Transcript
Dan Hurst (00:03):
Welcome to Revitalize and Replant with Mark Clifton and Mark Hallock, where we equip pastors to take their churches from declining to thriving, by pointing them to a new future and a new hope. Join us weekly for encouragement and practical advice in your pastoring journey.
Mark Clifton (00:20):
Welcome to this edition of Revitalize and Replant. I am not Mark. I am Mark.
Dan Hurst (00:25):
You are. Last I checked.
Mark Clifton (00:27):
I had that written down. I did it wrong.
Dan Hurst (00:29):
I’ve seen that. I’ve seen you in pictures before.
Mark Clifton (00:32):
I am not Dan Hurst. I am Mark Clifton and over here is Mark Hallock. Actually, Mark’s not with us today. Mark is actually in Alpharetta meeting with a bunch of very important big wigs down there in Alpharetta.
Dan Hurst (00:44):
Oh, good for him.
Mark Clifton (00:44):
Doing some really important stuff. And I’m here in Independence, Missouri with Dan Hurst. We’re going to switch the script today and I’m going to interview Dan. So I’m hosting it and Dan’s the guest and I’m going to interview Dan because something very exciting has happened in Dan’s life in the last few weeks. Let me tell you what it is real quick. We’re in Independence, Missouri. We are in the hometown of Harry Truman. Literally, we could throw a rock on Harry Truman’s house. You wouldn’t want to do that.
Dan Hurst (01:15):
Block and a half away.
Mark Clifton (01:16):
Block and a half away. And right on the square in Independence, this has been a historic church for years and it went through a tremendous decline and went through a process in the Missouri Baptist Convention, a revitalization strategy process. And part of that was to select a new pastor and da, da, da, da,
Dan Hurst (01:36):
Yeah, well.
Mark Clifton (01:36):
Dan Hurst. So Dan Hurst, our own Dan Hurst, who does such a great job on this podcast, who is really an international talent on voiceover and voice work nationally and internationally. Man, here he is. He’s the replant pastor now of First Baptist Church of Independence and that happened quickly. Dan, we can’t wait to hear this story. Tell us how all this came about.
Dan Hurst (02:00):
I didn’t want to.
Mark Clifton (02:01):
You didn’t want to tell the story. You didn’t want to come.
Dan Hurst (02:03):
I didn’t want to come here.
Mark Clifton (02:04):
Well, that’s a good start.
Dan Hurst (02:06):
That’s where it started. No, I didn’t. I felt like in the situation I was in, I’d been there for what, 30 years where I was. And it was just one of those things where I felt like, okay, I had never felt the release.
Mark Clifton (02:22):
Let me back up and say, Dan and I have known each other all of our lives, literally.
(02:26):
Yeah. And there have been many occasions in the last 30 years when I’ve tried to pull Dan away from his ministry and ask him to take a church. I asked you to take Warner Road when I was there in 2000. I went in 2005 or six and I was desperate. I’d take anybody. And I brought you over and let you preach and I said, “Man, this would be great for you. ” And there were other places I’d say, “This would be great for you. ” And you were always so? “No, God just wants me here. I’m not supposed to leave.” 30 years. And then all of a sudden I get a phone call from you and it’s like, you left and you’re going where?
Dan Hurst (03:00):
Yeah.
Mark Clifton (03:01):
So tell me about that.
Dan Hurst (03:02):
Well, it was one of those things where, first of all, I knew that where I was in good hands. We had built that ministry there. We had people in place and to be honest, I’ve been here now seven weeks.
Mark Clifton (03:17):
I think we can kind of explain where you were. I was at Raytown,
Dan Hurst (03:20):
First Baptist.
Mark Clifton (03:21):
First Base Raytown, but you had a class.
Dan Hurst (03:23):
I had a class there that grew to well over 150. And it kind of becomes a church within the church to a degree, but we fought that. I fought that. I wanted to make sure everybody knew this is a class. But what goes along with that, you end up taking care of them.
Mark Clifton (03:44):
Sure.
Dan Hurst (03:45):
You bury them, you marry them, you counsel them, you do all of that.
Mark Clifton (03:49):
So Dan was the teacher of the open class. Anybody could come to this who you wanted. It was just open class and it would vary between 150, 200 people for 30 years. And it still goes on, like you said.
Dan Hurst (04:01):
Yeah. In fact, I went, they had a potluck last Sunday and I went there and they were like, “Oh, who are you? ” No, it was great because it was set up right and it just kept on functioning.
Mark Clifton (04:14):
And you were busy. All those years, Dan was, he won’t tell you this, but he was the number one morning DJ in all of Kansas City Radio and he also was the stadium announcer at the Royal Stadium and he was raising a family. So all of those things, pastoring and leading, I should say, teaching the open class seemed like a really good ministry because you could teach, you could care for people and love them, but you weren’t pastoring a church because you were very busy with these other things. Right.
Dan Hurst (04:38):
I had been pastoring before that, smaller churches and then when it just seemed like God led us to that church, which didn’t make sense because I felt like God had been leading me to work with churches. We used to call them churches at risk and that didn’t make sense because I didn’t understand that to be a church at risk. Well, it turned out it was and it was just kind of cloaked. So we stayed there for 30 years and God just never gave me permission to leave. And then a couple of months ago it was like, okay, it’s time. And it was all right. There was a release there. My wife and I, we prayed about it and we both felt that God was giving us permission to move on.
Mark Clifton (05:18):
And by the way, normally we think of replant and revitalization as a young man’s thing and it is. We’re grateful for young men who are called into this work. Man, we love to hang out with … About everybody on our replant revitalization team is half or a third my age. But as we sit in this room today, Mr. Hurst, you and I, our combined age is approaching 140
Dan Hurst (05:39):
Or more.
Mark Clifton (05:40):
We are two old men. So I just want all of you older guys to know your 60s, even your 70s, if you are really willing to be used to the Lord can be some of your most productive years.
Dan Hurst (05:52):
And what’s happened here is that there’s a sense of experience that they feel.
Mark Clifton (05:59):
Yes.
Dan Hurst (05:59):
Okay. We’ve got somebody who has crossed those bridges and fought those battles and understands kind of what we’re going through. So I’ve been here at the time of this podcast, I’ve been here for seven weeks.
Mark Clifton (06:12):
Okay, seven weeks. So talk to me about how it even came about that this even became a possibility.
Dan Hurst (06:18):
Well, I got a call or actually I had been in touch with Greg Boll, who is the director of missions here for Blue River-Kansas City. And I’ve known Greg for a number of years,
(06:27):
you have, too. And in fact, we went down to the Resound Conference, which is the revitalization conference for the state of Missouri down in Jefferson City. We drove down together and we talked a lot about it on the way down and on the way back and he had some ideas of some places that he would love for me to serve and he had three in particular in the Kansas City area and this was the first one that he mentions and I thought, no, that church is, that’s out of my league.
Mark Clifton (06:58):
Okay. Let’s stop and talk about this church. First Baptist.
Dan Hurst (07:02):
First Baptist Church of Independence has been here for over 150 years.
Mark Clifton (07:05):
Yes.
Dan Hurst (07:06):
It was started in 1834.
Mark Clifton (07:09):
Right. That almost 200 years.
Dan Hurst (07:10):
So yeah, then it was incorporated in 1839 and then they built a building which was a gorgeous building and it burned. And shortly after that, they built another one very, very similar to that. And they were in that for a number of years. Eventually they outgrew that building and that building started having some structural issues too. So they built the building that we’re in right now. John Hughes was the pastor at that time.
Mark Clifton (07:35):
And they built this building when?
Dan Hurst (07:37):
They moved in in 1986.
Mark Clifton (07:38):
Okay guys. So we’re talking 40 years ago. This church was at its zenith. Yeah.
Dan Hurst (07:44):
They were running over 2,100 people in worship.
Mark Clifton (07:47):
2000 people in worship. They were on television, local TV, not cable TV, not the PTL network. They were on local broadcast television live on Sunday mornings. It was a big deal.
Dan Hurst (07:59):
It was.
(08:00):
And they built this building for that.
Mark Clifton (08:04):
For TV. For TV.
Dan Hurst (08:06):
And so a lot of, when you walk in, in fact, we’re in a room right now that was probably used for some of their interviews that they did for the program. Upstairs, there’s a whole TV studio that’s just locked up. And it was built for that with that idea in mind.
Mark Clifton (08:24):
So that was 1986. By the time it’s 2026, what was an average Sunday like before you came?
Dan Hurst (08:32):
Before I came, well, they moved from running around. They were in three services, running over 2,100 people in their services with their TV program, that sort of thing. Then they started the decline because the community started to shift. This was the church for Independence. Oh, absolutely. I mean, all of the professionals, all of the big names, everybody came here. Absolutely. If you were somebody, you were a member of this church. Well, all these people started either retiring and moving out or moving away from the church from the community and the community itself started to shift.
Mark Clifton (09:05):
And frankly, I grew up in Independence. I lived here from 1970 until I went to seminary in 85 or whatever, 82. So my teenage years, growing up years, my dad pastored a church 20 blocks from here, but it was a whole different world because the church my dad pastored was blue collar folks. There are people who took a shower at the end of the day,
(09:29):
People here at First Baptist were guys who took a shower before they went to work. So it was kind of like that. But we always knew up here at First Baptist, this is where all the main movers and shakers and influential people and stuff. But by the late 1970s, Independence like many communities started growing tremendously to the west and to the south and all the new neighborhoods and all the new schools and all the new subdivisions were in the west and the south. And this used to be, this was the Independent Square. This is where all the stores were, the department stores and everything else. Well, in the 60s and 70s, they built two big suburban malls and everything moved away. So here this church at the height of its strength in the mid 1980s, it’s doing that just about the time that the whole demographic shift of this city has moved south and west.
(10:19):
That could be repeated hundreds of times. A lot of the guys listening to us are going, “That’s my church.” That’s our building we have. This huge building and the community has shifted entirely. So now the community, tell us about it. It’s not primarily wealthy, influential young families.
Dan Hurst (10:36):
No, I would consider this a very strong middle class neighborhood because when you drive the streets here, you find a lot of older couples, but you’ll see some young families too. And you’re looking at houses that are really nice houses around in this area. These were the big houses at that time. But still there are a lot of those other smaller homes that have been built since or smaller homes that have …
Mark Clifton (10:59):
Well, the larger homes have been turned into four or five unit apartments.
Dan Hurst (11:03):
There’s a lot. A lot of apartments in this area. So this particular zip code in itself is about 50% rental property.
Mark Clifton (11:17):
50% rental. Yeah. That would not have been the case in 1986. No,
Dan Hurst (11:20):
No, no.
Mark Clifton (11:21):
No.
Dan Hurst (11:22):
And so what happens when, and this is typical for any church, I think, but as the church starts declining in attendance and people are moving away, the community is shifting, the church starts pointing fingers. Yes. Who’s doing this? Why is this not happening in this church? Why is the church not growing? Well, how come we’re dying? That sort of thing. And that caused some rifts and they went through a couple of splits.
Mark Clifton (11:44):
Pretty vicious splits.
Dan Hurst (11:45):
Yeah, very early.
Mark Clifton (11:45):
And again, guys, it’s so normal as Dan just so wonderfully pointed out, when a church begins to decline because really of the demographic changes and things like that and not addressing those, then there’s leadership problems and then churches split and that’s what happened here. And sometimes they had some vicious splits with some large and guess what? Most of those people that left, where did they go? They went to the suburban churches. Yes. And so your suburban churches grew overnight. Everybody’s saying, wow, look how that church has grown. But the backstory is a lot of these people just went there, right? And so there even became some resentment a little bit between these growing suburban churches and the downtown urban church. But again, back to the question, what was the attendance about the time they contacted you? What were your normal Sundays?
Dan Hurst (12:30):
They were running about 70.
Mark Clifton (12:32):
70.
Dan Hurst (12:33):
They were running about 70 in the worship service. And the interesting thing is they have a good worship team. They have worship team that’s been here for a long time. They’re all professional musicians as a matter of fact. And so they have a good worship team, but there wasn’t any reason for anybody to come here because they were irrelevant to the community.
Mark Clifton (12:56):
That’s a good word.
Dan Hurst (12:57):
And the community and so it’s interesting in the seven weeks I’ve been here, I’ve spent some time out walking around in the neighborhoods and talking to people. I asked them two questions. And when I introduced myself and so forth, and they’re very friendly. Sure. I haven’t found anybody yet that was like, go away. But I said, “First of all, what do you know about that church? Tell me what you know about that church.” And it’s interesting, most of them don’t know anything about the church. They’ve never been here. They don’t know any of that. They said, “Well, we know they have a daycare center.” There’s a lot.That’s a big deal in this community and they don’t know really that much about the church. And then the second question I ask them is, what could this church, what do you think this church could do to make this neighborhood a better place to live?
(13:45):
And it’s interesting the responses that I get
Mark Clifton (13:47):
On that. What do you get?
Dan Hurst (13:47):
I get stuff like, “Well, we’ve got a real crime problem in this area.” That’s true. “And we don’t know that you can do anything about that. ” Well, there are things that we can’t do about it, but they don’t know that and it’s been things like that. Other things are like, it’s summertime and our kids are going nuts around here. They want something to do and so we can provide stuff for them, for the children’s ministries, that sort of thing. So it runs the gamut of different things. It’s interesting because of the demographics, the older generation, they want to be safe, they’re concerned about the crime. The younger generation is looking for some way to keep their family occupied or
(14:25):
excited or that sort of thing.
Mark Clifton (14:27):
I don’t want to get too deep in the woods here because Independence is my hometown and I grew up here, but the square, we’re right on the square, the Independence Square and there’s a courthouse there and that’s where Harry Truman was, he was a county judge here and it’s all about Truman, the whole square is … And the Truman Library, his presidential library is down the street too. Right down the hill. You think, man, there’s a lot going on historically. There is, and as much as some very influential people have tried to redevelop this area of the independent square, it has failed. So it’s a tough area. This is a tough place. Even with all that tourism historic kind of thing and some people really putting some money into trying to rebuild the historic Independence Square, that has not been successful. And so here you’ve got a church right off the square.
(15:12):
It’s a very complicated demographic to try to figure out. Again, I say that because that’s so similar to so many guys who are listening to us, but I want to go back. We’re getting ahead of ourselves here, but I’m going to go back. And you said Greg Boll, the director of missions contacted you about coming to be the pastor here.
(15:30):
What was your first reaction and how did you share that with your wife?
Dan Hurst (15:33):
I thought, well, first of all, I thought he was nuts. And I said, “Greg, I’m an old geezer. They need a young guy.” We’re both old. I know, right? Right. And I said, “What are they looking for? ” Well, they’re looking for the typical 35, 45 year old with about 40 years of experience. Yeah, really. And that’s what they want. They’re looking for just a fresh breath is basically what they’re looking for. And they need somebody that, and this was the common thing, somebody with new vision.
Mark Clifton (16:05):
And by the way, we’re not going to talk about the former pastor. He’s a wonderful guy. No, he’s a good guy. Everybody loved him, but he’d been here for…
Dan Hurst (16:11):
Almost 20 years.
Mark Clifton (16:12):
20 years. So you came into a place of not overnight decline but slow, gradual decline over the last 40 years.
Dan Hurst (16:20):
And to be honest, it wasn’t his fault. It was just that he got kind of caught in the crossfire. He came here right after … Well, right when he came, there was a split and there was a split before that. So he was caught in that dangerous time, that valley that they were going through.
Mark Clifton (16:39):
And our heart goes out to some of you pastors who go to a church that had some vicious splits and your demographics have changed and your building is huge and outdated and the community is not stable and the church looks at you and go, “Okay, fix this. ” Yes.
Dan Hurst (16:54):
Right? And fix it fast.
Mark Clifton (16:55):
And that’s what they did and he couldn’t obviously.
Dan Hurst (16:58):
And they love him. He was a good guy.
Mark Clifton (17:00):
Yeah. So it gets down to 70 people. 70 people. And the association reaches out and says, “We’re so desperate. We will take Dan Hurst.”
Dan Hurst (17:07):
Well, yeah, that’s pretty much the way it worked. They went through their resound process or the revitalization process that we put churches through and they agreed to all of that.
Mark Clifton (17:17):
So that’s important. A lot of different state conventions now have a revitalization strategy and the churches will go through it. So this church submitted to that strategy.
Dan Hurst (17:25):
They did and they agreed that they need to try. They decided instead of just going ahead and starting as a replant and merging with another church or anything like that, because there are a number of factors that held them back on that. Number one, the church is financially has a pretty good treasure chest.
Mark Clifton (17:42):
Which is not unusual.
Dan Hurst (17:43):
No.
Mark Clifton (17:44):
I know Lyle Schaller, the old Methodist consultant used to say that money in the bank is the death wheeze of a dying church. Exactly. So they don’t need to merge because they still have enough money put away to survive.
Dan Hurst (17:58):
Now it’s all in endowments.
Mark Clifton (17:59):
Yeah, but it’s there.
Dan Hurst (18:00):
And so they can’t touch at all. They can’t just write a check for it
(18:04):
But it’s there. They’ve got a building that’s … I mean, let’s face it, this building’s a pretty nice building.
Mark Clifton (18:10):
It is a very … Building 86, so it’s not like a hundred years old. It is.
Dan Hurst (18:14):
So all of those things factored into their decision to not just go ahead and try to merge with somebody, let’s try to revitalize.
Mark Clifton (18:22):
So how’d you bring it up to your wife, Marsha?
Dan Hurst (18:24):
Well, I said, “Marsha,” I said, “What do you think? ” And she said, “You know what I think.”
Mark Clifton (18:33):
Which was?
Dan Hurst (18:34):
It was like, there’s going to be some people that are really upset if you leave Raytown.
Mark Clifton (18:39):
If you leave your church, your 30 year of being the leader of that class.
Dan Hurst (18:43):
And what are you going to do? And do you have enough time to do this? Do you have the energy to do that? Those are all legitimate questions.
Mark Clifton (18:50):
Yeah, because you’re still self-employed. You still do voiceover work for movies and TV and commercials. Still have my business. And can I tell them you’re past 70?
Dan Hurst (18:58):
Oh yeah. And so the thing about the whole principle behind…
Mark Clifton (19:02):
I just told them you’re past 70, whether I could tell them or not.
Dan Hurst (19:06):
What?
Mark Clifton (19:06):
That you’re past 70.
Dan Hurst (19:07):
Oh, I’m 75. And so the whole principle behind the move was, can you do this? It’s not a question of, do you want to? It’s a question of, can you do it? And I said, “Well, there’s only one way to really discover that and that is to get my feet wet on that. ” And so I really felt like I could. I really felt I had the energy. I’m in great shape physically. I know that. I don’t mean I’m in great shape like a muscle man, but I’m healthy. I don’t have any problems. And so I thought in these last few years of my life, I’m in the winter of my life basically.
Mark Clifton (19:47):
I get it. We’re in the fourth quarter. I get it.
Dan Hurst (19:48):
And I had been praying that God would use me to make up for lost time. In my previous years where I had gone through rebellion and I had just wasted time and I had some great pastorates, but at the same time it was just going through, in a lot of cases going through the motions, I said, “I don’t want to do that for the rest of my life.” I’m asking God to just make up for that lost time and I didn’t expect it to be this, but that’s the door that He opened and I said, “Greg, okay, I’m available.” And I gave him my resume and the next day I got a call from the pulpit committee here and they said, “Would you come and talk to us?” And I said, “Sure.” And I went and talked to him and that was it.
(20:37):
I mean, it was within a week. They said, “Okay, you’re coming.”
Mark Clifton (20:40):
And so it was affirmed in Marsha’s life too.
Dan Hurst (20:42):
Yeah. We prayed about it for a few weeks, but she had that clarity also. She felt … And I wouldn’t have come here if she had said, “I just don’t think it’s the right thing to do.”
(20:56):
But she did have that release, that sense that, okay, God’s up to something we don’t exactly know what it is, but we never do, do we? No. And so it’s time to make that move.
Mark Clifton (21:08):
This is exciting. So here we are at the First Baptist Church of Independence, this beautiful building built in 1985. I got to say this, 86. There’s also another building here, right?
Dan Hurst (21:18):
The older building.
Mark Clifton (21:18):
The older sanctuary.
Dan Hurst (21:20):
Yeah. I mean, it’s breathtaking.
Mark Clifton (21:22):
It is amazingly beautiful.
Dan Hurst (21:24):
Oh my goodness.
Mark Clifton (21:24):
But you can’t go in it.
Dan Hurst (21:25):
You can go in it, but we can’t have services there
Mark Clifton (21:28):
Because it’s structurally
Dan Hurst (21:29):
Unsound.
Mark Clifton (21:29):
It’s structurally unsound. Yeah. But you can’t tear it down. No. Because it’s on the National Register of Historic Places,
Dan Hurst (21:37):
Which was a dumb thing for them to do.
Mark Clifton (21:38):
Some of you think you got building problems. I’m telling you what, this church has a building that they can’t use and they can’t tear down.
Dan Hurst (21:45):
Yeah. They have to fix it. And now what do they do? And they can’t afford to fix it the way that the historic society says you have to fix it. I mean, they could fix it if they could use modern techniques, basically.
Mark Clifton (21:58):
And you can’t even let another church use it.
Dan Hurst (22:00):
No.
Mark Clifton (22:01):
You can’t be used.
Dan Hurst (22:02):
But this church is big enough that we have three other churches using it.
Mark Clifton (22:06):
Well, I was going to bring that up. You let other churches use your building. We
Dan Hurst (22:09):
Have three other churches here. Yeah.
Mark Clifton (22:11):
Yeah. So it’s an incubator for churches, which is what Warner Road was, which is … Guys, that goes without saying. If you’ve got one of these behemoth of a buildings, it belongs to the kingdom and one of the best things you can do is let other churches incubate in it and grow in it. And so you do do that.
Dan Hurst (22:24):
Yeah, we do. We have an Hispanic church meeting here that’s doing well, growing. We have an independent church of God group that’s meeting here and then we have an African church, not African American, African. They’re from Kenya, I believe. That’s great. And they meet here and the facility is big enough that it houses them all with no problems at all. That’s great. So it works out great. And so the building is busy every day.
Mark Clifton (22:55):
Which is good. That’s what it should be.
Dan Hurst (22:56):
And on top of that, we have a daycare center.
Mark Clifton (22:58):
Yeah. And a very important one too for this community. So you seven weeks ago, as we do this podcast, seven weeks ago, you showed up here and you’ve been here seven weeks. So these guys are dying to know. We’re going to do a second podcast in just a minute. So being coming up where you’ve got some really good things you’ve written out, but just what do you do when you first get here?
Dan Hurst (23:18):
Well, the first thing that I started doing was I went to find out where I wanted to find out… I knew the people were hurting. I wanted to find out who’s hurting and who’s hurtful,
Mark Clifton (23:30):
Good word.
Dan Hurst (23:31):
Two different. I wanted to find out who were the hurting people and who were the hurtful people and I found them. It didn’t take long to find them and I realized that if we’re going to create a ministry that people want to come to, they want to be a part of, they’ve got enough hurt and pain and sorrow and stress in their lives. They don’t need to come to church for more of that.
Mark Clifton (23:56):
Isn’t that the truth?
Dan Hurst (23:57):
And so we needed to create a ministry that says, look, we’re growing too. We’re learning too. And I told these people, let’s find a way to deal with our hurt. Let’s find a way to deal with our loss. Let’s find a way to deal with the things that have really, really messed us up spiritually and let’s focus on Jesus. And we talk about this on this podcast all the time, get them to fall in love with Jesus.
Mark Clifton (24:23):
That’s right.
Dan Hurst (24:23):
That’s where it starts. And so all of the teaching that I’ve been doing, all the preaching that I’ve been doing has all been focused on … And here’s the interesting thing when we started this, I started the Monday after Easter Sunday
(24:38):
And my very first message was starting with the resurrection with like, even though it was the week after the resurrection, I said, look, think about what was going on here. These people, Jesus was telling them, “You’re going to start a ministry that you don’t even understand.” He told Jesus or He told Peter, “I’m going to build a church on your kind of faith.” They didn’t even know what a church was. What does that mean? And then He tells them later on, then the Holy Spirit’s going to come upon … What? Well, it’s the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? And so I’m taking them through that process looking at what God was going to do about a church without them even understanding what it was all about.
Mark Clifton (25:19):
That’s good.
Dan Hurst (25:20):
How is that going to affect me? How am I supposed to fit in? What does that mean that I’m supposed to do? What’s going to be required of me and who’s going to be in charge because that was the first thing that they wanted to know. And what are you going to do, Jesus? And that sort of thing. And so that’s the process that we’re going through now and they’re discovering that maybe there’s something bigger here that we’ve never really seen. And I’ve talked about it. Your church is going to die because you’re irrelevant to this community. We’ve got to find a way to become relevant to the community. So I’ve asked them to start asking questions. What are people looking for in a church? What is it that they think about our church? And I walk around the community. I ask those questions. I want to find out and I tell them what I’m discovering and they’re just like, wow. And so what’s happened in this seven week period of time is that all of a sudden we’re seeing some families start to visit. It didn’t take long for them to start to visit. They just wanted to find someplace that was interested in them, that had an interest in their lives, that wanted to do something for them. I mean, our very first conversion was an 11-year-old boy, and he gets baptized week after next. That’s awesome. And then we had a young mother with three children, young single mother with three children who gave her life to Christ. And last Sunday, her boyfriend, he came to church with her. She brought him in, I don’t know how she convinced him to come to church, but she did. And so I started talking to him and immediately I said, “Where’s your nationality from?” And he said, Mexico.
(26:57):
And I started talking to him in Spanish because that’s my first language because my parents were missionaries and he just got wide-eyed and we immediately started this conversation and he said, “I’m coming back next Sunday.” And I said, “I’ll tell you what, if you’ll come back next Sunday, I want to take you to lunch the next day.” And he said, “Okay.” And so I’ll be here.
Mark Clifton (27:18):
Okay guys,
(27:19):
Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to wrap this one up, but here’s the deal. You got a guy 75 years old. Now I agree, he’s not your normal 75 year old. Dan is this picture of health. He looks younger than me and acts younger than me. The guy who’s 75 years old who’s been in a very stable ministry for 30 years and did not have to leave, but God called him to a very troubled place with all kinds of issues and he willingly went. Been here seven weeks and he’s done the right things and here’s what he’s done. He’s loved the people who are here. He’s preached Jesus and he’s connected to the community already and that’s what you do. You don’t come in and you don’t change the decor. You don’t try to make all your … I’ll say this while we were here today, there’s a lady here who, an older lady who sort of directs … She takes care of your- Decorations.
(28:10):
Decorations, yes. In your sanctuary, right? Yeah. We always talk about the flower room, right? Yeah. You got one. We got one. We got a big one. One heck of a flower room. Yeah, we do. And so she was here today and she had some ideas of how to decorate this, that and the other thing and she was real sweet and Dan was so gracious to her and affirmed her on everything. And eventually Dan will determine what we’re going to put up here and the sanctuary’s going to look like and all eventually. But right now, no, right now just affirmed her and affirmed her desire to do something. And I’ve seen so many young guys that would just say, “No, we’re going to change this and we’re not going to do that anymore.” And you could just see when you do that, you bring all kinds of confusion and angst to people who don’t know why they’re here anymore and don’t know why they belong.
(28:58):
I do think sometimes as older men, we are more sensitive to that. We’re more sensitive to how older people feel. And I just want to say you were very gracious to her and very affirming of her and I could just see she just lit up like a Christmas tree when that happened. And you and I, that seems normal.
Dan Hurst (29:15):
We’ve had that conversation so many times though, haven’t we?
Mark Clifton (29:17):
We have, but I think so many young guys who come in and we just say, “No, we’re not going to do it that way anymore. We’re going to make some changes here.” And you just dig yourself in a hole. I mean, you’re here for the long haul, love these people, get their hearts to warm back to Jesus and get to know the community. That’s what you do when you first get here.
Dan Hurst (29:37):
In fact, the very first sermon that I preached, I mentioned this, I said, “I’m not here to make changes because it’s not my job to change you. That’s God’s job.”
Mark Clifton (29:45):
There you go.
Dan Hurst (29:45):
My job is to point you to what God’s doing.
Mark Clifton (29:48):
There you go.
Dan Hurst (29:50):
And we’ve used the theme, God is up to something.
Mark Clifton (29:52):
He is.
Dan Hurst (29:52):
And it’s in every service we use that slogan. It’s there. It’s the theme. God is up to something … And I tell them, “My job here is not to tell you what to do. My job is to point you to what God is doing.” And so that’s the strategy.
Mark Clifton (30:08):
Well, we’re doing a real time church revitalization in a really hard place and we’re going to get to talk with Dan about that more. The next episode, Dan, just give him a little preview of what we’re here
Dan Hurst (30:17):
Well, I’ve been here for seven weeks and I shared some ideas with you. Seven things that I’ve learned in seven weeks.
Mark Clifton (30:23):
Okay. So that’s coming up the next episode. So don’t miss it.
Dan Hurst (30:26):
Yeah, you don’t want to miss
Mark Clifton (30:27):
This one. Seven things. And really, you got to be listening quick because as old as Dan and I are, we might not be around much longer.
Dan Hurst (30:31):
And then we might fall asleep during the podcast too. Who knows?
Mark Clifton (30:36):
Okay. I guess I got to talk us out, right? I’m hosting. Yeah. Well, that’s it folks. We’re done.
Dan Hurst (30:42):
Oh, good one. Thanks for joining us today on Revitalize and Replant. This podcast is brought to you by the North American Mission Board, where we help dying or struggling churches regain health for the glory of God and the good of their communities. If you found this conversation helpful, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform. To learn more about becoming a replanting pastor or to explore resources about revitalization for your own church, visit churchreplanters.com.
