About a year and a half ago, Shirley Crowder said her church — Valley View Baptist in Leeds — found itself “with very few of us hanging on.”
Membership had been declining for several years, and the congregation was skewing older.
“We began praying as a group that God would do something,” Crowder said. “We did not want this church to die.”
So they made a decision that set in motion something she said everyone is excited about — a partnership with two other area churches and an upcoming replant.
It started with a call to Josh Cook — church revitalization specialist at Birmingham Metro Baptist Association — who then called Valleydale Church.
A fresh vision — again
Patrick Sawyer, Valleydale’s missional living pastor, said when they got the call they were coming off the heels of a successful replant at The Church at Old Town in Helena. In 2021, Valleydale had come alongside Helena’s First Baptist Church and provided resources, a fresh vision, a new name, a new pastor and a team of other staff and volunteers.
“It really went well, and we started thinking maybe the Lord is giving us the opportunity to do more of this; maybe God will open the door for us to do this again,” Sawyer said.
And then Cook called to tell them about Valley View.
“He said he knew we were only just beginning to think about another replant, but we met with them, saw the church and saw the area, and that began the discussion,” Sawyer said.
As he and Jeff McGukin, Valleydale’s executive pastor, talked with the Valley View members, they made sure they understood that replanting would make the church a totally new work — much like The Church at Old Town, they would get a new name, a new pastor, a new leadership structure and some renovations to the facilities.
“Honestly, we basically tried to talk them out of it,” Sawyer said. “Their response was, ‘If we’re baptizing and reaching people with the gospel, we’ll do whatever it takes.’ So we felt like, ‘OK, Lord, if this is something you want us to do, make that clear to us.’”
‘One door at a time’
They began to pray for a lot of things, and at the top of that list was for God to bring the right person to serve as pastor.
“That’s when Josh Cook told me about Nate,” Sawyer said.
Nate Farrow, who had served on staff at The Church at Brook Hills for the past nine years, said he had been praying and felt like God was leading him to pastoral ministry. He just didn’t know what that would look like, and the idea of a replant was not on his radar.
But when he met with Sawyer and McGukin, they “talked about their heart and desire to see healthy churches in their city, and I left encouraged and excited,” Farrow said.
He came back and talked about it with his wife, Rachel, along with others who knew the journey he was on, including Chip Bugnar, global pastor at Brook Hills. And as Farrow had those conversations and prayed, he knew God was opening the doors for him to join the work at Valley View.
“We just kind of stepped through one door at a time,” he said.
Partnership effort
The leadership of Brook Hills was excited about getting involved too, Bugnar said. They started meeting with the leadership team from Valleydale to pray, and everyone felt like Farrow was the one to lead the effort.
Bugner said Brook Hills would miss Farrow but was ready to be a part of “building on the legacy of the saints at Valley View.” He said replanting was only possible because the Lord had planted them there in the first place.
“That good work God began there decades ago, we’re excited He will carry it to completion,” Bugnar said. “Gospel partnerships like we’ve entered into with those saints and with Valleydale running point seem to uniquely express God’s kingdom work, which transcends any one local church.”
And the partnership didn’t stop there either, with BMBA and the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions playing a role too.
Sacrificing together in a shared partnership “evidences the greatness of Jesus,” Bugnar said. “And the potential for gospel impact is huge, as current research shows only 40% of Leeds is churched and brand-new neighborhoods are currently in the works.”
Becoming Valley View’s pastor
Farrow said he’s excited about the prospect for ministry in Leeds too. As he starts a season of preparation toward the church’s relaunch in August, he’s praying for God to open doors into the community.
“We want to see this church continue to have a gospel impact in Leeds,” he said, noting that “in the next several months, I’ll be focusing on pastoring the church, getting to know the people, preaching, teaching, pastoral care — the things I really love and am excited to get to do.”
Crowder said Feb. 18 — Farrow’s first Sunday in the pulpit — “in God’s timing was a glorious and very sad day for us as a church” because two longtime church members had died that week.
“For Nate’s first week, in God’s providence, he had opportunity very quickly to become our pastor, which normally takes a while,” Crowder said. “That Sunday morning, there was this glorious juxtaposition of grieving and rejoicing — grieving the loss of dear saints, rejoicing because we know they knew Jesus and rejoicing at what God has in store for us as a church moving forward. It was a sweet service.”
Locking arms
Families from Valleydale and Brook Hills also gathered in the pews there.
“The encouragement and prayerful consideration from both churches has just been unbelievable,” Crowder said. “It just shows you when God’s people put their minds to honoring Him and helping others and other churches, the focus is the spread of the gospel.”
Sawyer said he and the others involved feel the burden of churches dying in Birmingham and the surrounding areas and know God wants those churches to thrive again.
He said what’s happening at Valley View is a great story.
“It shows what God can do with three churches who lock arms and say, ‘We’re not going to let this church die.’”
For more information about how your church can be involved in a revitalization process — either as an adopting church or as a replant — contact Rick Barnhart at the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions at 800-264-1225, ext. 2220, or visit plantalabama.org.
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