For Lee, who is in his mid-30s, the process of replanting has meant a lot of slow but steady work. His biggest task at first was building trust with older congregation members, who came from a different cultural background than he did, and sometimes spoke a different language.
He also had to slowly change the church’s approach to ministry.
“In the beginning, it was really showing that we genuinely care,” he said.
LA City Baptist Church has a vision to inspire young people from various backgrounds to serve their city together, meeting needs and changing lives, said pastor Min Lee. Photo courtesy of LA City Baptist Church
A pastor who replants a congregation needs to be part entrepreneur and part chaplain, said Mark Hallock, pastor of Calvary Church in Englewood, Colorado, and author of “Replant Roadmap,” a guide to the process of rebooting an older church. The pastor needs what he calls “tactical patience” in knowing how to care for people while moving things forward.
Trust and love are the most important factors, he added.
“What we find across the board is that you need a leader who loves people,” Hallock said. “We call it a visionary shepherd, someone who wants to shepherd God’s people and love them well.”
Hallock speaks from experience. When he arrived at Calvary in 2009, the nearly 60-year-old congregation was on its last legs. There were about 30 people in the congregation, and most were worn out, he said. They needed someone who believed in them and someone who could show them a way forward.
With patience, hard work and buy-in from the older members of Calvary, the church turned around and within a few years of Hallock’s arrival, weekend services were drawing about 300 people. The church has gone on to help start 13 new churches and replant 14 older churches.
Among the replants was First Baptist Church of Nampa, Idaho, which was down to 30 people “on a good day” before being replanted, said Butch Schierman, a longtime member. Schierman, an IT professional, had served as interim pastor at First Baptist after the longtime pastor retired.
Things were not going well.
“Whatever we were doing was not working,” he said.
