ALPHARETTA, Ga. – Bethany Baptist Church in North Little Rock, Arkansas, stared down the barrel of a problem facing hundreds of churches in the United States. The community around them had changed. Their church had not, and now, they were on the precipice of seeing their church fold.
“They were down to just a handful of people who hadn’t met in their auditorium in probably 10 or 12 years,” said Greg Varndell, associational mission strategist (AMS) for the North Pulaski Baptist Association.
Over the years, Varndell walked the small congregation through a replant, leveraging their legacy to pass the baton to a new congregation, Unity Bible Baptist Church, that could continue the mission of the church.
“It was a community that had changed from predominantly Anglo to African American,” Varndell said. “So, we were able to plant an African American congregation, and they’re now running over a hundred on Sunday mornings. They’re reaching the community again. There are folks who live within walking distance who are bringing their families, bringing their grandkids.”
Demographic change and the decline of established churches spur the need for new churches and the resuscitation of dying ones.
The North American Mission Board (NAMB) zeroed in on both strategies in recent years with Mark Clifton and the Replant team taking the lead in working with associations and state conventions to renew dying congregations.
The prayer is to see a renewal movement take place, said JimBo Stewart, associate director of Replant, during last week’s annual AMS Replant Lab at NAMB, Feb. 24-26. Through the consistent work of hundreds of associational leaders, the pace at which churches are closing their doors has been slowing.
“The 2024 numbers came out, and it was 713,” said Stewart. “That’s still 713 too many, but it’s less than the thousand that it was some years before that or the 1,200 it was a few years before that. So, we are seeing a movement, and you’re getting to be a small piece of that movement.”
More than 250 people attended the AMS Replant Lab and represented a diverse set of ministry contexts, ranging from rural, to suburban, to urban leaders.
John Vernon, AMS of the Cape Girardeau Baptist Association, has seen several churches replant and revitalize in a Missouri city that has a small-town feel. The resources the Replant team has created or collated into the Replant Hub have helped Vernon show churches in need what a roadmap to renewal looks like.
“In the first meeting we have with a church, we share the process with them, so they can see the big picture of what it looks like,” Vernon said. The renewal process is not a quick fix but often requires significant changes in the church to bring it back to health.
One of the ways Replant serves associational leaders and pastors, as well, is the make-up of the team, said Vernon. They are practitioners.
“They themselves are engaged in the renewal work, in maybe their own church or in a group of churches. That’s significant,” said Vernon. “That’s one of the reasons associational leaders and pastors love to come to the lab. They are hearing from people who are doing it, who are in those trenches with them.”
Clifton, executive director of Replant, shared a bit of the story about how he came (back) to NAMB shortly after NAMB’s current president, Kevin Ezell, stepped into his role.
“It was 14 years ago, Kevin called me out of the blue…I’d never met him, he never met me,” Clifton said. Speaking to the associational leaders, he continued, “You are part of a tsunami of change in the last decade where we no longer run from dying churches. We run to dying churches. We’ll look back on the last 10 to 15 years and [be amazed] at what God has done.”
Due to his passion for dying churches and his persistence in seeing them renewed, Clifton assembled a team that has become a nationwide network of pastors and associational leaders doing the work of replanting and revitalizing dying churches.
“The [Replant] process itself is time-tested and has proven to be useful for me personally, in the state of Missouri, and obviously throughout the nation,” said Gary Mathes, AMS for the Clay-Platte Baptist Association in the Kansas City area. Mathes has been involved in Southern Baptist renewal work for several years as a pastor, state convention leader, and now through leading his association.
In the final session of the AMS Replant Lab, Stewart described the work of renewal as one that requires patience but that associations and churches have begun to see momentum. He asked the leaders in the room to imagine what could be in store if they persevered.
“Think about what this country could look like if every association represented here, over the next five years, saw a slow but faithful movement of church renewal happen,” Stewart said. “Think about what the impact of that would be to our communities, to our country, to our denomination. That’s what we’re on the same team to do together.”
To learn more about replanting, visit namb.net/church-replanting.