God is Not Done with You Yet

While I am a planter at heart, I also love seeing dead or dying things come back to life. I love doing what I do as a pastor, an AMS, and a coach/consultant in church health and revitalization for SCBO.

This month, I wanted to share a testimony of how God has moved through my life pastoring churches in need of revitalization. I am currently the pastor of Freedom Hill Community Church in Stow. Before that, I was the pastor of First Baptist Church in Vermilion. Both churches were in serious decline.

FBC Vermilion had gone from 35 to 17 due to physical death in the church. The median age was 80+ and 75% were widows. My predecessor asked me to take care of the church as he was dying of cancer and I was the AMS at the time.

We started a Wednesday Bible study simply reading and journaling the Bible. Nine months into the journaling, it was a joy to listen to these sweet ladies share in tears how God was revealing himself through his scriptures. These sweet ladies began to pray, and God convicted them that this church was his and not theirs. We spoke of true surrender to the Lord and returning to their first love (Revelation 2). It was easy for me to say I would be their pastor.

I would love to take credit for all of this, but my predecessor did all the prep work. Pastor Nile Hill would go to the church and lie prostrate on the floor asking God to move in the congregation and community. During COVID we grew to 40+ and ministered to the community with a drive-thru lunch line. The church that had a bad reputation in the community brought hope during COVID and more than $4,000 came from the community to keep the lunch drive-thru going.

Freedom Hill Community Church had 27 when I arrived, but this church was different. They had a desire to live and love the community around them. They just did not know how to do that. My predecessor had led them to this point but admittedly struggled with outreach. Years prior, this congregation was told they would not survive and should consider closing or surrendering to a replant.

Three and a half years ago we took a health assessment. On a scale of 1 to 5, this congregation of 27 scored 1.87 overall. Their struggle revealed the greatest weakness in evangelism, discipleship, and worship.

 In 2022, that was the target and in 2024 we scored on a 10-point Pulse scale greater than 8 with an average attendance of 50+, giving to local outreach and overall mission more than 22% and baptizing an average of 3 per year.

I wish I could take credit for this, but God opened doors for us that we cannot explain. I am friends with the mayor and the city has shown grace with our building projects. We prayed for children to come to our church and God has brought a homeschool Co-Op group with over 70 children in attendance every Tuesday.

God is NOT done with your congregation. When we surrender everything to Him, he will reveal himself in greater ways than you could ever imagine.
Pastor, when we first love the people that we are called to lead, we will actually be able to lead, and they will love it.

I would love to have a conversation with you about church health and revitalization. This is why I love to do what I do. Connect with me at mjones@scbo.org.