At a time when many seem to move further away from the church, Glen Meadows Baptist Church is seeing people come closer.
“Two years ago, we were averaging 100 more each Sunday than the year before,” Senior Pastor Mack Roller said. “Since October, we’ve baptized 46, and that almost matches what we did last year all year.”
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Rugged individualism is pervasive in West Texas, Roller said, and drug use is rampant. San Angelo’s suicide rate surpasses the national average and people here often feel isolated, so Glen Meadows is training its members to break down barriers.
“One of the attributes of a dream disciple at Glen Meadows is a faithful friend,” Luke Roller, pastor of discipleship ministries, said. “We try to equip them with conversation pieces and how to navigate a conversation from the day-to-day into a spiritual conversation, into a gospel presentation.”
In communication efforts leading up to Easter, for instance, Glen Meadows, with an average attendance of 1,200, placed an emphasis on equipping people to invite. The church distributed digital invitation cards that people could text or email to their friends, and QR codes and T-shirts directed people to the church’s Easter page.
“That resulted in our highest-attended Easter Sunday that we’ve had in the history of Glen Meadows,” Luke Roller said.
Crucial point
Three or four years ago, church leadership was burdened to increase their prayer efforts, the pastor said. Since then, the staff has spent more time in prayer, small groups have extended prayer times, deacons pray more at their meetings, and the congregation has prayer nights.
“I think this is a crucial point, and I think it has brought a lot of peace,” Mack Roller said. “The main thing is it took our eyes off ourselves and what church can do for us and put our eyes on the Lord and what He wants from us.”
Not long after the renewed prayer emphasis, God led Mack Roller to be involved in some of the initial Regenesis training centered on church health and revitalization offered by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. Implementing some of those elements, the church reworked its vision and broke it up into chronological goals. A notable goal that emerged from that process is for the church to have 145,000 gospel conversations in eight years, “which is kind of miraculous,” he said.
“It’s a big one,” he added, “but with a calculator, we can do it if we just stay focused.”
The goal includes seeing 500 disciple-makers impacting the lives of 2,000 people. “It sounds impossible, but actually it’s not,” Mack Roller said. Once the large number of 145,000 is broken down into what each person can do, it’s manageable.
“In the breaking down, someone might say, ‘That’s the role that I can play.’ It gives people handles to hold onto to own it,” Luke Roller said.
Glen Meadows kicked off the 145,000 goal in January, and now they have an app to log gospel conversations. If, for example, a church member has a gospel conversation at a local restaurant, he might take a picture of the table or the sign, upload it, and ask people to pray for that conversation to bear fruit.
The vision process yielded five values Glen Meadows seeks to connect with everything it does:
- We dig deep because living water is worth the work.
- We make room because the gospel creates space for everyone at the table.
- We kneel down because we can’t wash feet while standing up.
- We team up because Jesus calls us out of isolation into participation.
- We have fun because joy is the culture of heaven.
Campaign
Pertaining to making room, Glen Meadows introduced a building campaign for a second campus across the street to include an auditorium with 1,600 seats, a children’s department, adult education space, and a large common area.
“Right now, our foyer is really small and it’s hard to even meet people,” Mack Roller said. “We’re adding a lot of space for people to mingle and build relationships.”
The church hopes to break ground by the end of the year, and already leadership is encouraged by the response.
“We did a capital campaign last October,” Mack Roller said. “We wanted 100% of our active givers to participate. We ended up with 134%. It was very positive. There was just a lot of unity.”
Luke Roller added, “We’re not trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. The problem is felt every single Sunday by our people.”
Meanwhile, church members keep inviting those in their spheres of influence looking for answers and purpose. If Glen Meadows has its way, it will have the opportunity to provide that answer — the gospel — 145,000 times.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was originally published by the Southern Baptist Texan.
