Almost 50 years ago, John Brady became pastor of Woodforest Baptist Church, a new mission strategically located in east Houston’s suburbia. Brady baptized thousands of people and led mission teams around the world. Despite decades of successful ministry, the changing social landscape of east Houston set Brady and the church on a journey into a new world filled with cultural barriers and ministerial uncertainty.

The nearby middleclass, Anglo neighborhoods changed almost overnight. Hundreds of members joined Houston’s suburban sprawl. Others started new missions. Remaining members are older, less active. Woodforest’s full-time church staff shrunk to a handful of part-timers, volunteers and Brady. Two worship services that once filled the 800-seat auditorium are now one service with about 150 people. Hurricane Rita more than doubled the church’s insurance costs. Climbing energy bills forced the church to close its outreach-oriented daycare ministries.

“Woodforest has been going through the same things that many churches go through, especially those in urban areas,” said Jim Gatliff, SBTC ministry strategist, who estimates that 15 percent of SBTC churches will struggle for “mere survival or will not exist at all in less than a decade if they don’t get back on track.”

Gatliff is also coordinator of the SBTC’s Ezekiel Project which endeavors to help revitalize plateaued or declining churches. In 2007, Woodforest became the first Ezekiel Project church.

“I’ve never been a hireling who’d run when the challenges come,” said Brady, who recently began his 48th year of ministry at the church where the SBTC held its inaugural convention.

Woodforest members didn’t circle their wagons; they opened their doors to two ethnic congregations, inviting a Spanish-speaking and an African American congregation to use church facilities. In addition to offering GED classes, Woodforest also enrolled more than 200 adults in their English as a second language program last fall. More than a dozen people have become Christians through that ministry. The church also provided evangelistic benevolence ministries to 268 families during the holiday season last year.

“As far as ministry is concerned, we’re doing more than ever in the church’s history,” Brady said. “We don’t have much money, but we do have a nucleus of folks who love the Lord.”

Through encouragement and strategic help from the Ezekiel Project, and the partnership of other congregations, Brady said Woodforest members soon will hit the streets with the gospel using door-to-door surveys, block parties and other outreach efforts.

ANOTHER CHURCH IN TRANSITION
Two years ago, Wayne Wible became pastor of Ferguson Road Baptist Church, and immediately knew revitalizing the east Dallas church would be tough. Mostly senior adults attended, filling hardly a tenth of the auditorium’s pews. But the culture outside the church was racially and economically diverse. Million-dollar homes and abandoned apartments-turned-crack dens surrounded the church, as did young professionals and homeless people.

“I realized the church was no longer in a ‘Leave it to Beaver’ neighborhood,” said Wible, who believes the church’s interior must reflect its exterior. So, he pursued multi-ethnic strategies to reach the multi-ethnic area.

Wible struggled to connect with the community and realize that vision: “I was absolutely befuddled and dismayed because of demographics, our circumstances and location.” Wible even considered disbanding the church.

Last October, however, Wible discovered the Ezekiel Project. Through it God called Ferguson Road to be a multi-cultural, multicongregational church. “The Ezekiel Project helped us to look off the main road, down an overgrown dirt path, and there, low-andbehold, was God. This was the way he wanted us to go all along, and we never saw it,” said Wible.

Within days of the church’s new vision, Wible contacted pastors and potential leaders from several backgrounds. Now, Ferguson Road hosts a Romanian congregation, a Hungarian Gypsy congregation, and hopes soon to establish Hispanic, Eastern Indian, and Chinese congregations within its walls.

Though he sometimes faces discouragement, Wible said he “is comfortable knowing that we’re trying to accomplish God’s will for the church and community.”

THE RIGOR OF JUMPSTARTING CHURCHES
“Church revitalization is not just hard — it’s impossible unless God does it,” said Gatliff, who notes that “at least 70 percent of Southern Baptist churches have stopped growing, and very few ever start growing again.”

The causes of plateaued and declining churches, he said, are spiritual, and often are as varied as their surrounding cultures. “The most common failure of churches is the lack of effective outreach in their communities,” Gatliff said, adding that struggling churches face conflict, community transition, lack of spiritual vitality, doctrinal controversies, shortage of workers, financial struggles, terminated staff members, attendance decline, apathy, leadership issues, aging congregation and facilities, church splits and significant membership losses.

"Many churches don't realize they have problems. They think if they maintain the status quo, somehow it will start working again. That plan, according to Albert Einstein, is the definition of insanity — doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. They falsely think that if they can just tread water long enough to get another pastor, to see the neighborhood revert to what it used to be and get some younger families and former members back, then things will turn around," said Gatliff.

Such situations find remedy, however, through prayer and obedience, Gatliff said.“Churches must rediscover what it truly means to win people to Jesus and help them learn to follow and to abide in Christ.”

THE EZEKIEL EFFECT
Drawn from the renewal depicted in Ezekiel 37 and the valley of dry bones, the Ezekiel Project reflects five key principles for renewal from the passage: fresh vision from the Lord, restored unity of the people, mobilization to do God’s will, renewed commitment to outreach and evangelism, and the life-giving empowerment of the Holy Spirit.“

Our methods of choice are prayer and partnership,” Gatliff said. “We join with churches in praying for specific needs of the church. And, we must have the partnership of other churches and local associations in order to see the greatest results.”

The three major parts of the Ezekiel Project are leadership enrichment and coaching for pastors, on-site consultations, and a six-week “Z-Life” discipleship campaign for the entire congregation. But the Ezekiel Project is not a one-size-fits-all solution. “If church problems could be fixed with a conference, study course or expert consultation, we would have seen things turn around long ago,” said Gatliff.

“We view the Ezekiel Project process as an on-going conversation. Even though there are three major things we hope to do for every church, everything we do is tailored for the specific needs of a given congregation.”

Gatliff believes church revitalization is a watershed issue for the Southern Baptists:“The overall strength of our denomination 10 years from now will be greatly impacted by our commitment to church revitalization today,” he said.

“We need to plant all the new churches we can. But I don’t see any way we can plant enough new churches to compensate for the aging tsunami that is about to hit Southern Baptists. All of our declining and dying churches must have a fresh experience with God and, with the Holy Spirit’s infilling and an apostolic fervor, they’ve got to get busy fulfilling the Great Commission again.”

As of February 2008, almost 40 churches have sought help from the Ezekiel Project.