Growing churches in Clayton County

Many churches in Clayton County are facing significant challenges primarily due to the decade-long transition from a generally Anglo, mid-to-upper class community to a mixed, lower-economic class community which includes Anglos, African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians. Most of the Caucasians who have remained in the area are senior adults who cannot afford to move away.

It appears the ineptness of the county government in general and the school board in particular have complicated and exacerbated the demographic changes.

Earlier this year the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported, “The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools said infighting among the school board members and violations of board procedures have made the district ‘fatally flawed’ and recommended that Clayton’s accreditation be revoked, effective September 1.”

The AJC continued, “Clayton County has ... suffered in recent years from rising crime and the highest mortgage foreclosure rate in the metro area. Its school district is in jeopardy of becoming just the third in the nation – and the first in Georgia – to lose its accreditation in the past 20 years.”

Milton Wood, interim associational missionary for South Metro Association, commented, “The county school board has put their personal agenda ahead of the good of the schoolchildren.”

Consequently, many families are leaving Clayton County and the neighborhoods in the county are experiencing rapid, and in some cases drastic, changes. More often than not the churches are not able to make transitions as rapidly as the communities and the fallout is devastating.

“There is no more diverse demographic area in the state of Georgia than Clayton County,” Wood explained. “Many of our churches have been devastated by the population changes and we have not done a good job in transitioning our churches to meet the changing needs.

“Many of our churches have great facilities that cannot be maintained by the present congregations nor by the communities that now exist in the area.”

Don Bazal is the pastor of The Rock Baptist Church in Rex. Bazal’s church has a beautiful and spacious facility, but the small congregation struggles to pay the church utility bill of $10,000 each month.

“Church experts state the number one reason a church fails to come through transition is financial pressure,” Bazal stated. “We are currently seeking churches and/or associations willing to partner with us and help The Rock to come through the tunnel.

“Our air conditioning and heating units are 30 to 40 years old, but God has been good to us. We have kept all systems functioning with the help of prayer, the sovereignty of God, duct tape, and bailing wire.

“The Rock has worked hard to make contacts in our community and has been successful. The ability to make connections has proved to be a more difficult challenge. However, The Rock does have growing Korean and Hispanic congregations.”

 

First Baptist Church
Forest Park

Reed Crumbliss, pastor of First Baptist of Forest Park, is experiencing the same thing. His worship center is one of the largest ones in the county and is exquisite, but the cost of maintaining the buildings amounts to one-third of the budget.

Many of the churches in Clayton County were flourishing 25 years ago, but now a large number of those same churches have been reduced to a dedicated remnant that wistfully hold on to what was once a glorious past. Church sanctuaries that once hosted capacity crowds for worship now have countless rows of empty pews on most any given Sunday.

Crumbliss is well aware of the rich history of the FPark church, but is committed to doing everything possible to impact his community for Christ. The church has started Mission Forest Park, Incorporated, a 501C3 organization, to touch lives for good and for God.

Every second and fourth Wednesday in each month the church invites indigent families for food and clothing. In the past 100-120 people who show up for a time of worship and a hot lunch, though recently numbers have swollen to nearly 200. A large package of food is provided to those would come and the clothes closet is open for them to get as many as ten items of clothing.

The meals are made possible by a grant from the Georgia Baptist Convention Hunger Fund. A local restaurant and Chick-fil-A provide one meal each quarter. Other churches also partner with First Baptist to make the meals available to those who are homeless and destitute.

Gary Goodman, a volunteer at First Baptist, keeps up with the professions of faith made at the Wednesday noontime worship services. “I know there have been over 750 saved since we started this ministry four years ago,” he reported.

The church also provides an additional 10 meals each day for some of the town’s “street people.” Wood remarked, “The thing [with the transitioning community] that has become our greatest liability has given rise to our greatest opportunity.”

“We also have after-school programs that focus on children who are at risk,” Crumbliss stated. “We help kids with their homework, give them snacks, tell them a Bible story, and provide recreational activities.”

The church also has English as a Second Languages classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Tom and Ann Lawton, who are with the North American Mission Board’s Mission Service Corps, moved to Forest Park to help with the Hispanic ministry. “The police department contends that the city’s population is 50 percent Hispanic,” Tom stated. “We are using the ESL classes as our main outreach mechanism. It opens the door and we go wherever it takes us.

“But we believe in ministering to the whole person. I visit in the jails and the hospitals. Since Ann speaks Spanish she has become the labor coach for pregnant Hispanic women in the city.

“My greatest desire is to start indigenous churches that are self-supporting, self-governing, and self-replicating. I think our future may be in small churches. There needs to be house churches in every block and in every apartment complex.

“I want the replication process to be in the DNA of every church we start. We need to get our churches to catch that vision.”

 

Second Baptist Church
Forest Park

Thirty years ago Second Baptist Church of Forest Park had 500 people in attendance on most Sundays, but by last year the attendance had been reduced to about 30 people on most Sundays – all Caucasians. The future was uncertain and it became a daunting challenge to keep the doors open. The corporal’s guard that remained saw the demographic change that had taken place in their community and called an African American pastor, Randy Gibson. Gibson, a product of Liberty University, has a winsome

personality, is aggressively going after souls, and believes that the church worship center will soon be filled to capacity with people hungry for the gospel.

Already the attendance has more than doubled, even though almost half of the Caucasians have left the church. However, the church is adding new members that are coming from the immediate community and the future looks more promising than in recent years.

The church provides facilities for a private school for grades 1-6, a gymnasium for basketball, and a playing field for soccer. Those who are taking advantage of what the church offers during the week are beginning to show up on Sunday.

“My goal is not necessarily to pastor a large church,” Gibson declared, “but I am on a mission to bring people together for Christ. We are baptizing more people. Last year we had 29 new converts as a result of our summer program. The GBC gave us $5,000 for our outreach programs and we plan to continue with this evangelistic ministry in the future.”

 

New Covenant Baptist
Forest Park

Phillips Drive Baptist Church in Forest Park was formerly an Independent Baptist Church but is now New Covenant Baptist Church and under the watchcare of South Metro Baptist Association. In November the reorganized NCBC will likely be voted into full membership in the association as a Southern Baptist church.

Eddie Goodall was called to be the associate pastor of New Covenant eight years ago. He has an Independent Baptist background. Goodall is a graduate of Hyles-Anderson College in Hammond, Ind. He was called to preach while in college and later pastored High Point Independent Baptist Church in Germany. He also started a church in the Chicago area – Old Landmark Baptist Church.

Goodall, a bright, engaging African American pastor with a broad smile, became the pastor of New Covenant five years ago.

Reflecting on his Independent Baptist background, Goodall commented, “I had been praying for years about affiliating with a Baptist group that would provide more resources for ministry and a better way of networking. I looked at several Baptist denominations, but the Southern Baptist Convention seemed to be more open to black Baptist needs. I liked the Baptist Faith and Message so I decided to become a Southern Baptist.”

The church was an Anglo church when Goodall arrived on the scene, but like Second Baptist, the church was not reaching the people in their immediate community. On a typical Sunday no more than forty people would show up for church. Realizing that impacting the neighborhood was a priority the church decided to call Goodall to be the pastor five years ago. Subsequently, most of the Anglos have left New Covenant, but the church has begun to grow once again.

“We have about 70 in attendance each week now, and our oldest member is Annie Bonds, an Anglo, who recently said to me, ‘God must have wanted to you to be our pastor, because you are still here,’” Goodall stated.

New Covenant has a school (K5-12) with about 35 students and although the church is without debt, the school recently secured a loan for $100,000.

“Our biggest challenges are to maintain the property and keep solvent financially,” Goodall remarked. “Fellow Georgia Baptists can help us by sending work teams to our church campus to do electrical work, carpentry, pave walkways, build retainer walls, etc. But we also need help with block parties and evangelism events.

“We have started a radio ministry at 7 p.m. each Thursday on Love 680. I just want us to reach out and make connections with people. God desires that we be effective and touch lives. I want the community to know that we are a light in the darkness.

 

Mount Zion Baptist Church
Jonesboro

Mount Zion Baptist Baptist Church in Jonesboro has also seen its community go through a dramatic transition in recent years. Wood enthusiastically stated, “They have made great progress and seem to be making the transition beautifully. They have been very successful at building meaningful relationships.”

Chris Reynolds has been the pastor of the church for nine years and just last year called African American Robert Wilson to become the executive pastor and the principal of the church’s school. Wilson, who served as a church planter with the North American Mission Board for more than 16 years, resigned as pastor of Sandtown Baptist Church in Atlanta to accept the call to Mount Zion.

“The academy is predominately black and the congregation is predominately white and as these two entities worked together to become one multicultural unit some persons left but others have come to fill the vacancies,” Wilson reported

“This has made us a very unique body of believers. We now have to learn how to help African Americans reach out to Anglos so that our church can maintain its diversity. We presently have more than twelve ethnic groups represented in our fellowship.”

The academy enrollment is approximately 450 in grades K3-12 and is beginning to increase again. The worship attendance for the church is 350 and is also beginning to show signs of growth. “The church desires to be evangelistic where it is planted,” Wilson explains. “People have an evangelistic mindset. This is where God has planted us and we must strategize and work to reach those who are here.”

 

Harmony in black and white

The relationship between Reynolds and Wilson mirrors the kind of successful relationships being forged by churches in the Jonesboro community.

Reynolds is from South Georgia and Wilson came from California where he was a part of several motorcycle clubs in South Central Los Angeles and San Bernardino during the 1970s. “I rode with The Devil Disciples, The Chosen Few, The Hammibal Knights, The Black Foxes, The Brothers of the Sun, The Vargos, and several others,” Wilson specified. “I rode those streets in Southern California with a negative attitude in the 70s, but I had the opportunity to go back in the 80s and 90s and do the work of the Lord as one of the first African American Church Planter Apprentices commissioned by the Home Mission Board (North American Mission Board).

“I was brought up in the black housing projects of Louisville, Ky. I attended a black elementary school, a back junior high school, a black high school, and even an all-black trade school. I never really had to associate with white people until I began to work for the railroad as an electrical apprentice at age 21.

“After a number of bad racial experiences, I moved to Los Angeles and became more engaged with black groups that were for the most part very anti-white.

“Chris was on the chairman of the search committee to find a missionary for South Metro Baptist Association. I became a candidate for that position and after months of meeting and having extended talks, our hearts began to knit with one another and we began to talk about pulpit exchanges. He invited me to speak for the academy’s graduation ceremony for the senior class at the high school at Mount Zion.

“As the Lord would have it, I did not become the associational missionary, but became the executive pastor here at Mount Zion and the principal of the academy. Pastor Chris and I have been joined together with a common desire to see our church reach anyone and everyone in Clayton County with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

“As a former NAMB manager, a former missionary, a former church planter, a former teacher, a former associate pastor, and until recently a former senior pastor in our Southern Baptist Convention, I can honestly say that Mount Zion is uniquely qualified to meet the challenges of our changing culture with the gospel of God’s redeeming and reconciling love.”

The model of love, connectivity, and common vision provided by Chris Reynolds and Robert Wilson serve as a guide to a multiplicity of churches in the metro Atlanta area and throughout the state.

Individuals, churches and associations interested in assisting the churches of the South Metro Association should contact Milton Wood at (770) 464-0497 or miltonwood@aol.com.

 

One Church, Many Ministries Every second and fourth Wednesday members of First Baptist in Forest Park and partners from other churches and community groups provide services for area residents.