‘Revitalization’: Church that had dwindled to 8 holds first VBS in years

About three years ago, around the time he turned 60, Rick Campbell began to feel like it was time to step out and follow the calling he felt to become a pastor. He just didn’t know where.

He’d been doing some fill-in preaching, and a mentor had affirmed his calling. His local director of missions had too.

So he went for a drive to three small churches in the area that needed a pastor.

“And I just prayed in the parking lot around the church and said, ‘Lord, if this is where You would have me to be, call me,’” Campbell said.

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Not too long after that, Clio Baptist — one of those three churches — voted unanimously to ask him to be their pastor. There were 12 people there — a crowd that was on the larger side of what the church had gathering on Sundays at that time. More often, they ran about eight.

“The first year I was here, we had no other staff, no one walked the aisle. I began to question my call,” Campbell said. “But you could see the Holy Spirit moving, and God said to me, ‘Rick, you can’t save anybody, but what you do have the power to do is to do what I called you here to do.’”

‘Shot in the arm’

He started praying not for God to fill the church with more people but for Him to fill it with ministry. He tried to love people in the community well and encouraged the church to do the same. Not long after that, people started coming. Slowly they grew to 15, then 20, then 25.

“This year, one of our biggest crowds, we had 67,” Campbell said. “We’ve had a sixth baptism this year.”

They’ve started having Sunday School, a women’s ministry and a men’s ministry. And they’ve dusted off the church’s VBS tradition. The first week of June, they had 12 children come.

“That has just been a shot in the arm for the church,” he said. “This is the first time there’s been a Bible school here in 11 years.”

They also hired a music minister, one with a personal connection to the church, to its VBS and to its pastor — Campbell’s cousin, Bobby.

Things still hang on the wall at Clio Baptist that Bobby Campbell helped hang there as a kid during Vacation Bible School in 1985.

“I still find books here with my name on it,” he said.

Now, as he’s dusting off those books 40 years later, he’s one of the redemption stories happening at the church.

Story of redemption

When Clio Baptist split in 1989, the situation left him with some church hurt that grew into bitterness. The years passed, choices were made, and he ended up in prison for 20 years for manufacturing methamphetamine. While he was there, he got beaten up to the point he was in the hospital for four months.

“I started to realize that God was still over there where I had set Him off at,” Bobby Campbell said. “In my journey, I started saying, ‘You know what, God — I cannot do this by myself. Help me, please.’”

God continued to move in his life, and eventually Clio Baptist called him as their music minister.

Rick Campbell said his cousin’s story is a testimony of redemption in and of itself.

“Now he’s out and he’s working for the Lord,” Rick Campbell said.

Bobby Campbell has gotten involved in starting a youth ministry too, including working with the Love Like Lexi project, which aims to help teens find hope and prevent teen suicide.

Clio Baptist is hosting a Love Like Lexi event June 21 at 5 p.m.

Rob Jackson, director of the office of evangelism and church revitalization, said he’s been excited to see what God is doing at the church — his dad had also served as pastor of Clio Baptist when he was young.

“Our family has followed this church’s journey over the years, and I knew it had dwindled to just a handful of members,” Jackson said. “But under Pastor Rick’s leadership, something remarkable began to happen. He encouraged the congregation to believe God for great things, to seek His face in prayer and to actively minister to their community in the name of Christ. What followed was nothing short of revitalization.”

He said the growth the church has experienced “is a powerful testimony and an encouragement to all Alabama Baptists.”

“I thank God for allowing me to witness a church many thought had seen its best days come alive again, transformed by the power of prayer, faithful leadership and God’s glory at work,” Jackson said.