October 1, 2026
SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. — Southside Baptist Church started the year staring down a hot summer with no air conditioning and an $80,000 repair bill it couldn’t afford.
“The church has never had the funds, honestly, to be able to accomplish that goal,” said pastor Joshua Johnson, who has led Southside for two years. The four sanctuary units, installed in 1998, had failed. So, in January, Johnson launched a giving plan to raise the money.
He eventually went to a pastors meeting hosted by the New Duck River Baptist Association at Farmington Baptist Church in Lewisburg, where he shared Southside’s need and met pastor Jack Long.
Long asked him a question that changed the course of the year.
“Do you see the buildings that we’re in?” Johnson recalled Long asking. “Southside gave $10,000 to help build this building.”
Forty years earlier, when Farmington was just a church plant meeting under a tent, Southside had pulled $10,000 from its own building fund to help Farmington construct its facility.
“Farmington never forgot that,” Johnson said.
Long, who has pastored Farmington for four and a half years, took the story back to his congregation and proposed returning the favor: a $20,000 gift toward Southside’s AC repair. The deacons didn’t hesitate, he said, and the congregation backed it with a unanimous vote.
“The Lord just pricked my heart, even though I had nothing to do with that 40 years ago,” Long said. “But I am the present pastor, and God has blessed us over the last four and a half years financially.”
The two churches held a joint worship service March 8, where Farmington presented the check to Southside.
“That worship service was just a sweet time of fellowship between two congregations, which had a history,” Long said. “And I was glad to be able to participate in that history.”
By then, Southside’s own congregation had already raised most of the remaining balance, leaving the church about $10,000 short of its $80,000 goal.
Long told Johnson that Farmington wanted to cover that final amount, too. But before Farmington could, First Baptist Church in Wartrace — which had heard about the need through Farmington — stepped in and pledged $5,000. Farmington gave the remaining $5,000.
“It was just a move from God,” Johnson said. “It’s not a competition. It’s how churches can look at each other and say, ‘Hey, you’re my brother, you’re my sister, we are here together.’ It’s not, ‘I’m not trying to take your memories, you’re not trying to take my memories.’ It’s about proclaiming Christ.”
The relationship has grown beyond a single gift. Long, who has spent more than 50 years in ministry, now mentors Johnson — a partnership Johnson said reflects the same spirit of collaboration he sees within his own congregation.
“My family, a family of five, is one of the only African American families at Southside,” Johnson said. “A third of our congregation is Hispanic, two-thirds is Caucasian, and maybe 1% is African American. Only God can put it in a way where you have an African American pastor preaching to a predominantly white and Hispanic congregation about a Jewish Jesus. Only God can do something as wonderful as that.”
For Johnson, the story points to what church health actually looks like.
“For that church to be healthy, we have to be looking at ways to not only grow internally, but to go out into the world outside the four walls of the church and reach a community that maybe looks like you or doesn’t look like you, to reach the lost, the nonbeliever,” he said.
Long said he has cast a similar vision at Farmington, which now draws about 200 people regularly.
“I’ve cast this vision for Farmington to ask God to begin to implant on some people’s hearts a need to help us bolster a smaller church,” Long said.
The idea isn’t new to him. During his final five years leading the Beulah Baptist Association, Long worked alongside three smaller churches to help revitalize their ministries and recast their vision.
“Even though we may be separate churches right now, we’re still part of the family of God,” Long said. “I think a healthy church is a church that, when you walk through the doors, you can sense the presence of the Holy Spirit.”
For Long, the AC campaign offered proof of a principle he’s carried for decades.
“We can’t ever outgive God,” he said. “We never missed that $25,000. God made that up in a couple of weeks in the offering.
When we know that we’re in God’s will and we give what we believe God wants us to give, God always honors that gift and multiplies it, blessing us as well as the congregation we’ve used the gift to bless.”
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This story appeared in the Baptist and Reflector.
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