Editor’s Note: Drake Nosco, Senior Pastor of Grace Baptist Church and Vice Chair of the Nashville Baptist Association Board, has helped lead Grace through an ongoing season of church renewal. This is the story of that journey.
What does church revitalization actually look like?
We often look first at numbers. And the numbers at Grace Baptist Church in Nashville are encouraging. When Drake Nosco became Senior Pastor in January 2020, Grace had approximately 175 attendees on a Sunday morning. Today, the church has around 330 every week.
But numbers tell only part of the story. The deeper story at Grace is about a congregation learning to face reality, embrace its mission, develop healthy leaders, disciple people intentionally, and increasingly carry the work of ministry together. And remarkably, that story began before Drake arrived.
Renewal Begins with Recognizing Reality
Grace Baptist Church was planted in 1910 and originally met on Lischey Avenue in East Nashville. In 1978, the church relocated to North Nashville. Knowing that not everyone would make the move, the congregation built a sanctuary seating about 550.
Over the following decades, however, Grace experienced significant decline. By 2020, weekly attendance was approximately 175.
Before calling its next pastor in 2020, most of the congregation read Thom Rainer’s Autopsy of a Deceased Church. The exercise helped them recognize what was happening and communicate something important to their future pastor: “We know we need revitalization, and we are willing to be led through change.”
That may have been one of the most important steps Grace took.
Churches never drift into health, and renewal is exceedingly difficult when a congregation refuses to acknowledge its condition. Grace had reached a point where its people could look honestly at where they were and recognize that maintaining the status quo was not enough.
Healthy Leadership and a Clear Mission
When asked about his primary strategies for revitalization, Drake’s answer was refreshingly simple: “I was surrounded with good people.”
He made a few key hires, and learned the strengths of the lay leadership, giving him the opportunity to assemble a strong team. Grace has exceptional lay leadership which works hand-in-hand with the staff. That lay leadership includes a strong prayer team which ensured that most days, there is corporate prayer in the church.
But underneath the leadership structure was something more fundamental: increasing clarity about the church’s mission.
Over time, the congregation has developed a clearer understanding of where the church is going and why. That clarity has helped move Grace from a culture focused primarily on maintaining what it already had toward one where every person is connecting people to be purpose-filled followers of Christ and has a vision to send out leaders to help revitalize other congregations.
Creating Pathways from Attending to Belonging
Grace has also worked intentionally to help people move from simply attending church to belonging, growing, serving, and eventually leading.
Connect Groups provide an important pathway for newcomers to develop relationships within the church and become integrated into the congregation. Grace Mid-Week classes and other opportunities provide deeper biblical and theological instruction.
But the pathway only starts with learning, Grace increasingly wants people to serve and lead.
One encouraging sign of renewal has been a growing willingness among members to simply say “yes” when opportunities to serve arise. The church is also beginning to raise up and release new leaders.
All of this rests upon the ordinary spiritual foundations of faithful preaching and prayer. Grace’s renewal has not been built around any dramatic initiatives. It has involved strengthening the ordinary work of the church and creating intentional pathways through which people can connect, grow, serve, and go.
A Healthier Church Is a More Resilient Church
Perhaps one of the most important evidences of renewal is its resilience. Every church experiences difficult seasons. Leaders change. Plans fail. Unexpected challenges arise. In an unhealthy church, such moments can easily derail the mission or fracture the congregation.
Grace has increasingly demonstrated an ability to navigate difficult situations with unity—and then keep moving forward together. Revitalization produces a healthier church capable of walking through problems without losing sight of its mission.
Today, Grace’s leaders describe a congregation with greater unity and trust, clearer alignment around mission, healthier systems for assimilation and discipleship, increasing participation in ministry, and a growing desire to develop and send people.
“The culture of the church is in a good place,” Drake’s associate pastor, Kevin Fisher observed. “People understand the direction and help carry it forward.”
Still on the Road to Renewal
Grace Baptist Church has not “finished” revitalizing. Drake describes the congregation as on the road to revitalization, recognizing that every healthy church needs continual renewal.
The growth from approximately 175 to 330 is worth celebrating. But perhaps the more important movement has been from maintenance toward mission, becoming more resilient in the process.
Grace’s experience reminds us that renewal begins when a church is willing to face reality and be led toward greater faithfulness. It continues as healthy leaders clarify the mission, preaching and prayer remain central, people are intentionally discipled, and members increasingly take responsibility for the ministry themselves.
The goal is to become a healthier church—a congregation increasingly equipped to carry the mission of Jesus forward together. And by God’s grace, that is the road Grace Baptist Church is walking.
Nik Lingle (Pastor at Westwood Baptist Church – Nashville, TN)
Renewal Strategist
Nashville Baptist Association