WILMINGTON, N.C. (ABP) -- Staff members at First Baptist Church in Wilmington, N.C., say their experience at a church conference in Florida helped change their congregation for the better -- so they sought to recreate the experience for other churches.
First Baptist hosted and co-sponsored a conference Oct. 22-23 dubbed “Hopeful Imagination: Traditional Churches Finding God’s Way in a Changing World.” Other sponsors were the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, CBF of North Carolina, the Columbia Partnership and the Center for Congregational Health.
The host church's contemporary worship band leads music in the 145-year-old sanctuary at one session of the "Hopeful Imagination" conference.More than 300 clergy and laypeople representing churches from nine states and multiple denominational backgrounds heard the staff from the Wilmington church tell stories of how the congregation has changed over the past 10 years.
The key point in the transition was a trip the staff made in October 2000 to Flamingo Road Church (now known as Potential Church) in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The beginning of the changes, however, might be traced to a meeting church consultant George Bullard had with the staff 10 months earlier. The staff worked on a “future story” for the congregation, then spent some time discussing what needed to change for that future to become a reality.
The staff members talked about several changes they’d like to see, then Bullard asked what else needed to change. Don Vigus, who was then youth minister but now serves as minister of missions and recreation, said one other change was needed -- in the pastor, Mike Queen.
Vigus said Queen, who had been at the church about 14 years by then, had secured the trust of the congregation but was afraid to lead. He said the pastor had earned plenty of “chips,” and it was time to cash them in.
Mike Queen, pastor of First Baptist Church, welcomes the crowd to the "Hopeful Imagination" conference.
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Queen said he believed Vigus was right.
Three months later, Queen went to a conference at Flamingo Road. The experience was life-changing, and he came home requesting that the entire staff and two deacons attend another Flamingo Road conference. Church leaders assented, and they made the trip in October 2000.
“Flamingo Road was nothing like us and we have not become like them,” Queen said at the opening session of the Hopeful Imagination conference. “Going to Flamingo Road Church freed us up to think differently. That’s our hope and prayer for you.”
About a year after the conference, the church let a local soup kitchen that was on the verge of closing use its facility to serve food to homeless people five days a week for 18 months. The discussion centered on how to make it happen rather than why the church shouldn’t do it. First Baptist might not have made a decision like that a few years earlier, Queen said.
Other changes took longer. Queen said he learned at Flamingo Road that older churches should transition slowly. For 4 ½ years, the church studied the possibility of starting a contemporary worship service in addition to their traditional service. The service was set to launch -- in a sanctuary built just after the Civil War -- when an electrical problem was discovered. A church member who had been a critic of the contemporary service paid $75,000 to make the repairs.
“We love robes and candles [in worship] at First Baptist Church, but we love people coming to know Jesus more,” said Mike Queen, the church’s pastor.
Don Vigus, minister of missions and recreation at the host church, speaks at the conference.
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The church went through a difficult process to gain approval to purchase an old county jail. The facility, which Queen described as “the ugliest building in America,” now houses 10 social ministries and a youth center with after-school tutoring and other programs.
In all, several hundred church members are involved in hands-on ministry each week. Church members also go on six to eight mission trips a year.
Jayne Davis, the church’s minister of spiritual formation, said at the Hopeful Imagination conference that the Flamingo Road gathering “rekindled a flame for ministry” in the church.
“The experience changed us as a staff and a congregation,” she said. “It gave us hope and imagination and it is our fervent prayer that you leave today with those two things -- hope and imagination.”
Sandra Saylor, a member of First Baptist Church in Burlington, N.C., said she was leaving the Wilmington event inspired. She came with five others from her congregation.
Saylor, an accountant who teaches in her church’s children’s ministry, said she didn’t know what to expect from the conference. She liked that it was interactive and provided practical ideas. “None of it was scripted that, ‘This is the way to do it and that’s all there is to it,’” she said.
The group from the Burlington church decided to pray about how to share what they learned with their congregation. “As you’re here, you realize, ‘I wish the whole church was here,’” Saylor said.
CBF of North Carolina Coordinator Larry Hovis said the conference showed how churches can help other churches. “I hope all of us can think of what our church does well,” he said.
George Bullard, the strategic coordinator of the Columbia Partnership, urged those who attended to reflect on the conference and find three things they could do in the next 30 days to start changing their church.
Queen agreed.
“Do something,” he said. “You’re not going to transform your church in the next 30 days, but you can do something in the next 30 days.”
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Steve DeVane is a freelance writer in Lillington, N.C.
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