DULUTH — In 1966, Robert Jackson oversaw the completion of the new worship building for Beth-El Baptist Church in Doraville. Not a trained architect, Jackson nevertheless had an eye for design, structure, and how the proper pieces should work together – depending on the other’s strengths for a solid foundation.

After getting home from his job as a welder at General Motors, he’d put in the extra hours to lay out the blueprints. He and 15 others nailed lumber, laid bricks, and secured shingles until it was done in six months. Lost time with his wife, his children too.

Forty years later, his church had changed. Gone were the crowds of up to 250. Gone were the young people, replaced by an empty nursery and graying congregation. The neighborhood looked different, too. More store signs appeared in Korean and Spanish.

According to the latest figures through Research Services of the Georgia Baptist Convention, the typical GBC church has a total membership of 207 with 50 attending Sunday School and 76 in worship each week. Every year three members are added through baptism with three more through transfer of membership.

When it comes to reviving struggling churches, there are no quick fixes and the eggshells of tradition have to be tiptoed on carefully when attempting to add new programs. But it’s possible, say pastors, when a vision for growth is put in front of members and communicated effectively. Why? Because no one wants to be the last to turn out the light.

 

Making the turn

Two years ago Frank Rivero stepped behind Beth- El’s pulpit and realized he had seen this before.

A moderately-large church building. More empty pews than ones holding at least one person. An ethnicity inside the walls that didn’t reflect the predominate culture outside them.

As the new pastor, the upbeat Rivero has refused to agree with what others say is a grim outlook for the congregation. There’s an engine behind his ministry and hope for this body of believers.

“I don’t believe in dying churches.”

Rivero has worked to establish two congregations under a single roof – one Hispanic, the other Caucasian. He sees the 138-year-old church as eventually being home to both with 200-plus members each.

“I want a thriving church,” he said. “My motto is two churches, one heart.”

Bryant Neal can identify. The former paramedic of 14 years felt a call to preach and was promptly given the task of breathing life into Camak Baptist Church, a congregation that had dwindled down to eight.

Only God can bring revival, Neal admits, but he hasn’t been shy at looking for ways to minister to members and encourage them to reach the community.

“We revamped our worship and organized a worship team,” he said. “We rewrote the church constitution to have a clearer definition of what the role of the church should be.

“Sunday school was reorganized and we began to get more involved in the community,” he added. “We began raising money for the Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon offerings.”

Locally, funds have been raised to benefit victims of tornadoes that hit the area last spring. Neal has established a door-to-door evangelism program.

“It’s been very labor-intensive,” he said, “but it’s paid off. There’s been a lot of growth in our people; the spiritual temperature has changed.”

 

A hand up, not handout

As an associational missionary, Ron Wildes would go to seminars on church growth. He says one message he seemed to hear a lot just stuck in his craw.

“There would be a lot of talk about new church starts and such,” said Wildes, who directs Fairburn Association. “I’d often ask at these things if the emphasis was only on developing new work. I’d ask, ‘What about these churches that are struggling?’

“I hate it when a church decides to just sit around and die. It doesn’t have to happen. People need to have a new vision for reaching their community and see that they’re sitting in the doorway of opportunity, no matter where they’re at.”

Wildes began to form a process to help struggling churches. What if healthy churches used their resources to assist struggling congregations? Finances, manpower, and materials could be shared to reach a different area of the city or county.

The association’s plan, still in its infancy, is called the Barnabas Church Program. Through it just such a partnership takes place. Leaders in the healthy church mentor and train those in the assisted church; nothing is owed or expected in return. The purpose is renewal for ministry.

“The Barnabas Program is for those churches looking to embrace help,” said Wildes. “They have to be willing to refocus, revision, retrain leadership, and look at the community. Those things are essential if the church is to turn around.

“There’s nothing wrong with new churches,” Wildes emphasized, “but one willing to renew its ministry must be given that option.”

A pilot partnership is currently going through the program, said Wildes. “Around Christmas we’ll start to evaluate progress,” he stated. “We’ll look closely at financial, leadership, and outreach development. The primary concern is economic. We want them to begin to be able to take on their own expenses,” he added.

At times, some say a church may need a complete makeover. For it to happen, existing members must be willing to step away. Leadership needs new blood. A transition of power needs to begin. In essence, the existing church must be willing to die.

Roger Ferrell describes himself as “very much into taking old stuff that isn’t working and making it work.” That goes for people and buildings, he adds.

Ferrell currently is pastor of Woodland Creek Church in Dacula, which for 25 years was known as Northside Baptist Church. Located on Highway 124, membership yo-yoed until the facility was sold to a Korean church. Another piece of property on Auburn Road with a barn and log cabin was bought to construct a new building.

After deciding the cost of a new building was too high, members began meeting in the refurbished barn. Now the youth ministry uses the barn and church members have a new building nearby. Ferrell and his family live in the cabin.

Before being called as pastor in 2005, Ferrell had already overseen one church restart in Portland, Maine. Four-and-a-half years after starting there, membership had grown from 20 to 250. A hundred had been baptized.

Ferrell says the first thing he did at Woodland Creek, founded last year, was listen. “My primary role as a pastor is to interpret the visions of the congregation and weave those together into an overall church vision,” he said. “I spent a lot of time talking to folks and hearing their heart.”

Community involvement has been a consistent theme.

“We’re doing more than handing out fliers,” stated Ferrell. “We volunteer at the library to help with the crowds of students hanging out there after school. We serve breakfast to firemen. We take appreciation gifts to teachers.”

Recently, the church started the Woodland Creek Academy, a weekday preschool where 80% of students’ families are unchurched. In addition, the church has launched the Auburn Road Community Association.

“We started ARCA to help our community and build relationships with folks who live and work around us,” said Ferrell. “It’s been good. We’re working with area businesses to adopt the highway and offering our building for crime prevention meetings and other seminars.”

Another congregation, Life Church in Savannah, is a restart through the GBC. Associational missionary Steve Sells says the plight of struggling churches is one that particularly catches his attention.

“This is something that’s dear to my heart,” said Sells, who oversees Savannah Association. “We’ve backed away from these churches that have plateaued or are declining. Planting churches does meet needs, but there are needs these [existing] churches already meet if we just help them out.”

Last year Emmanuel Baptist Church in Springfield closed its doors and reopened seven weeks later as Life Baptist. Today, around 100 show up for worship with 75 in Sunday School. For more information about Life Church go to www.christianindex.org/3124.article.

To his friends, the 38-year-old Neal picked quite a place for his first pastorate.

Camak, snuggled between Warrenton and Thomson, used to sit in a community bustling with activity due to the railroad that bisects the town. In the early 1970s train cars began carrying more freight instead of passengers, stunting the local economy. The community went downhill. Church attendance floundered.

Two years ago Associational Missionary Mason Davis of Hephzibah and Kilpatrick Associations preached at the church and gave them the hard truth about their options.

“They could continue and the last person turn off the lights if they did nothing,” said Davis. “The church could be shut down and be a new church start. They could shut down and dispose of the property.

“The last option was to treat Camak as a new church start but not shut it down. Keep the name and the people and bring a new pastor in. This is what they chose.

“The church is stronger than they’ve been [in awhile]. It took that group of senior adults realizing that if they didn’t do something the church would be gone.”

Neal says he’s starting to see a turnaround in the church, due to “being real with people” and being more visible in the community. A current push is in effect to develop a strong discipleship program to capitalize on recent additions in membership.

“We’re not just wanting to reach people, but show them [how to study]. We’ve been having some interest from the community to have this sort of thing.”

 

Changes on the horizon

Today, Beth-El members Robert Jackson and his wife, Auberline, both 81, note a change at their church. Younger faces are showing up. There’s a feeling of good things on the horizon. Credit is given to God and Rivero’s leadership.

“We think he’s great,” said Auberline of Rivero. “He’s very talented and outgoing. He loves everybody.”

“I like the way he handles things,” said Robert, who for 34 years served as clerk for Roswell Association. “He’s not one of those ‘I-so-and-so’ preachers. The ones who like to talk about themselves and what they’ve done.”

In May the church celebrated its 138th anniversary with one service involving Anglos and Hispanics. Rivero served as his own interpreter. During worship stanzas of hymns he would alternate between Spanish and English.

Like Jackson did in building the physical structure, Rivero sees the re-building of El Beth-El in the same light – having an eye for design, structure, and the proper pieces working together.

 

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What’s a restart?

 

The idea of completely remaking a church isn’t a new one, but it’s an avenue that Daryl Price, church starter strategist for the Georgia Baptist Convention, says is a viable option.

“Einstein is given credit for the statement ‘Insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results,’” said Price, “yet many churches continue to go through the same motions week after week without any evangelistic impact or church growth until the situation is critical.”

Price offered a picture of the church that could consider restarting.

“They’ve dwindled down to a handful of survivors that may deeply love the church, but have lost hope, lack a vision, and see no way out of the downward membership trends.”

 

Considerations for restarting

•Determine growth potential of the area

•Celebrate the past

•Close the doors for a time

•Transfer leadership to a steering committee

•Call new pastor with energy and faith

•Develop fresh vision for the community

•Change church’s name

•Develop launch team and plan the launch

For more information, contact Price at (800) RING-GBC or (770) 936-5228. Or you can email him at dprice@gabaptist.org.