Members of Southside Baptist Church in Alabaster are eagerly anticipating the reboot taking place within their congregation.
Officially known as a replant, Southside is finding new life thanks to the willingness of Liberty Baptist Church in Chelsea to come alongside and help.
More than 80 people attended the June 2 replant launch service, which is more than double what the average attendance was for that congregation not even a year ago.
‘Great spirit’
“There was a great spirit at the church (for the replant service),” said Ric Camp, who helped connect the churches through his role as lead mission strategist for Shelby Baptist Association. “The worship center was nearly full, and there was such an excitement from both the sending church (Liberty) and the legacy church (Southside).”
The special service was the culmination of seven months of talks and congregational votes, Camp explained.
When Southside’s pastor retired in November, church members began to explore next steps.
Camp proposed the idea of a replant and sought out Liberty’s senior pastor Tim Cox to consider the partnership.
When Southside members agreed to the idea in December, leaders from the two churches took a few months to discuss the possibilities and then Liberty announced a 94% affirmative vote in favor of the partnership. Southside’s congregation then voted unanimously to accept the partnership and replant opportunity.
Willing to make the changes needed
Leon Burdette, executive pastor for Liberty, said he, Cox and executive associate pastor Kyle Valaer asked the Southside congregation some difficult questions before presenting the proposal to deacons at Liberty and eventually the congregation.
“Right out of the gate, we were asking really difficult questions because we needed to find out [if] they were really serious,” Burdette said. “A lot of churches will say they need to [replant], but when you start fleshing it out, they’re like ‘Oh, never mind. We weren’t thinking that was going to happen.’”
However, Southside had no reservations about their desire to replant. They had no non-negotiables. They were willing to hand over all assets to Liberty to manage.
Camp noted the gratitude expressed from the Southside congregation. Several members assured the Liberty team that they were willing to make the changes needed to thrive again, he said.
New replant pastor
Bryan Alderman will serve as Southside’s replant pastor. He has been in a role called serve pastor at Liberty.
Alderman shared how Liberty had launched a vision campaign a few years ago that laid out the next decade for the church. In that campaign, Liberty envisioned helping other churches with revitalization efforts while also becoming a multi-site congregation, he said.
The thought of using ailing churches as potential new Liberty congregations also surfaced as part of the vision but it proved difficult at first because it means the church needing help has to give up control, Alderman said.
“Over time, [our vision] morphed into, ‘OK, maybe we just need to be OK with partnering with another church just for the sake of seeing that church become all that it can be again,” he said.
But Southside brought life into the vision that was stirred up at Liberty several years ago.
‘Something only God can do’
The end goal for this replant, according to Alderman, is to make Southside a successful church in three technical areas: self-governance, self-sustenance and self-replication.
Liberty leaders want Southside to eventually become fully reliant on its own internal leadership rather than Liberty’s and to be a gospel-advancing church that breathes life into the community. The goal also is for Southside to be able to stand on its own financially, utilize its own resources and then one day pour into other congregations like Liberty has poured into it.
“As I go into the replant pastorate … I hope that we will mesh together as two churches that are kind of becoming one in a funky way in order to accomplish something only God can do,” Alderman said.
Camp said he hopes to see Southside bear fruit for the Kingdom of God and act as a beacon for other churches that may need assistance from the association.
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