We have an amazing history. Read the story below, written by Larry Griffith, or open the PDF version.
How a 50-year-old church took an interesting risk to reach a new generation.
by Larry Griffith
When Bruce and Melissa
Fosdick came from
Reseda, Calif., to Denver
in December 1999, they
were on a mission. They had just finished
their candidating experience with
Southwest Baptist Church in South
Denver and had cast a vision before the
leaders there that included jump-starting
an older, dying church with a strategy
that resembled a new church plant.
The plan included doing an outreach mailer to every home in the neighborhood, with a fresh invitation to a new service called “The Rock.” With the new people that would come, Southwest would generate a whole new service, having a new look, sound and passion.
A PEOPLE PREPPED BY GOD
At SBC pastor Fosdick and the new staff found a people who had been pastored by interim pastor and former Rocky Mountain district executive minister Bud Peterson. Peterson had led the church through a study that included “accepting change as a biblical idea,” preparing them for what God may want to do through them. The church needed to begin loving and accepting the visiting alcoholic, addict and divorced person as Jesus did, and not look down on them or avoid them.
As a result, SBC began to change their
attitude toward the lost and those seeking
God. As Fosdick, his staff and leaders
began to embrace the great need
and this new strategy to reach people,
God did a great thing. In the weeks
prior to Easter 2000, the church sent
18,000 mailers inviting people to “The
Rock” at Southwest.
What happened
next was a wonderful surprise.
Five hundred people attended on Easter, with 270 of them new to the church. Since that day, the church, which was averaging 150 people in 2000, has seen their attendance in two morning services grow to an average of 470. Last June they moved into an old YMCA building they had purchased and retrofitted, turning it into one of the most beautiful worship/ministry centers in all of Metro Denver. Six families took second and third mortgages on their homes to loan funds for the church remodeling. God continues to bless the church with growth and conversions to the Lord Jesus Christ.
What happened? As Fosdick explains: “God prepared the soil by allowing the people of Southwest Baptist Church to become so dissatisfied with the lack of fruitfulness in reaching people with the gospel, that when God gave Melissa and me the idea to ‘start a new church within an old one,’ they were ready. God did the rest.”
CHANGING TO RECEIVE THOSE WHO NEED NEW LIFE
SBC’s motto is “A Real Church for Real People,” and as pastor Fosdick states each week in church: “God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to keep you that way.” The philosophy is simple: “Jesus never said, ‘Change your life and then come to me.’ Instead, he said, ‘Come to me, and I will change your life.’”
A couple visited the church. The woman told her parents, Jim and Diana Oliver, about Southwest. The Olivers run a foster care home for teenage girls, located in Aurora, Colo., 45 minutes away. Soon they were ferrying to the church a busload of these young women — blacks, whites, Hispanics — many with considerable emotional and relational baggage.
Many of the girls plugged into the
youth group and college ministries. Some
are in marriage classes, and Fosdick has
performed a couple of weddings. He regularly
sees them place their trust in
Christ and says the monthly baptism service
almost always includes one of the
“Oliver girls” or a family member. The
new husbands also have trusted in
Christ, though they previously swore
they would never come to church. “I’m
so thankful God allowed us to minister
to this family,” says Fosdick.
If you visit “The Rock of Southwest” in Littleton, you will see a fresh, new beginning for a church that turns 50 this year. They are refocused on the original vision of reaching people with the gospel and building them into Christlike disciples.
The vision is as old as the Bible itself. The setting is fresh and new.
LARRY GRIFFITH IS FORMER MINISTER OF MISSION RESOURCES FOR ROCKY MOUNTAIN BAPTIST CONFERENCE.
