Springfield | When Paul Cooper graduated from seminary his plan was to become a church planter. “I had zero desire to ever pastor a traditional church,” he said.
But God had different plan.
Cooper became pastor of Marshall Baptist Church, which he described as “the most textbook traditional Southern Baptist church you could imagine.” The small-town church had an attendance of about 120, wasn’t growing, and still did things much like it had for the last 50 years.
“We were doing the same things, the same ways, with the same people, and we were seeing generations and generations leave,” said Cooper.
He was speaking to the more than 200 attendees at the January 21-22 Illinois Leadership Summit held at the IBSA Building. The theme of this year’s summit was “Building Future Ready Churches.” In his address, Cooper shared how Marshall Baptist Church is preparing for the future.
Because church members agreed they needed to reach the next generation, the church now averages around 300 on Sunday mornings and has moved into a former Walmart building. Members recently celebrated the church’s 75th anniversary.
It took effort to get there in a nation were 350 churches close each month, many because they refuse to change to reach the next generation. “Every church says they want to reach young people… But what are you doing to reach them? Are we speaking the gospel in a way they will understand?” he asked.
Cooper said churches “need to become super intentional about reaching the next generation because the Bible says so.” He cited several Bible verses about teaching and raising the generations to know the Lord, including Psalm 78:4, which he called, “a very convicting verse. It says, we will not hide these truths from our children.”
When it was time to begin making changes at the church, Cooper said he started by preaching through the Book of Acts, “because Acts is all about God doing something completely new in order to reach new people.”
To reach the next generation, the old ways would need to die because they weren’t working, and new ways need to be embraced. However, he stressed, “The message doesn’t change… We must teach God’s unchanging Word.”
To catch the vision, Cooper stated every church member will need to decide, “Will your focus be on who you are trying to keep or who you are trying to reach?”
That doesn’t mean not showing empathy or taking time with members who are having difficulty. Cooper said to love and listen to them as they work through changes.
Despite its challenges, it was worth it. Cooper said, “When I see the young families and the kids filling our church, and I see the baptistery full, and I see new people every week… I’m so glad we changed.”