April 28, 1999
Ailing church nursed to health
by stronger church in association
___By Dan Martin
___Texas Baptist Communications
___HOUSTON--Spring Valley Baptist Church was 15 years old, in a rural area but on a major crossroads in McLennan County, not far from the I-35 corridor.
___It had started out of a church split but had prospered somewhat. At one point it had Texas Baptist Men builders help with a church facility and had peaked at 95 or 100 in average attendance.
___"But problems came in," Roy Marshall said. "There was a split and differences. By February of 1998, they were down to four elderly people.
___"It was a great facility, but they had a lot of problems, a lot of bills, a bad reputation, the community in transition and no people," he explained.
___Marshall is pastor of First Baptist Church of Hewitt, across the interstate but still in Waco Baptist Association.
___The Hewitt church stepped in, recruited a couple of other churches and the association, and took responsibility for the troubled church.
___Marshall outlined the advantages and pitfalls of starting a church in an existing church, making it a mission and resurrecting the ministry.
___"There are not many models for this kind of ministry," he said, adding that they had to "start new" with creating the church within a church. "We can look back and see that if we had known some things, we could have saved a lot of frustration."
___Among the advantages he listed is the presence of an existing core group which has a definite knowledge about the community. "Another is that they know some of the problems they have encountered, but the biggest advantage is that they have a facility," he said.
___Disadvantages include that the core group may have a "no growth mindset" and a very strong idea of "how to do church," including music style.
___"A great disadvantage is debt, bills which need paying and repairs which need to be made," Marshall said, saying Spring Valley had $1.36 in the bank when it became a mission of First Baptist of Hewitt.
___Another disadvantage is reputation, and the problems that have existed before cast a shadow over the work, he said.
___The pastor told of how he recruited people from his congregation to go out to help Spring Valley Church and the steps they took to recreate a new image.
___Steps in that process included changing the name to assure a fresh start. The church is now Crossroads Baptist Church. Also, they remodeled the outside of the church to give it a fresh, new look.
___A new pastor and what Marshall called "a big event" kicked off the new mission and gave the congregation new life.
___He added, however, that the former members always have been an essential part of the planning process, and it always has been the intent of the sponsors to restore the congregation to church status as soon as possible.
___"We started in July 1998 and now have 40 to 45 in attendance in services. We have made a sizable turnaround," he said. "It is amazing the way God works."Frontpage / Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!