If Eric Suddith would have looked at Emmanuel Baptist Mission Church, Conyers, Ga., as only a business proposition in 2004 when he first encountered it the Wharton-trained former businessman-turned-pastor likely would have given it up for dead. A little more than a decade old at the time the church had only eight members left. It had no plan to move forward and impact its community.
But Suddith knew Emmanuel Baptist wasn’t a business proposition. It was a spiritual one.
“Jesus Christ created the Church to go out and message His redemptive plan and teach those believers how to grow in His living Word,” Suddith said.
“That I didn’t learn at the Wharton Business School. They didn’t teach me that. They taught me business stimulation, strategic planning. I didn’t learn that from AT&T either. So God’s redemptive plan has to be understood by the church planter.”
Close to a decade after Suddith arrived at Emmanuel to “re-plant” the church (now called Emmanuel Community Church) God has exchanged a church of 13 for one with 1,300 in attendance and provided a 70,000-square-foot facility to serve as a ministry hub in the process.
Corporate-minded strategy
Suddith spent 25 years in the corporate world including 15 in executive positions at AT&T. He resigned from the corporate world in 2009 after almost 20 years of juggling ministry and business. While he said he has learned from his business background, maybe the most important lesson has been how different the two realms are.
“What really shook me about the work of a church planter is that the work is spiritual,” Suddith said. “What I mean by that is that this is spiritual warfare. Satan wants to disable the church planter.”
With only 13 people in attendance when he arrived (eight from Emmanuel and five members of his own family), finances were tight.
Suddith’s corporate background reminded him of the importance of developing a workable plan to turn the church around. Immediately he told the church that in a year they would be able to take what they were currently paying on rent and use it to build a new building.
“Corporate gave me the framework for forming a strategy,” he said while also noting he didn’t grow the church himself. “I taught Bible studies. I preached solid, theologically sound sermons.”
Spiritual-minded focus
Today the church not only has numbers but effective ministry in the community including a preschool, a variety of Upward Sports ministries, men’s and women’s ministries and a large food bank, all serving the entire county.
“There’s a team of 50 to 60 that keeps [the food bank] going,” Suddith said. “You come over here on Tuesdays and Thursdays and it’s like a McDonald’s drive-thru. Cars are wrapped around the building.”
But more important than development of all the new ministries is that the church — nearly a decade after he re-planted it — is reaching people with the gospel.
“God has really blessed us to have capabilities,” Suddith said.
“The harvest is great. My view is that the job of the church planter is to extend the gospel of Christ so that people come to know Him personally,” he said. “God is pleased with a healthy church plant. That’s what we’ve been trying to do over the past several years.”
(NAMB)
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