who take jobs in rural areas have had to learn to be creative in their workout schedules realizing that the bigger and more functional facilities are always found in the bigger urban areas and not in the smaller workout wastelands.

For those coming to Elizabethtown, the surprise is seeing this type of oasis where there is usually no exercise options available. Most of it has to do with a man of God who had not only a dream, but knew how to be visionary in nature to bring something like this to fruition.

Williams was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and raised in Campobello, South Carolina.

“After God called me into ministry is what moved me away from that area,” Williams said. “I’ve been in Bladen County for roughly 13 years now. This is home for me now and I enjoy it.”

Williams was pastoring in the area before he started Foundation Church which he started seven years ago.

“It’s been an exciting journey,” he said. “I had the great opportunity to pastor some local churches that are in Bladen County. After stepping away and praying about what God had in store for me next, I felt led to start a church and that’s where Foundation Church came into existence.”

The church, which is very mission-minded was not just reaching out to those in foreign lands, but have made a difference reaching out to those here at home. Some of which needed the health benefits of taking care of their bodies.

“We strive and we have been in prayer over the last seven years for opportunities to reach out to those in our community,” he said. “God has continued to develop doors so we could be effective, and Dreamworks just happens to be one of those.”

Foundation Church, which has been instrumental in helping people, especially during disasters, were called to help out on the front lines during Hurricane Florence.

“We saw hundreds and thousands of people who were in need of assistance,” Williams said. “We launched something called Bladen Disaster Recovery Team where we were mobilized for months and years after the crisis and we’re still doing it today. We found ourselves helping people who were stuck in very dire situations like for instance, moldy homes. And they felt trapped. We walked into their homes and you could just sense the lack of hope. You sensed the lack of passion to even move forward in life.”

It was actually through the heartbreak of that, Williams said that the concept of Dreamworks was born.

“We wanted to have people feel like they had a place that they could come where we could inspire them to dream,” he said. “Making them believe that their future could be better. At the time, we didn’t have this facility and someone else was leasing this facility.”

At the time of investigating and looking for a property, Tracey Trivette, former town commissioner in White Lake was in the building under the name of Healthworks.

“We approached him,” Williams said. “We wanted to see if there was a possibility of overtaking the lease or maybe a potential buyout. We wanted to actually mobilize for this vision that God placed in our heart.”

Williams found out that Trivette wanted to get out of the business, and a way was made where there didn’t seem to be a way.

“We took over in January (2020) and COVID hit in March,” he said. “It was very difficult to be able to survive that with the total shutdown. But we knew that God had just called us to do it, and we’ve seen His faithfulness throughout. We just want to help people know that here in Bladen County where there is not a lot of opportunities and options for them and people feel stuck and trapped; that they can aspire to have a better future.”

The benefits of working out are many whether you are in great shape, adequate shape or out of shape completely. It is a place to come and workout with friends or by yourself. The facilities have much to offer from weight training, free weights, machine weights, aerobic machines and classes with organized programs. In addition, there are personal trainers available for the extra help you need to get started on taking your life back.

The facility has expanded in the things available to those who are members including suntanning booths, a protein station that offers power smoothies, protein drinks and ideas on improved nutrition. The facility also partners with the Salvation Army and other community leaders.

During COVID, the very faith of the staff and the church was tested.

“After we got in here and COVID hit, I really questioned the move,” Williams said. “We went from an opportunity to… nothing. People couldn’t come and we were still leasing the facility so we still had bills to pay. Trying to keep it mobilized and keep it moving forward was very difficult, but by the grace of God and the faithfulness of our people at Foundation Church we were able to keep this facility alive and as an opportunity for our county.”

Williams said that there are always days when it’s a challenge, but with each test he comes back to the bottom line of ministry.

“We are blessed to be a voice crying out in the wilderness, ‘prepare ye the way of the Lord,’” He said. “That’s important to us and we believe that if we can help people understand that their body was built by design and if they can care for their body because God ordained it, we believe that’s a win in every way.”

One of the other driving forces of the workout facility is Dicicco who is that friendly face and calming voice when you come in after having a stressful day.

“This is a mission,” Dicicco said. “It’s not just a job. Just knowing that we get to encounter the folks that we meet and form those relationships, and that’s very enjoyable. I do think that the challenges of ministry here is upholding the standard that we desire to uphold. Because we want to be Christ honoring. Everything in this world is always pulling that back down. As for cleanliness, we expect it to be at the highest level so that we are representing Christ in the best light possible. And in our customer service, we expect that to be top notch. With so many different people involved and so many different pieces, that’s sometimes very difficult to uphold to the level that we have set.

Dicicco and his wife Lindsey are also instrumental in the church.

William’s son who helps out in ministry and with the workout facility was ecstatic when the church decided to jump into this opportunity. Caleb and his wife, Shelby who moved back to Elizabethtown recently with their 3-month-old son find the schedule very busy.

“I help manage the gym,” Williams said. “I also work some with the church and help coordinate some of the sound equipment. My biggest challenge with the gym is not having enough time to help everybody. There are a lot of situations that we work with here including hosting Salvation Army. There is so much here that you want to serve the Lord in and just finding a way to do all of it is really challenging.”

With the extra help, Pastor Brian Williams finds a little more time to focus on the many other things that a pastor is in charge of.

“Now I deliver most of the tasks here to other people,” Williams said. “Originally, when we first opened the gym, I was here a lot. And now with my son, Caleb and Pastor Brian, they do the primary development of the gym. Obviously, I am still engaged and still involved, but we’ve taken on now, new missions and new opportunities. One of the things we launched during Dreamworks is something called business partnership, where we wanted to help rural community businesses with development and marketing. So lately, one of my big roles and responsibilities has been helping Mr. Dean Hilton of Hilton Companies based out of Elizabethtown. I provide some marketing management and professional development for them.”

The name, Dreamworks comes from the possibility to inspire the dreams of people in the county.

“I look back on my life and see all the impossible things that God has done,” he said. “I have come to realize that with Christ, all things are possible. We wanted people to see this facility as a dream hub. It’s not only a place where they are working on themselves, but they have the ability to build their future and they can chase after their dreams and their dreams are possible. We have a tagline that says, ‘A better future starts now.’ You can’t just sit around and wait on it. You have to pursue it. We wanted to be able to mobilize people to be able to pursue their dreams and so that’s why the name – dream – works.”

Dream, sweat, achieve. It really is more than a gym and Bladen County is blessed to be able to enjoy it.

Dreamworks is located at 1001 W. Broad Street in Elizabethtown and their phone number is (910) 991-3029. You can also visit their website for more information by going to: https://www.dreamworksbladen.com/