PARADISE, Texas — When Shawn Brewer came in view of a call to pastor First Baptist Church (FBC) in Paradise, about 40 miles northwest of Fort Worth, he preached to about 60 people that Sunday morning.
After accepting a call from the church, he was greeted by about half that number on his first Sunday due to various difficulties, including the COVID shutdown.
“The church was struggling,” Brewer remembers of that time. “They needed to decide if we were going to grow or are we going to exist.”
Brewer had pastored larger churches in Eastland and Lubbock prior to moving to Paradise. A health crisis in the family led him to step away from his leadership of a church in Lubbock. After that crisis passed, he didn’t know what God had for his future.
“This is my fourth full-time church, but I didn’t really know if I’d be in ministry again,” Brewer said.
At the same time, FBC Paradise members knew of Brewer through a church member, but also knew he’d led larger churches than theirs. Some of the pastor search committee members doubted a pastor with Brewer’s resume could be drawn to a church one member called “beat up.”
A short time after accepting the pastorate in Paradise, the new pastor attended an associational meeting up the road in Decatur. One of his reasons for attending that day was to talk about prayer ministry — a keen interest of Brewer’s. Leaders of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s (SBTC) Regenesis church revitalization initiative made presentations during that meeting. After listening to Anthony Svajda — pastoral ministries associate for the SBTC — talk about it, Brewer decided to explore the process with his church.
Church leadership agreed Regenesis would be a good idea, so Brewer formed a nine-person leadership team to help with the evaluation of First Baptist’s ministry. Svajda worked personally with the church.
“[Regenesis] helped us look at ourselves,” Brewer said. “It helped us examine why we do some of the things we do … some things that needed to be improved or removed … how we might be more efficient and effective at being the church that Christ wants us to be.”
The pastor led the church to implement a three-point emphasis on evangelism, discipleship and prayer as it sought to have a more effective ministry. Since entering the process, the church has baptized four people, including three adult men — the first baptisms in a while for FBC Paradise.
Ren Young has been a member of the church for 38 years, ever since he and his wife married. He’s seen a lot of ups and downs at the church. Young served as a member of the Regenesis leadership team and remembers some of the hard truths they discovered.
“We had to face a lot of things we were using for excuses for how stagnant we’d become,” he said. “We had just stopped nurturing our members.”
But Young sees a foundational change in the current ministry of the church.
“We’re praying now,” he said. “Shawn has been dynamic in leading us to be a praying church. We’re more Spirit-led. Discipleship is one of the things I’ll get really excited about as it grows in the church. The prayer ministry is one thing that has prepared us for [growth in discipleship].”
Brewer has trained more than 20 church members in discipleship, including becoming disciple-makers themselves. The three-part emphasis has begun to bear fruit.
“Our job is to be faithful,” the pastor emphasized. “It’s about being faithful to be the church where we are. If we do that and share the gospel, God will provide. We’ve had some real eye-opening experiences with people stepping up and saying, ‘Hey, we can reach people!’ and we have.”
Attendance at FBC Paradise has grown since that first day four years ago. Average attendance for the fall months of 2024 was 130. By teaching the congregation prayer, discipleship and evangelism, Brewer envisions the revitalization being experienced by the church spilling out into the town and region. His vision is to host 20 evangelistic events (block parties, Easter lunch, etc.) over the next three years.
“We’re seeing our people embrace that,” he said. “It’s not just the same people who work and participate. We’re actually looking for ways to interact with the [community] to see if God’s working to share the gospel.”
With his long perspective of the church’s life, Young noted a time when the church was missing some of the younger age groups that form a foundation for any congregation’s future. He recalls when his own kids were teenagers that there were almost no kids in the church’s student ministry. He’s excited to see that change over the past couple of years, experiencing an increased feeling of life in the church he’s served for decades.
“I can tell the church is growing,” he said. “You’ve got to look for a seat on Sunday, and I love it. It’s a little noisy … we have a lot of kids and young people. It’s a joy to be at church!”
(EDITOR’S NOTE — This article originally appeared in the Southern Baptist TEXAN.)