Like too many other congregations affiliated with the South Carolina Baptist Convention, Greenville’s Laurel Baptist Church is suffering decline. Today, only a handful of the faithful gather on Sundays in a sanctuary where several hundred regularly worshipped in better times.
Pastor Danny Burnely (left) with search committe members Carol Marshall, Gertie Mullis and Bill Heath.But Laurel has decided it will not take its current condition lying down. Rather, there’s a new feeling of hope for the church’s future as it moves into the new year.
Church members have given unanimous endorsement to three steps which they believe can lead to revitalization: 1) They revised their bylaws to dismantle a restrictive committee system that hindered – not helped – the conduct of the business side of church life. Under the new structure, there will be called, not regular, business conferences. 2) They adopted the Acts Ministry Plan designed to turn church members into effective ministers. 3)The Laurel congregation called a veteran pastor who has experienced success in leading churches to renewal.
Danny Burnley, who has served Greenville’s West Gantt First Baptist Church for the past eight years, began duties on Nov. 14 as Laurel’s pastor. When he went to West Gantt, that congregation – though it now is thriving – had been in decline for a dozen years.
Before Burnley arrived as Laurel’s pastor, Delano McMinn, the retired director of missions for the Saluda Baptist Association, had supplied off and on for six months at Laurel. McMinn, who had received financial support from Laurel when he did church planting in Ohio, resisted requests that he become Laurel’s interim pastor by insisting, “You don’t need an interim pastor; you need a pastor.” He did agree to continue preaching at Laurel until the church secured a pastor.
And McMinn even had one in mind; it was Danny Burnley. There is some history between the two of them. “In 2000, “Burnley recalled, “Delano, who was missions director for Saluda Association at the time, shared with me that he had tried for 11 years to begin a new mission in Anderson. There were no volunteers to start the work, however, so he and his wife Wilene began a mission in their home. By the time I talked with Delano, the mission had moved to an old store building on the Highway 28 Bypass. He asked me to pray about coming over to help build up and organize this new mission church.”
And so in March of that year, Burnley – at the time enjoying a successful pastorate at Temple Baptist in Simpsonville – did what he considers “the most difficult thing I’ve done in my ministry. I resigned after nearly 13 years at Temple to become pastor of this small work, Sierra Baptist Church.” Burnley served Sierra for three years before accepting the West Gantt pastorate.
In March of 2011, McMinn encouraged Burnley to meet with the four members of Laurel’s pastor search committee: Gertie Mullis (chair), Carol Marshall, Linda Miller and Bill Heath. “The purpose of that meeting,” Burnley said, “was not to discuss the possibility of my becoming Laurel’s pastor, but simply to talk with them about how they might make a start to revive their church. We had a good conversation, but I told them I really was not interested in becoming their pastor.”
The search committee members spoke openly with Burnley about the church’s condition. They asked the West Gantt pastor, “What would it take for you to become our pastor?” Burnley responded with the same openness. He had reviewed the church’s bylaws and had come to the conclusion that “he would not deal with them.” He explained, “They were developed over many years and were so restrictive that it was virtually impossible to get anything done. So I said they would have to change the bylaws, and I was sure that would close the door of my chances of becoming Laurel’s pastor. But the church decided to do it.”
Burnley also wanted the church to adopt the Acts Ministry Plan that was pioneered years ago by Greenville’s Forestville Baptist Church under the leadership of Marshall Fagg, who now is executive pastor of Second Baptist Church in Lancaster. This model for 21st-century churches aims at transforming church members into ministers while eliminating programs from church life that do not bear spiritual fruit. It is based on Acts 26:16, which proclaims: “Arise and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness.” This month, members at Laurel will participate in an Acts Ministry training session at Forestville.
As the story of Laurel’s efforts to be a “comeback” church continues to unfold, no one is more pleased than Delano McMinn. “Laurel has made the choice to break with tradition – and that’s the key,” he said. “The congregation has moved from its former spirit of giving up to confidently calling a pastor and making plans for its future. That’s a major turnaround.”
Realizing the difficulty of the task before them, but optimistic anyway, the Laurel faithful have adopted a theme of “Rebuilding the Walls,” which is taken from Nehemiah 4:6. The Hebrew people had the daunting job of rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. “So we rebuilt the wall,” the verse says, “until the entire wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had the will to work.”
For sure, no one will work any harder than Laurel’s new pastor, who at 62 is doing exactly what he is convinced God wants him to do: “I intend to focus on the word of God and get back to the fundamentals of the church, concentrating on what is spiritual. I hope a good foundation can be laid to prepare Laurel for its next pastor.”
Burnley’s enthusiasm for the challenge set before him and the Laurel congregation is evident. “This is what I love,” he said. “This is my gift.”