When Jerry Lethco was serving as a director of missions in Wilmington, N.C., he felt a burden for struggling churches that he saw “try, try and try, but not seem to get anywhere.”
Jerry Lethco“I thought, there’s got to be another way. What they need is somebody to walk with them.”
From that burden an idea was born: to work with struggling churches to help them rediscover, in a fundamental sense, the joy of their youth. By leading established churches to employ effective growth tools used by new church starts, Lethco has seen several South Carolina churches make remarkable turnarounds in the last year and a half.
Lethco, a former president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, was a pastor for more than 40 years, including pastorates in South Carolina at Brushy Creek Baptist Church, Taylors, and Clearview (later, New Beginnings) Baptist Church on James Island. He retired from pastoral ministry in 2004 and settled in Greer. Drawing on his experience, particularly at New Beginnings, he decided to begin working with “broken, fractured churches – to make dysfunctional churches functional again.”
He shared his idea with SCBC executive director-treasurer Carlisle Driggers, who invited him to develop his work as a pilot program under the auspices of the state convention. Lethco became a contract consultant with the church development team and began making contacts at pastors’ conferences and other meetings.
Today, 19 churches have completed or are implementing his church renewal method, in which Lethco works directly with a pastor and congregation in a “hands-on” approach. The method does not have a name; instead, each church settles on its own name for the plan when it assumes “ownership” of the process.
The idea of ownership is key to success, Lethco said. “We insist that every individual on the church roll be informed before we begin. If we can get people unified, then we can move forward on better footing.”
Once a church votes to adopt the process (with at least 85 percent support), four basic steps follow:
1) Every member is asked to make a new affirmation of his personal faith. (Lethco noted that fresh faith affirmations are typical of new church starts.)
2) Every member is asked to take part in a personal spiritual cleansing service; afterwards, the corporate church body also submits to spiritual cleansing, asking for God’s forgiveness before seeking blessings for the future.
3) Utilizing small groups involving all members, a two-day planning process produces goals and measurable objectives for the succeeding three years.
4) Ministry opportunities that grow out of the goals are adopted; all members are plugged into the newly identified ministries.
After a church moves through all the steps, it will come together again a year later to repeat the planning process and extend long-range plans for an additional year, always keeping three years of planning in the works.
“The majority of plateaued or dying churches have no definitive plan for church growth,” said Lethco. “They just expect something to happen. The truth is, growth does not come as an extemporaneous event; it comes as a planned process.”
College Park Baptist Church in Rock Hill went through Lethco’s process, and pastor Jerry Broughton said baptisms, giving and attendance have all increased. “We’ve really experienced revival,” he said. “This (process) was definitely on time for our church.”
Ray Elder, pastor of Euhaw Baptist Church, Ridgeland, said the process “has done a great service by giving our people a vision.”
“We’re more than a family business,” he added. “We need to be trying to reach people for Christ. This method can help churches do that.”
Lethco is available to work with SCBC churches without fee. (His expenses are supported by Cooperative Program gifts.) For more information, contact him by e-mail at lethcoj@bellsouth.net or call 864-360-1716.