Mark Reon’s route to his new pastorship at Liberty Baptist Church had a few twists and turns, including an attempt to start a new church that was meeting in the same building.

He had a handful of people meeting at the church, which he started with a friend who is in an interracial marriage. The two had a dream of creating a church that was truly multiracial, Reon said.

“I’ve visited most of the large churches, and they’re all all black or all white,” Reon said. “If it could start with the church, it could bring more racial unity to the city.”

But when Liberty Baptist, which is located on Romans Road near Sentara Obici Hospital, needed a pastor, Reon stepped in as the interim in January. Liberty Baptist wanted him to combine the two churches, and he considered it and became permanent pastor in July.

Reon hasn’t given up on his dream of a church where nobody will feel excluded or uncomfortable.

“I want our church to reflect the community,” he said.

Reon had first felt led to the ministry when he was in high school, but it was during prayer while in college that he made the decision.

“I felt a sense of peace and freedom that I hadn’t felt before,” he said.

He went on to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and returned to Florida, where he got married and was a youth pastor.

When he and his wife, Julia Reon, moved to Virginia for her career — she is a physician in downtown Suffolk — he started a church at Old Dominion University, CrossRoads Church, that now is pastored by one of the former students who started it. It has about 400 people today, Reon said.

He’s also led a couple other churches before arriving at Liberty Baptist.

Since January, the church has baptized 42 people and has around 90 in attendance on a typical Sunday, Reon said.

He envisions more community outreach as part of the church’s upcoming ministry, he said.

“We’re kind of on the road to that,” he said. “It’s a community mindset of serving the community and trying to bless the community.”

More casual and contemporary worship also is in the works, he said.

The Reons have four daughters.