ALPHARETTA, Ga. — More than 300 gathered at the North American Mission Board (NAMB) for a conference for Associational Missions Strategists (AMS) on replanting and renewing struggling churches, and NAMB’s Replant team announced a new resource designed to equip a local AMS in replanting.

“We serve a God that can do far more abundantly than we can ask or think. Isn’t that incredible?” said Brandon Moore, a replant specialist with NAMB, as the event began. “So, to think about that, why is it too much to ask? It isn’t too much to ask that every single church would be renewed in your association, across this Convention. That’s what we’re praying for. That’s what we’re hoping for.”

The associational leader, Moore went on to say, is best equipped to spur such a renewal movement among Southern Baptist churches.

Leaders traveled from California, the Northeast and Florida — every corner of the United States — to participate in NAMB’s AMS Replant Lab held Feb. 24-26. The conference featured main sessions from practitioners along with breakout sessions that offered practical equipping.

“The encouragement as an AMS for this event was, I see that I’m not the only one in the fight. There’s a lot of others in the fight,” said Mark Jones, AMS of the Summit Association of Churches in Akron, Ohio. “The resources and encouragement we get from the team are things that help us to do what we do a little greater.”

NAMB’s Replant team recognizes the role the local association plays in fostering church health so that those local congregations can go from dying to thriving.

“All across our convention, the Lord is moving in power. He’s moving in power in a lot of different ways, one of those ways is seeing and empowering once dying churches to come back to life in vibrancy and health again,” said Mark Hallock, a member of the Replant team and lead pastor at Calvary Church in Englewood, Colo., during his session.

“For us at the Shelby Baptist Association in Birmingham, we’ve been able to utilize this event to bring in teams who were considering doing a replant with one of our dying churches,” said AMS Ric Camp.

Camp brought in leadership to the event last year, and they have since launched their replant. This year, Camp brought in another leadership team who were looking to replant because they had witnessed the success of their sister church.

“This was very helpful for them to see the whole process,” Camp said, “to get both the big picture and then nuts and bolts of how to follow through with a replant.”

This year’s AMS Replant Lab featured the launch of a new resource designed specifically for associational leaders that will help them engage with churches in their associations, to bring renewal to churches that need revival.

“Our new kit is the most significant resource our team has ever created,” said JimBo Stewart, NAMB’s associate director of Replant. “Ultimately, this is a catalogue of resources that are categorized to give associations and state leaders everything they need to launch a renewal movement among their churches.”

The kit is designed to support local associations in creating events that help inspire a renewal movement among their churches along with implantation processes that enable them to come alongside churches to either revitalize or replant their churches.

NAMB’s Replant Team distributed physical kits to attendees, but the material directs readers to an extensive catalogue of digital resources that may be accessed by churches and associational leaders at renewalmovement.com.

Jones also serves as a revitalization specialist for the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio, and he said this resource gives him tools to offer to fellow associational leaders and churches in the state.

“I can’t say enough about this training,” Jones said. “I’ve been here almost every year, and every year, I leave encouraged, strengthened and resourced with more tools than I had before. Learning from different states and different people makes it good.”

To learn more about NAMB’s church replanting efforts, visit churchreplanters.com.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Brandon Elrod writes for the North American Mission Board.)