By Tobin Perry
North American Mission Board
Most pastors wouldn’t consider it a landmark day when a fire destroys a church’s office space and future ministry hub.
But Kenny Rager does.
In May 2016 a fire ravaged the storefront offices that Life Community Church, Owensboro, Kentucky, had hoped to turn into a space for local student ministry efforts. Although the 5-year-old church plant met at a local community college for worship services, the loss of office space could have been devastating.
“It felt like our future was taken from us,” Rager said. “Little did we know that God was going to use a fire not to take away our future but to give us a future.”
Churches throughout Owensboro contacted Life Community to see how they could help the 4-year-old church plant. One of those churches was Hall Street Baptist Church, which offered to let Life Community use part of their building as temporary office space.
Hall Street Baptist was clearly in decline. For three months, the gifts Life Community gave to the church in gratitude literally kept the lights on. That’s when Hall Street leaders came to Rager with an offer. The 108-year-old Hall Street Baptist Church was dissolving and wanted to give its building to Life Community at no cost.
At first, Rager turned it down. Instead, he wanted to help Hall Street restructure and restart. But the Hall Street leadership was ready to give the building and move on. Not only did Hall Street give the young church plant a sanctuary that held 600 people but also a 15-year-old Christian Life Center that included a full-size basketball court.
Resurrecting dying churches
After a little more than a year in the building, the church has grown from 200 regular attendees to 300. Mark Clifton, the senior director of replanting for the North American Mission Board (NAMB), says Life Community’s story illustrates a larger trend in Southern Baptist life.
“The story of replanting churches in North America is an answer to the prayers of so many Christians,” Clifton said.
“For years, we’ve been praying that God would resurrect dying churches. That’s what we’re seeing as dying churches like Hall Street hand off their buildings to new church plants like Life Community. In my lifetime I’ve never seen growing, healthy churches demonstrate such a passion for helping struggling churches. It has to be an answer to prayer.”
Last year alone, NAMB identified 135 churches involved in a replanting process, but that number is likely just a fraction of the real total. Nearly 1,000 Southern Baptist churches drop off the Southern Baptist Convention database each year, many because they are closing their doors forever. Without a strategic replanting process in mind, many of these congregations would give or sell their properties to other local establishments — from worship halls for other faiths to bars and restaurants. Clifton believes this is tragic.
“The church is today, more than ever, a bulwark of truth,” Clifton said. “We need every church. We can’t lose them. God is using replanting to make sure this happens.”
This is why Paul Chitwood, executive director-treasurer of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, helps churches like Life Community throughout the replanting process.
“It was a beautiful picture of the kind of sacrificial generosity that allowed the resources of a struggling church to remain in the Baptist family and be used to richly bless a young, growing church,” Chitwood said.
Local associations, state conventions and NAMB all play a role in helping dying churches either find new life as a congregation, merge with a healthy church, become a campus of a larger church or, as in the case of Hall Street, pass on their building to a new church plant.
But no matter which avenue a church goes down, replanting begins with a struggling church making a courageous decision.
“Replanting starts with a church’s realization that they can no longer do ministry as they’ve been doing it and expect new results,” said Bob Bickford, NAMB’s associate director of replanting. “It’s not about a program or a study or a new promotional piece sent out to the community. It’s not about inviting people to come to a church for a program or a service or an event. It’s about a church being honest before God and saying what we’ve been doing hasn’t been working.”
For more information about NAMB’s church replanting efforts, visit namb.net/church-replanting.
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