Story and photos by Tony W. Cartledge, Contributing Editor, Baptists Today

[For more information about the event highlighted in this story go to www.HopefulImagination.info.

WILMINGTON, N.C. — Transformation doesn’t happen overnight, especially for a sizable downtown church with a lengthy history and traditions to match. But transformation can happen, and when it does, amazing things follow in its wake.

First Baptist Church of Wilmington was not unlike many older downtown churches when Mike Queen became pastor 24 years ago. Its historic twin spires were firmly planted in the downtown area, but it was in some ways an island unto itself, disconnected from the surrounding community.

Today, the church is deeply involved with missions programs and outreach activities, serving the community in a variety of ways. The church hosts a growing ministry center of faith-based social and humanitarian ministries in facilities it bought from the county and continues to renovate, for example.

In addition, lay members are empowered to initiate acts of service to the community. An average of 100 new members join the church family each year, and a dynamic program of education and discipleship has scores of church members involved in researching and writing its own Bible study curriculum.

On October 22-23, the congregation will host a conference for church leaders who long to see congregational transformation in their own settings. Called “Hopeful Imagination,” the conference is not designed to make one church’s story the model, but to spark the imagination and stoke the passion of participants for their own churches.

A Cultural Shift

Early in his tenure, Queen saw a need for the congregation to become more involved in its community. When Jim Everette came as minister of education and missions 20 years ago, Queen charged him with getting more members plugged into missions and outreach.

That cultural shift, said Queen, “has defined us, shaped us and made us a different kind of congregation.” He credits Everette, now associate pastor, with successfully engaging more members in hands-on ministry, and changing their mindset from self-service to serving the community.

An early opportunity took place when Wilmington’s Good Shepherd soup kitchen lost its space and was on the verge of shutting down its ministry of feeding the homeless. With Queen’s encouragement, Everette called Kathy Dawson, who was directing Good Shepherd at the time.

As Queen recalls it, when asked why she had not already called on First Baptist for assistance, she said “We never dreamed that a downtown church would take us in … you know the crowd we serve.”

Good Shepherd fed homeless persons from First Baptist facilities for 19 months, until the ministry was able to obtain its own building. At least half of the volunteers remain members of First Baptist, Queen said.

Another opportunity came when a Pentecostal congregation’s building burned and the pastor asked Queen if his congregation could use First Baptist’s large activity center, located a few miles from downtown. The Rock Church used the facility for 33 months before completing a new building. By then, new relationships were born.

A Willingness to Risk

As Queen completed his 14th year in Wilmington, he and other church staff members invited consultant George Bullard to join them for a retreat during which they sought to understand their congregation’s past and to envision a “future story” for the church. Bullard led them to think about what changes might be needed in order to turn their dreams into reality.

After several suggestions had been made, longtime youth minister Don Vigus said, with some hesitation, “Mike has to change.”

The room became very quiet as Vigus suggested that his boss had been holding back. “You’ve been building up capital for 15 years,” he said to Queen, “and you need to spend it.”

“I think you have a vision for the church, but are afraid,” Vigus said, suggesting that Queen had been holding back in preaching and vision casting. “You need to let go and let God lead us where he wants to lead us.”

When asked for a response, Queen said, “I think Don is right.” Though still wondering if he had the courage needed, he asked the staff to support him and pledged to give his best.

Shortly afterward, Queen attended a conference on church transformation at Flamingo Road Baptist Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where Don Southerland was pastor, and later took the staff and several deacons to the same conference.

Southerland advised them to be patient: “The older the church, the slower you go.”

It took four-and-a-half years before the first major change, the addition of a well-done contemporary worship option, came to fruition. Other changes were incremental, though sometimes changes came in spurts.

“Being deliberate means sometimes you’re stirring a lot of pots, but nothing is happening,” said Jayne Davis, minister of education. “But then, several may start to boil at once.”

Through the gradual process, “We opened ourselves in such a way that we didn’t ask why we could not do something,” Queen said, “but focused on how we could do it.”

An Audacious Dream

An unexpected opportunity arose in 2003 when a large county-owned building that wrapped around two sides of the church became available. Built in an architectural style called “Brutalism,” the massive red brick structure had housed the sheriff’s department, a variety of other government offices, and the county jail in more than 60,000 square feet of heated space, plus an underground parking garage.

The building had so many leaks that Queen wondered if it might be best to tear it down and use the space for parking. When challenged by a friend and real estate developer who thought the leaks could be controlled, Queen and the staff began to dream about ways in which the building could become a hub for cooperative but independent ministry activities serving the Wilmington community.

Making the purchase would prove to be a challenge, however. The church placed a bid of $1 million on the building, which had a tax value of more than $10 million. A local developer offered a competing bid, raising it by five percent within the required 10-day period.

The church was preparing to counter-offer when a member read the county’s bid requirements more carefully, and realized that competing bids must raise the offer by 10 percent of the first $1,000, and five percent of the remainder. The competing bid was $50 short of meeting the requirement, and the 10-day waiting period passed with no other offers. The county was then obligated to sell the property to First Baptist for the $1 million bid, but some of the commissioners reversed their vote to approve it, and the chairman refused to sign the contract.

Enter Evelina Williams. As The Rock Church prepared to dedicate its new facility, Queen was invited to attend and say a few words so the congregation could express appreciation for the hospitality First Baptist had shown to them.

The next week, he received a phone call from an African-American woman who identified herself as Evelina Williams and said she had seen Queen at the “grand opening” at The Rock Church. She had called to tell Queen that she and her “prayer warriors” had been praying for months that First Baptist would be able to purchase the county building so they could “turn that jail from a place of incarceration to a place of redemption.”

The prayer warriors turned out to be 18 women, both black and white, who had crammed into Williams’ tiny living room for a time of ardent prayer every Thursday morning for the past 22 years. Queen asked permission to visit the group so he could thank them for their prayers, and before the morning was over he had been anointed with oil, prayed over, and left weeping by the fervor of the women’s faith.

Some time after, Williams called Queen to say she had good news — that Jesus had come to her the night before and said “You’re gonna get that building,” though she didn’t know where the million dollars would come from. A few weeks later, she called again to say Jesus had told her that one man was going to donate the entire sum.

Fast-forward four weeks, when a local businessman named Bobby Harrelson invited Queen and Everette to lunch, and indicated that he wanted to help the church get the building. Queen thanked him, and said they’d been applying for grants, looking for other sources of revenue, and could use all the help they could get. But that wasn’t what Harrelson had in mind: he wanted to donate the entire million dollars in memory of his wife, who had recently died.

When Queen called Williams to say, “You’re not going to believe what just happened,” her response was, “When will you learn that when the Lord makes a promise, he keeps his promises?”

Today the JoAnn Carter Harrelson Center is home to the Wilmington Area Rebuilding Ministry, Cape Fear Habitat for Humanity, Phoenix Employment Ministry, Christian Women’s Job Corps, Campus Crusade for Christ, an after-school program for at-risk children called “Communities in Schools,” a quiet retreat for abused or threatened women, and several other ministries.

An entire floor of the administration building remains to be renovated, along with the jail. Opportunities for new ministries still abound: Queen hopes the former jail may one day house a home for developmentally disabled adults.

Empowered for Mission

The purchase and repurposing of the county jail is but one of many stories Queen and his staff will tell during the Hopeful Imagination conference.

Several years ago, tired of learning about community needs but taking no action, some of the church’s youth obtained three cases of bottled water and distributed them to random people in the streets and parks of Wilmington. The next week, they bought dozens of donuts and took them to the staff at the local hospital. The third week, they used their own money to buy supplies and set up shop in front of the church, where they offered peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to homeless people.

The teens are still there every Tuesday night, providing a meal to the homeless 52 weeks a year, even when Christmas falls on Tuesday. They operate on donations and their own funds, with just enough adults around to provide security, passing on leadership from youth to youth.

When a woman in the church said she wanted to begin making prayer shawls for the sick, Queen didn’t expect much from the incipient ministry. But, the project has grown as other women and girls who knit have joined in. Queen said he often finds hospital patients holding the prayer shawl they have provided, using it to cover their head while praying, or even wrapping it around an injured knee.

Ministries like these can arise because both the staff and the membership have “incredible freedom” to hear God’s call and respond to it, Davis said. Such freedom grows from “an amazing level of trust” between the congregation and the staff, she said, and it empowers individuals to find their place of ministry.

Hopeful Imagination

The upcoming conference “is designed to offer hope, encouragement, inspiration and practical ministry tools” for leaders from traditional churches on the journey of transitioning and transformation, said consultant Eddie Hammett, who is helping to organize the conference. Co-hosted by several entities and open to all, the conference is especially designed for “churches that are plateaued, stuck and drifting,” but who desire to move forward, he said.

Participants will not get instructions on “how to do what we do,” said Davis. Rather, the conference is designed “to be a spark to get you thinking about what God is doing and what God wants you to do in your church.”

More information about the Hopeful Imagination conference can be found at www.HopefulImagination.info.