When an old church suffers from declining attendances, financial troubles, inward focus, ageing membership, power struggles and rapid pastor turnover, it is hard to imagine an escape from the death spiral. However, new life is possible as illustrated by the remarkable story of First Calvary Baptist Church, told by Mark DeVine and Darrin Patrick in their book Replant: How a Dying Church Can Grow Again.
The book describes the story of First Calvary Baptist Church of Kansas City from the time Mark DeVine was invited to become the interim pastor there in late 2001 until the time the church merged with The Journey of St Louis and relaunched as Redeemer Fellowship in 2008. By 2001 the church was a faded reflection of its former glory, with a history of decades of declining attendance, struggling to pay its bills, inwardly focused, and tightly controlled by a small clique of lay leaders. After painfully working through many of the issues which were holding the church back, DeVine looked around for a larger healthier church with which First Calvary could merge, eventually settling on The Journey.
This is a helpful and inspiring book. Many leaders of smaller churches will be only too familiar with the power struggles, financial difficulties and other problems described by the authors. As the book shows, a church is not condemned to solving all of its own problems using only its own resources. Sometimes the best solution is to find a larger well-run church which shares the same gospel mission, and completely surrender all resources and control to the larger church.