In the early 1970s Santuck Baptist Church was close to 100 years old, but it was also close to shutting down. The congregation had dwindled down to 20 people.
Three months ago Santuck got the Alabama Baptist State Convention’s growth award for churches at least 10 years old. With more than 1,000 members now, the church received the Morrison Leadership/Church Growth Award at the annual statewide leadership and church growth conference.
Santuck is located in Elmore County on Ala. Highway 9 eight miles from Wetumpka. Pastor Morgan Bailey said, “There’s not even a blinking light. … We’re between Flea Hop and Slapout.”
A flea market forms near the church the first Saturday of every month except January and February, sometimes drawing 5,000 people. A Santuck ministry team provides cold water and gospel tracts, but church growth has not come from the flea market.
“We don’t receive anything from it,” Bailey said. “Our growth has come from going to every door.”
Santuck grew from its low point in the 1970s through pastors and other leaders who “turned it around,” Bailey said. “When I came in 1991, they were running about 100 in Sunday School. We evangelized the community through the Sunday School. We have averaged over 100 additions per year for the last eight years.
“We really emphasize small groups,” Bailey said. “Life transformations take place in the setting of a small group. Our focus is on Sunday School, the FAITH (evangelism) program and small groups. Our heart’s desire is to help people discover how God has wired them uniquely for ministry and then plug them in. Every member is a minister. I tell them that often.”
Every member completes an interest inventory card. New members come to the Pastor’s Luncheon, where they meet key leaders. The next month at a Discovery Luncheon, they discover their spiritual giftedness, and counselors help them join in a ministry.
Bailey noted members need a significant relationship and significant responsibilities during their first six months. Otherwise, “they are out the back door.”
Born in Luverne, Bailey met his wife, Ritta, at high school in Greenville. They have two sons: Joshua, 18, and Jonathan, 15.
Bailey has been enlisted to serve on a team with Edwin Jenkins of the State Board of Missions to develop a mentoring network. Others on the team are Topper Reid, minister of maturity at Hunter Street Baptist Church, Hoover; and Gary Hollingsworth, pastor of First Baptist Church, Trussville. Bailey said, “It will be an opportunity for pastors to link up with men who have been there and can help them through difficult times and help their churches to grow.”
Bailey said the pastor of a growing church must:
–Have a passion for God.
–Pastor his people.
–Preach the Word.
–Prepare his people for ministry.
–Penetrate the community.
–Build a praying church.
“If you do those things, the church is going to grow, no matter where you are.”
Bailey said the number one problem in churches, as in marriages, is lack of effective communication. To help with communication, Santuck sends The Alabama Baptist to every church family. “An informed member is a happy and effective member,” Bailey said.
On July 30 — “Read The Alabama Baptist Day” — Bailey and other pastors across the state will be calling attention to the ministry of the state Baptist paper. By reading the state Baptist paper “our people are a lot more aware of opportunities for them,” Bailey said. “They know a lot more about what’s going on in our state and nation and around the world. It is a greater joy to preach to a church that is more sensitive to prayer needs.”
Santuck uses a local edition of The Alabama Baptist to deliver its newsletter along with the paper. “We send to about 400 families for only $35 — and it is so easy,” Bailey said. “It reduces the hours people have to work in the office. This is much more effective.”
When Bailey became pastor, Santuck had just finished a new worship center. Since then the church has renovated the former worship center and educational building and built a 12,000-square-foot multipurpose building that seats 400 in the fellowship hall and houses the Weekday Early Education ministry.
Soon church members plan to break ground on a 14,000-square-foot administration and education building and add 200 parking spaces. In three years, they hope to double the capacity of the worship center to 650. Bailey said construction did not come by reducing giving to missions: “All of it has come from sacrificial giving.” Santuck gives 14 1/2 percent of its budget to the Cooperative Program.
“One of the hallmarks of our church is that people feel like they have come home, and they feel the presence of God,” Bailey said. “We don’t want to lose the small-church feel.” The two Sunday morning services begin at 7:55 and 10:30. Bailey termed them “blended” and “celebrative.”
Concerning Santuck’s church growth award, Bailey said, “We were pleased and really thankful for that.” But he added, “God, through His people, has done the work. I have had the joy of joining God in what He wants to do at this place at this particular time.”
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