News

Recent flooding in Nepal has left churches and families facing significant needs. In response, our local Nepali church is organizing a fundraising effort to provide assistance to those affected by the flooding. As believers, we have the opportunity to stand alongside our brothers and sisters in Nepal through prayer, compassion, and generosity. While thousands of […]

For years, Axis Church faithfully served Nashville’s Germantown neighborhood from an unlikely home—a converted warehouse that required a great deal of faith and imagination. When the church first arrived in 2009, the building was unfinished, the floors were filthy, and the walls were covered with mold and mildew. There weren’t even proper places to sit, […]

“They are to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, workers at home, kind, and in submission to their husbands, so that God’s word will not be slandered.”Titus 2:3b-5 (CSB) All believers have a responsibility to build […]

Romans 15:23–32 Partnership is one of the great strengths of the local church. We serve together, give together, send together, encourage one another, and share in the work God has given us. But one of the most important ways we partner with one another is also one of the easiest to overlook: we partner in […]

Churches are often better at identifying what they lack than recognizing what they possess. We do not have enough people.We do not have enough money.We do not have the right leaders.We do not have enough space.We do not have the experience to address that need. Those limitations may be real. But they are rarely the […]

Sometimes God’s plan for a church looks very different from what anyone expected. For Valley View Baptist Church and King’s Cross Church in East Nashville, the path toward becoming one church was shaped by seasons of difficulty, unexpected relationships, patient leadership, and the providence of God. Taylor Combes, pastor of King’s Cross, initially had reservations […]

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 […]

Churches rarely arrive at serious decline overnight. Decline usually happens slowly—one year, one family and one missed opportunity at a time. Attendance decreases. Baptisms become less frequent. Children and younger families disappear. Ministry becomes harder to sustain. The congregation grows older while the surrounding community continues to change. Because decline is gradual, it is easy […]

In The Heartbeat of the Church, we considered a simple conviction: the heartbeat of the church is the glory of God seen in a people who love God, love one another, and make disciples among all nations. But if that is true, perhaps renewal requires us to ask some deeper questions—not simply about our churches, […]

There is no single script for church renewal. Churches decline for different reasons, at different rates, and over different periods of time. Some congregations have experienced a short season of conflict or leadership transition after years of health. Others have been declining for decades and now face spiritual, organizational, financial, and missional challenges all at […]