Darrin Patrick - Replant: How a Dying Church Can Grow Again

EPILOGUE

Within three months of Kevins arrival in Kansas City, Mark and his family moved to Alabama. For Mark it was bittersweet. The move was great for his career, but it took him away from a place and a people in whom he had utterly invested himself. He looked forward to dropping in occasionally and seeing the work of God, to having confirmation that he had not labored in vain.

The messages Mark received from members and former members were not all sweetness and light. But the majority of these members echoed one of the lay leaders who said, We were just momentarily confused into thinking we were the ones making those decisions, when it was actually God who was guiding us. God was in charge, not us. Every former member who remained after the merger could only stand stunned and amazed at the work of God right before their eyes:

What I still dont understand is where all those people who are now attending Redeemer Fellowship today came from? That first Sunday was nearly filled to capacity with young people, many of whom were single, many with young families, many newly married and pregnant. And some of those who were newly married and pregnant now have four children. And that growth has not slowed!!!!

With special pleasure, one member reflected on an idea given serious consideration by the congregation only a few years prior to Marks arrival:

I remember those fightsor should I say heavy discussionsover taking out the balconies, since they were no longer being utilized or necessary. Again, God knew what lay ahead, even though we didnt have a clue that in ten to fifteen years those balconies were going to be essential to the ministry of the church.

Some members recognized benefits born of the long, difficult journey they had taken together, never absolutely certain of the rightness of their decisions and always braced for unanticipated and unwelcome consequences once the steps of faith were taken:

I feel going through those turbulent times just reinforces the fact that we are not the ones in charge, but God is the one in charge. Ive learned to trust Him more, because He knows what is best and has our best interest at heart.

Many showed a new appreciation for trust, waiting upon God, and how God loves to hide much that He is doing from us only to give us glimpses, perhaps with dazzling clarity, but often only as we look back:

Its only in retrospect that I see that the hand of God was in everything that happened. Your pressing of Darrin, Kevin Cawley praying for a church plant in Westport four years before he came to Calvary, our church group praying for Gods intervention, and the several failed mergers that taught us patience. In my family, we had about given up hope. I am so glad we didnt.

Some two years after the replant, business took Mark back to Kansas City and into a worship service at Redeemer Fellowship. Mark pressed his way through the crush of strangers spilling out of the entrance of Redeemer Fellowship and made his way to the large reception and fellowship area just outside the still hauntingly beautiful but now filled-to-capacity sanctuary.

Out of the roomful of strangers, a familiar face emerged. An elderly woman, known for her weekly kneeling and praying at the altar of the old First Calvary before each Sunday-morning service, came toward Mark. She came with hands upraised and open in order to gently cradle his face as though caressing some fragile and precious object of deep affection. Just look, she said as one hand gestured in a sweeping movement at the sea of worshippers. Just look at what has happened. Just look.

As word of Marks presence spread, former members searched out Mark and exchanged special remembrances. They mainly basked in each others presences amid the evidence of the rightness of what they had ventured together. Amazingly, some of the children and grandchildren of former members who had opposed the merger and who had fallen away from Jesus Christ now served as active believers at Redeemer Fellowship.

One man, a longtime member of First Calvary, supporter of the merger, and member of the Vision Team, revealed that the replant altered his life:

What I did not realize is that the change that came was not about being a lighthouse for the neighborhood, but salvation for me. My wife and I struggled with some of Redeemers methods and ways of doing things, but the message of the Gospel was highlighted regularly and clearly. It took me over a year to realize that the message of grace was for me. I needed it as much as Westport. I was a Christian in name only. It was works that got me to church, not grace. I needed the message to make me see Gods plan for me. I may have been baptized many years ago, but only now do I see who God really is.

The risk The Journey took to assume legal responsibility for a dilapidated building and spiritual responsibility for this replant has grown our faith as a church. Several times in the past several years, our elders have recalled what God did in Kansas City that didnt make sense on paper to propel us to trust His timing and wisdom as we try to participate in the Great Commission. In our history, we have been able to help start seven other autonomous churches. Now armed with the experience from First Calvary/Redeemer, we are helping replant our fourth church. The Journey meets in Missouri and Illinois through six Journey churches and remains committed to transforming the world through the planting and replanting of local churches.

Redeemer Fellowship is almost six years old. As we said earlier in the book, in its heyday First Calvary had almost a thousand people after a hundred years of existence. Redeemer currently runs sixteen hundred people a week. They have had hundreds of new converts and have raised almost five hundred thousand dollars for church planting. They have helped support several church plants by sending people, coaching church planters, and through financial supportincluding New City Church five miles south of Waldo, Missouri, and Redeemer Dubai in the United Arab Emerites.

Kansas City has benefited by having a strong, local church in its core that is not content with having good worship services and creating programs that simply take care of its own members. Redeemer has adopted underresourced schools in the area, assisting with mentoring, tutoring, and in some cases programming. They have touched the artists in the community by providing free studio space and by facilitating community among them. They are in touch with the global reality of one hundred and fifty million orphans with several families adopting and supporting orphans.

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Thank you!
Darrin Patrick and Mark Devine

FOREWORD

You may have heard of YouTube videos going viral. Whether its a boy biting his brothers finger or goats bleating along to Taylor Swift, some videos are just too good not to share.

This idea of going viral needs to expand beyond the realm of home videos on YouTube. For the health of the church in America, we need a number of ideas and movements to go viral.

In underreached areas and urban centers of the country, we need a church-planting and a church-multiplication movement to go viral. Thats one of the reasons Warren Bird and I wrote Viral Churches .

In some communities where the Christian influence has waned, where pews stand empty and churches are in disrepair, we need a church-renewal and replanting movement to go viral. We need churches and pastors that are passionate, proactive, and committed to doing whatever it takes to plant new churches, and replant and revitalize existing ones.

The Task of Revitalization in Church Planting

The Western world is in need of new churches. In some cases churches must multiply and plant new churches from scratch, while in other cases existing churches must and should be revitalizedin essence, they must be replanted.