I am a church nerd. That’s right! I’m going to own it. Since my teen years, I have been enamored with church. If you would browse my YouTube views, you will see it full of sermons and worship music, so even the suggestions are either sermons or the latest “tea” in Christian circles.
A few weeks ago, YouTube suggested the first episode of a series created by Church Reform Initiative. If you are familiar with the McLean Bible Church and David Platt story, then you are familiar with CRI’s work. This new documentary tugged at my heart more than the McLean story did. The new documentary covers how The Summit Church, a Southern Baptist church based in Durham, NC attempted to acquire Faith Baptist Church, an independent Baptist church in Knightdale, NC for the purpose of Faith’s property becoming the new home for Summit’s Knightdale campus.
At first glance, I thought that the members of Faith could possibly be a bunch of people who didn’t want change. At second glance, I saw quite the opposite, especially after I began to research the history of Faith.
Faith does not appear to be your typical independent Baptist church in the sense of legalism and all the preferential trappings. A video of a worship service in 2017 reveals a strong music ministry equipped with a choir, worship team, and orchestra, singing a nice blend of hymns and modern worship music. If you dive into archive.org to see the website history, you find a strong missions ministry, tons of internal ministries, efforts to reach the community, a large staff, and strong preaching. Honestly, Faith looks like the kind of church I would either want to serve or attend.
One of the disturbing things about this story is how a pastor goes in after a strong history of only two pastors and strips the ministry down in order to leave no perceivable option but to give the church to Summit. This is becoming a trend. I know this because of an experience I had at a church I recently served. While the church was in pastoral transition, a large nearby multisite church attempted to acquire the church. The chairman of the pastor search team had previously been a member of the multisite church. As the team was reviewing resumes, the chairman picked up on one of the resumes. It was submitted by a man who was an insider from his previous church who sought to become the pastor so he could influence the church to hand over its assets to the multisite church.
I do not write this article for the purpose of bashing church mergers, but I do write this as a warning to churches in transition. If you are a thriving church with prime real estate, you could likely be a target for a pastoral candidate who is in cahoots with a larger ministry to come in and steer your church in that direction. Faith was just that kind of church. No wonder Summit wanted the building! Faith was in a vulnerable spot after losing a pastor who served for over 25 years. They admit in the video that they thought they were getting a young pastor who would understand the culture of the church while leading them with fresh vision. Instead, they got someone who turned it upside down quickly, forcing it into a weak position that only Summit or another acquisition could redeem.
Fortunately, the story of Faith Baptist is turning around. After a court battle, Summit did not get to acquire Faith Baptist despite some pretty underhanded attempts. Faith Baptist persevered through attempts to keep them from worshiping together. The founding pastor has returned to help them rebuild. It appears that roughly 200 people are attending. While my heart breaks for what they have been through, I am also excited about the rebuilding process.
If you have not watched the documentary series, it is a 3-part series you can find on YouTube. The first two episodes are only an hour long, and the third and final episode is 36 minutes. I appreciate Church Reform Initiative for their work and for the people of Faith Baptist for persevering through this fiasco.
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