Two leaders of a new church plant were riding around and came upon East End Church.
“That’s it,” said the teaching pastor. “That’s the church I was told about. It has fewer than 50 people attending now. They are mostly senior adults.”
“Their worship center seats 700. I want us to pray about asking them to let us worship there. Maybe longterm they would merge into us, and we would get the building to grow our church.”
On another day the pastor of a growing suburban church less than 20 years old was driving through the neighborhoods around East End Church. He got excited about what he saw.
He called his associate pastor to share his observations.
“I have never been in this part of town. It is a great collection of older neighborhoods. A lot of houses are being renovated, and it appears new people are moving here.”
“We do neighborhood evangelism and outreach well. I would love for us to consider a ministry here to connect these people to Jesus. It would address the increasing passion we have to invest in the city and not just escape it.
“But wait.” He stopped his car. “Here is a church building — East End Church. I wonder what’s going on here and if it would ever be available as a place to launch a new ministry?”
Wanted: The building or the people?
These conversations are representative of many that occurred over several decades as newer churches desired to use the East End location.
The first conversation was common among churches who wanted the facilities of this dying church. Several churches made a pitch to East End. They wanted to take over the facilities and do their ministry. Their proposals were always rejected.
The suburban church, however, made the pitch that they had a vision and passion to reach the people in the neighborhoods around East End. Could they use the church as a base for their ministry?
The remaining members at East End lamented the fact they had lost their ability to connect with the people in the neighborhoods around them several decades ago. They were willing to let another church take the lead within their facilities. They simply wanted it to be a church that had a vision for the people of the neighborhoods.
They were not interested in churches that only wanted their building to grow their own churches.
The facilities at East End were getting to the point that a major financial investment was needed to renovate them and replace roofs along with heating and cooling systems.
The growing suburban church now owns the East End facilities and has a thriving ministry. Outreach to the people in the neighborhoods around the church facilities is their focus.
It’s about transforming people’s lives
Embracing missions opportunities in our midst is not about saving a church. It is about adopting a missions field.
The typical conversation I have had over the years with churches considering the adoption of a dying church centered around what they can do to make that church viable once more.
These are too often conversations that ignore the missions field that surrounds these church buildings.
These dying churches are missions opportunities for transforming the spiritual life of people and people groups — households and families. The missions opportunity just happens to include a church building that can be used as a base of operations.
It is not about the programs, ministries and activities that can be used to attract people to fill up an almost deserted church building.
Nor is it about using the facilities of a dying congregation as a place of gathering for an already existing church that may not have the gifts, skills and preferences to reach the people who live around the church.
Digging in deep
Rather, it is about imagining the missions opportunity of neighborhoods of people as if no church had ever existed there. It involves deeply getting to know the people in their context, figuring out what type of Christian ministry is needed and showing them the unconditional love of Jesus.
Then, and only then, determine if the church buildings in that area would be an asset to the ministry or a liability.
What are the missions opportunities in your association?
EDITOR’S NOTE — George Bullard spent 45 years in denominational ministry. He served on the staff of three associations, was a key staff person working with associations in two state conventions and served on the association missions division staff of the former Home Mission Board of the SBC. He retired in June 2022 as director of Columbia Metro Baptist Association in South Carolina. He has led strategic planning processes in more than 100 associations and has written extensively in this area. Bullard now serves as a strategic thinking mentor for Christian leaders through his ForthTelling Innovation ministry and a correspondent for The Baptist Paper. To request permission to republish this article, email news@thebaptistpaper.org.