Germantown Baptist Church

Germantown Baptist Church was founded in 1838 in Germantown, Tennessee and is a large Southern Baptist church, which could be categorized as a megachurch. The church is about 168 years old and since its founding has moved from its location in downtown Germantown to an over 300,000 square foot building complex on a 64 acre campus between Germantown and Collierville on Poplar Avenue. As of 2006, the church had grown to around 9,000 members with over 11,000 attending and had a budget of around twelve million dollars ($12,000,000). GBC was reportedly the third largest church in the Tennessee Baptist Convention and the church property and facilities were valued at around eighty-five million dollars ($85,000,000) in 2006.

The church is also one of the first modern megachurches to confront and split over a proposed change in church governance. This change would have put control of the church in the hands of a small group of "elders", although the main controversy regarded the proposed group of people who would screen the elder candidates that the church could vote on, and who could therefore control the people considered for an elder position. Also, the attendance totals were taken prior to the "elder controversy", which led a group to split from the main body. Immediately after the split, attendance totals went down, but the church has seen new growth and is in the process of rebuilding its staff.

History

The church was founded in Germantown, Tennessee about 13 years prior to the American Civil War. It is one of the oldest churches in the area and is approximately 168 years old.

Dr. Ken Story (1963-1997)

Dr. Ken Story served as Pastor of Germantown Baptist for 33 years, from 1963 to 1997, during which time the congregation purportedly grew from 150 per Sunday to over 7,000 per Sunday. He also oversaw the move from the church's old downtown location to its new 64-acre modern facility between Germantown and Collierville on Poplar Avenue. Dr. Story retired in 1997 and now serves as Pastor of First Baptist Church in Counce near Pickwick, Tennessee.

During the elder controversy, Dr. Story publicly shared his feelings about the way the church was heading in a speech given to a group of senior adults called the Merry Makers on the campus of Germantown Baptist. His statements were picked up and reported in an article by the Commercial Appeal. Story reportedly stated that an elder-based constitution is "absolutely an abandonment of everything Baptists are."

Dr. Sam Shaw (1998-2006)

Dr. Sam Shaw served as Pastor of Germantown Baptist from 1998 to 2006 during which time the congregation continued to grow considerably in finances and human resources. Sam had previously served as Pastor of First Baptist Tulsa in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His preaching style was sincere and charismatic and he brought numerous new programs to the church, through his own creative leadership along with that of many others. Such programs included Metro (a Monday night college event) and the Question This Campaign, [http://www.questionthis.com] . Unfortunately Dr. Shaw's otherwise seemingly successful time at Germantown Baptist will be marred by what appeared to be a power struggle that took place in 2006. The struggle pitted the Pastor and many of the staff against a group that organized under the moniker of savegbc.org. See Controversy section below. Dr. Shaw ultimately resigned in June 2006.

Dr. Hal Kitchings (2007-Present)

After some thirteen months of searching, Germantown Baptist Church members voted for forty-seven year old Dr. Hal Kitchings to serve as senior pastor. On Sunday, October 28, 2007, Dr. Kitchings preached in both morning services, after which the members of Germantown Baptist Church voted with a 99.6% affirmative vote to call Dr. Kitchings to lead the church.

Kitchings was born to a Southern Baptist preacher. He holds a bachelor's degree from Mississippi College in Clinton, Mississippi and a Doctor of Ministry degree from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. He served as senior pastor of Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton, Mississippi, and youth and activities director at Daniel Memorial Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi. [ [http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2007/oct/16/germantown-baptist-eyes-new-pastor/ Germantown Baptist Eyes New Pastor 2007] ]

Growth

In the late 1990s the church moved from its historic location in old Germantown to a new facility on Poplar Avenue between Germantown and Collierville. The new facility includes a state of the art gym and four baseball fields.

Old Germantown Baptist

The old campus was transferred to Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary after the move to new facility,in 1995.

New Facility

The new campus is a 64 acres campus that includes a 3,000 seat sanctuary, two class-room buildings, a recreation complex with two basketball courts, a weightroom, running track and racquetball courts, called the [ROC - "recreation outreach center"] , a dining room and coffee shop, a book store, library, music theater, baseball fields and nearby soccer fields, and a multi media conference center.

Jerry Halcomb designed the sanctuary.

Ministry

The church has sent out numerous missionaries, created a thriving inner-city ministry which reaches out to the poor in neighboring Memphis, Tennessee, and initiated many other cutting edge programs which drew both praise and replication from churches from all over the nation.

www.Questionthis.com

On Good Friday, April 18, 2003, GBC launched the "Question This" [ [http://www.questionthis.com Question This] ] campaign which featured media and print that were designed to draw interest in Jesus Christ, though not specifically toward the church. In fact the movie trailer styled TV spots did not feature the church's name.

Grant Guffin, media pastor and former TV sports anchor, reporter, short film director and producer at CBN, along with his team. shot the TV spots on 35mm film that were run during high rated shows and on 20 Memphis area theater screens. In addition the church printed 50,000 print pieces and over 35,000 were distributed by hand across the community. Seven billboards were also used and one was even located on Beale Street in downtown Memphis, Tennessee.

Germantown then opened up the program to area churches and provided print and media to them at no charge. [ [http://www.lifeway.com/lwc/article_main_page/0,1703,A%253D155080%2526M%253D200243,00.html LifeWay: Biblical Solutions for Life - "Question This" - Excellence in Media:Written by Anthony D. Coppedge, Church Media Consultant] ] [ [http://www.lifeway.com/lwc/article_main_page/0%2C1703%2CA%25253D155083%252526M%25253D201102%2C00.html? LifeWay: Biblical Solutions for Life - “Question This”- Excellence in Media, Part 2:Written by Anthony D. Coppedge, Church Media Consultant] ]

Church governance controversy

Some church members and staff, including Pastor Sam Shaw, left Germantown Baptist in 2006 after the congregation voted down a proposal to change the church's by-laws from a congregational-led church to an elder-led church. The change is more than semantic because it involved who would control the church. According to analysis of the proposed bylaws done by the group savegbc.com (a now abandoned site), the change would have created a self-perpetuating board of Pastoral supporters, which would have given this board and the Pastor permanent control over the church with little or no accountability from the body. This lack of accountability, said the group, was due to the fact that the elders would screen those who the church could vote on to be an elder.

After the first vote, the elders could screen nominee elders who could be put to the congregation for a vote. If the elders did not think the person was "biblically qualified" that person could be rejected by the screening board. This change was argued by some of the church staff and deacon leadership to have a scriptural basis in that the congregation should have faith that church leaders are called by God to their places of service. The other side of the argument was that this placed an enormous of amount of financial resources and decisions in the hands of a very few number of like-minded people. There were also numerous other allegations, conjectures and unfortunate misunderstandings that did ultimately drive an otherwise seemingly thriving church to split.

* On May 7, 2006 the church members voted 2,183-1,542 (or approximately 59%) in opposition to the proposed change in church governance. The church members also voted against hiring and paying for an outside reconciliation group called Peacemaker Ministries to enter the church because it was deemed that the church was not yet ready for such intervention and other less expensive alternatives had not been explored. [ [http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=4886 The Baptist Standard :: The Newsmagazine of Texas Baptists] ]

* Some of those who supported the change went on to form their own church in the area.

* Recently, SBC churches have not recognized elders as a separate office within the church, only pastors and deacons are recognized. However, the Southern Baptist denomination was founded with Elders leading every local church.

The negative, or at least tragic, part of the whole situation was that a purely intellectual debate ultimately caused time, manpower and resources to be wasted. Because the Memphis newspaper, the Commercial Appeal, covered the story throughout the year, the infighting and ultimate resolution and lack of reconciliation reflected poorly on both sides.

Elder rule

The proposed change was to convert to elder leadership, which is one of several expressions of congregationalism within Baptist history. The group savegbc.org stated that the takeover was based on Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Church and a website called How to Transition an Established Church.

Hannah Elliot of the Associated Baptist Press writes: "While scholars agree elders of some sort took part in first-century church leadership, division remains as to what that role was—and how that should translate to present-day churches. No matter which side of the issue those scholars espouse, they agree the issue is here to stay." [http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=4886]

Issues raised by the controversy

Some issues raised by the controversy are which form of government is better for large churches; what sort of degree of control should a small number of people be given over large amounts of money (in this case a $12,000,000 budget and church property worth approximately $85,000,000 with only $10 million owed on it); what sort of practical accountability should a staff have to the congregation; whether staff salaries and budgets should be disclosed to the congregation; whether membership roles should be disclosed to the congregation.

Issues raised by the aftermath

The obvious overriding issue was whether the church staff should have left after the congregation failed to support the change. Other issues raised are whether another church should have been started in the area by former members; whether a reconciliation group should have been hired; and whether the church should have pursued unity rather than schism.There are no easy resolutions to these questions.

Other issues raised during the debate

The debate was also characterized in terms of Calvinism (staff and pastor and some members of the congregation) v. Free Will (some members of congregation) and also as a fight between Modern Worship/Traditional Mix with rock music, loose dress requirements, fewer worship services etc. v. Traditional Worship with choir, more formal dress, etc.

Pastors

* Willard P. Everson (1906-1992) - seved from [http://www.floridabaptisthistory.org/biographies/biographiese.html]
* Dr. Ken Story - served from 1963 - 1997
* Dr. Sam Shaw - served from 1998 - 2006
* Dr. Hal Kitchings - served from 2007 - Present

External links

* Hannah Elliott, "Who has authority to make decisions for a church"?. [http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=4886]

References

* A History of Germantown Baptist Church, Turner Publishing, ISBN: 81-86066