Even a church can be resurrected.
At least that’s the desire and plan of Camp Creek Church in Lancaster and New Haven Church in the nearby hamlet of Jefferson, which have jointly embarked on a rare thing in the world of church planting: a relaunch of an existing church.
Several members of Camp Creek and Haven Creek churches pose with the grand marshal of the Charlesboro parade.In January, Dale Roach, director of missions for Moriah Association, met with New Haven’s representatives to explore the process of closing down their church. There were eight remaining members, all retired, in a rural community. As they talked, Roach realized they really didn’t want to close the church. They expressed their hurt that the church might have to close. They also communicated their strong desire to reconnect and reach out to their community.
“By the end of the meeting, they’d agreed to turn the property and everything else over to another church in our association for the chance to restart,” he says. “I got in the car and called Randy [Mellichamp].”
Mellichamp is the pastor of Camp Creek Church. About 18 months earlier, Mellichamp had told Roach of his desire to help a church in their association.
“I shared my heart to reach out to churches and see if we could provide ideas, assistance and just support for new ideas and initiatives to reconnect churches with their community,” he said. “Neither of us wants to see a church close its doors.”
“This congregation is very unusual,” said Mellichamp, who has been pastor at Camp Creek for four years. “Most of the time in these situations, the people who are left are those who do not – want anything to do with change.”
However, before they’d left that meeting, New Haven’s members had voted unanimously to literally hand the keys over to Roach for him to find another church in the association to relaunch their beloved church.
How exactly does one church “relaunch” an existing church – and, in fact, a well established church?
“It’s the equivalent of a church plant, but with facilities” is how Roach describes it.
Mellichamp agrees. “We are treating it as a church plant with regard to a new name, new direction and new emphasis. New vision brings new life and new energy. This is what we’ve experienced in our time and relationships with New Haven. In fact, we’ve recently agreed to change the church’s name from New Haven to Haven Creek, in keeping with our seeing it as a campus of Camp Creek.”
Specifically, Camp Creek is focusing on two areas. The first is leadership development – developing new leaders for Haven Creek and working with existing leaders to coordinate new efforts in outreach, discipleship and worship.
Also, they have worked on building momentum through events to connect the church to its community, such as Vacation Bible School, a community event during the July 4th parade and several preview services at the new campus.
“Our time commitment is open-ended to this campus,” says Mellichamp. “We have actually adopted them and are merging with them to support them and provide for them in this community. We will start the process with our members, but will quickly begin to train and disciple new community members.”
Mellichamp confesses he honestly expected a few “no” votes from his own congregation on the endeavor, despite weeks of vision casting, processing and prayer, “not because they didn’t want to do this, but because of the enormity of the task.”
Camp Creek Church student pastor T.J. Roberts and pastor Randy Mellichamp.“However, they voted 100 percent. Since then, Camp Creek has completely immersed itself in the relaunching of this new campus,” he said.
Mellichamp likens the undertaking to birthing a child. “Seeing the new steps and the new relationships that are developing is so amazing,” he said. “Getting to know this new area and hearing the stories of people who are looking for Jesus in this area drives us to do all we can for them.”
An added impetus is the reopening of Haile Gold Mine in Lancaster County, which will bring needed jobs to the area. Mellichamp, whom Roach describes as having a church planter’s heart, recognizes the coming growth as an opportunity.
“We want to ensure that those who come here know Jesus and find forgiveness through him,” Mellichamp said. “That’s what New Haven has stood for and what Haven Creek will continue to stand for in this new venture.” – SCBC