Pastor Tommy Lanham has built his ministry on enthusiasm — the kind that transforms sermons into stories, faith into action, and a small congregation into a close-knit family. Now, as the 53-year-old lead pastor of Glen Cove Christian Church undergoes treatment for stage 3 rectal cancer, the church community he helped sustain through the darkest days of the pandemic is coming together to sustain him.
Lanham said he first realized something was wrong when he began having digestive issues earlier this fall. A colonoscopy led to the discovery of “a mass about the size of a fist in the rectal area,” he said. The next day, doctors ordered an immediate scan to get a clearer picture. His wife, Tammy, remembers the moment vividly.
“On the 11th, which was a holiday weekend on a Saturday morning, this doctor calls us at home and I knew something wasn’t great,” she said. The scan, she explained, showed that the tumor had grown through his colon wall and there was a perforation. The doctor, she recalled, “was very kind and very calming, but he was very adamant — stop what you’re doing, get your husband to the hospital immediately.”
Lanham was admitted that day and later learned the diagnosis: stage 3 rectal cancer. His chemotherapy began on Oct. 20 at St. Francis Hospital. “My treatments are every other week,” he said. “I’ve got to do six rounds and then we’re going to go back in and look and see if it’s small enough where they can safely do surgery.”
While the off weeks bring relief, the treatment takes a toll. “This week I feel fine,” Lanham said. “Last week I had a couple of days where I didn’t get a whole lot done. I just didn’t feel well.” He admits he has had to reassess his schedule. “One of the things that I have not been as good at as I should be is getting enough sleep,” he said.
A Life Rooted in Faith
Lanham’s journey to the ministry began far from Long Island — in the hills of Kentucky — and with a childhood story he still tells with humor and humility. “I actually set our house on fire,” he said, laughing. At five years old, jealous that his sister spent more time playing with her Barbie dolls than with him, he decided to take action. “I took one of my sister’s Barbie dolls and I set her hair on fire, and I put it on my mom and dad’s bed.” The fire destroyed the family’s home, forcing them to move back to southeastern Kentucky, where his mother began attending the same small church she had grown up in. “That’s where my spiritual roots began,” he said.
At first, Lanham resisted the pews. “I never enjoyed going to church,” he recalled. “I still remember my mom chasing me through the yard to drag me into the car.” By his teens, though, the church’s youth group and its volunteer leaders changed his heart. “They cared about us,” he said. “They made it fun and enjoyable.”
In high school, Lanham said he reached a turning point. “I just really came to a place where I had to pick one direction or the other,” he said. “I felt uneasy pretending to be something that I was not.” By his junior year, he added, “I just felt like God was wanting me to go into ministry.”
At just 14 years old, Lanham delivered his first sermon during a youth-led service. His minister, Monty Cooper, helped him prepare a 20-minute message on 1 Timothy 4:12 — “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.” Nervous, Lanham recalled preaching “that 20-minute sermon in about two and a half minutes.”
From Kentucky to Glen Cove
After earning his degree from what is now Johnson University, Lanham served as both a lead and associate minister, and later launched a traveling outreach called Upside Down Ministries, named after Acts 17:6: “Those who have turned the world upside down have come here too.” For eight years, he and Tammy — whom he met at Johnson and married in 2000 — traveled across states, holding youth revivals, leading worship, and teaching. “I truly felt like that’s what God was calling me to do,” he said.
As their children, Appolonya and Dylan, grew older, Lanham said he began to feel God calling him home. He transitioned to local pastoral work and eventually earned a master’s degree in pastoral counseling with an emphasis in life coaching from Liberty University. His love for helping others inspired him to launch a second ministry, The Enthusiasm Zone, a coaching platform designed “to help people break out of the monotony of the mundane and the mediocre so they can break through to their Enthusiasm Zone.”
It was that same energy that impressed Glen Cove Christian Church when Lanham applied for its open pastor position in 2019. “When we interviewed Tommy, I remember him saying he’s not looking for a place to come and preach,” Cortale said. “He’s looking for a place where he could come and turn the world upside down.”
Lanham succeeded longtime pastor Jim Phegley, moving 800 miles north from Kentucky to Long Island that August — just months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. “If it weren’t for Tammy and Tommy, our church would have died like thousands did during COVID,” Cortale said. He credited Tammy’s “incredible” technical skills for helping the church pivot to livestreaming. “We had thousands of people tuning in each week,” he said. “And again, if it weren’t for Tammy and Tommy, the church wouldn’t be there.”
A Church Family’s Response
Today, Glen Cove Christian Church has about 100 in-person attendees each Sunday, with hundreds more watching online. Cortale said Lanham’s sermons are “dynamic, very articulate and inspirational,” describing him as a world-class speaker who can preach for 30 minutes “without looking at a note.”
That same confidence and drive are helping Lanham face cancer with faith. But the financial toll is daunting. Tammy said the family’s insurance covers 90 percent of medical costs, but the remaining 10 percent could amount to tens of thousands of dollars. “Everything I read said that this is going to be getting close to that half a million up to a million dollars to fight this,” she said. “And 10% of that is a lot of money to come out of your pocket.”
Initially uncomfortable with the idea of fundraising, the Lanhams began by designing shirts, hoodies, and tumblers available on Amazon. “We felt like that was a little bit more, ‘Hey, we’re giving you something for that,’” Tammy said. But as more friends, churches, and organizations asked how to help, they launched a GiveSendGo campaign titled “Fight With Enthusiasm.”
As of press time, the campaign has a goal of $50,000 and has raised $8,255. Donations can be made at GiveSendGo.com/FightWithEnthusiasm. The family’s fundraising page reads, “More than anything, we ask you to pray for this tumor to respond drastically to this chemo and quickly shrink and disappear.”
Tammy said the support they’ve received from Glen Cove and beyond has been overwhelming. “The response that we’ve gotten has just been amazing,” she said. “People wanting to support us, pray for us, bring us meals.” During one of Lanham’s hardest chemo weeks, she said, church members dropped off dinners, medicine, and even “a gallon of milk for my son.”
For Tammy, the journey has been both emotional and faith-affirming. “I’ve had a hundred people, literally a hundred people ask me, how are you doing? Are you okay?” she said. “And I’m like, no, I’m not okay. My husband’s fighting cancer. This is not okay. He’s 53 years old. I’m not dealing with this fantastically, but I have a big God and I have an awesome, enthusiastic husband and we will get through this. If he’s having a good day, I’m having a good day.”
