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WARSAW – After 15 years of serving small, dying churches, Daniel Yoder looked forward to birthing a new church here in 2012. But he had no idea that God would use him also to revive one of Warsaw’s small, established churches.
Yet, beginning July 1, 2012, that is exactly what happened. On that day, Yoder’s church plant opened its doors for worship, and also on that day members from Open Arms Baptist Church, an established but struggling church in town, began to speak with Yoder about bringing their congregations together. By that fall, the churches “married” to become “The Church of the Living Water: Welcoming All with Open Arms.” A new church was born, and an old one gained new life.
Now, with several ministry teams prepared to preach, lead worship and serve in other ways, the Church of the Living Water is looking for opportunities to help other struggling churches around the state. They even hold their main weekly service on Saturday night, so that their ministry staff and members can participate in such efforts to revitalize churches elsewhere.
“If there was a church that was going to die, and the Lord gave you a calling, a mission to keep it from dying, that is pretty exciting and powerful,” Yoder said. “So we have an entire church that is ready to do that.”
Likewise, many other Missouri Baptists around the state are answering the call to help resurrect churches—and their revitalization efforts could not begin soon enough. According to Gary Mathes, pastoral ministries specialist at the Missouri Baptist Convention, 75 percent of Missouri Baptist churches were plateaued or declining from 2009 to 2013.
But despite such bleak statistics, hope remains. As the chart below suggests, congregations at any stage of decline can find new life. Churches that are coasting in ministry can be renewed and dead churches can be revived. This is what church revitalization is about, Mathes said—“helping a stuck church get unstuck and moving again.”
Hope is exemplified by such churches as New Life Fellowship in Rolla. With the help of New Harmony Baptist Church in Salem and the new leadership of Pastor Todd Cummings—formerly, a deacon at New Harmony—the Rolla church went from only a handful of people to now averaging 65 in attendance each Sunday. They also look forward to a bright future as they seek ways to reach the lost.
“There is hope,” Mathes says. “If you’re willing to make the change, if you’re willing to make the effort, you can turn around.”
“But this change is not superficial,” Spencer Hutson, the MBC’s church strengthening team leader, adds. “It is not about worship style. It is not about the type of building. It is not about the way you dress. It is not about any of that type of stuff, because they are all over the board—the ones that are working. It’s about recognizing what your culture is and how you can transform communities with the gospel.”
Churches that desire revitalization should call their director of missions, Mathes and Hutson said. They can also find help for this process by calling the MBC’s church strengthening team at 1.800.736.6227.