by Polly House

SAN DIEGO - Once upon a time there were two churches. One, Bancroft Baptist, was small, sad and lonely. The other, Highland Park Church, dreamed of meeting another congregation it could share its life and vision with.

They met. They talked. They courted. Finally, the heads of the houses (of worship) agreed the two churches could marry and they gave their blessings upon the union.

So Bancroft and Highland Park married and produced an offspring. They named it New Seasons. And it is a fine, healthy, growing church.

And they are living happily ever after …

The marriage metaphor is accurate for the merger of two California Southern Baptist Convention churches.

Change or die
Bancroft Baptist Church was an aging Anglo congregation of about 40 people, led by Pastor Cal Samuels. They weren't reaching out to the surrounding community and they were dying. Even so, they refused to change their way of doing church.
Samuels knew disbanding the church was probably inevitable.

"I got to thinking," Samuels said. "Am I going to give this to someone I don't know? A non-Southern Baptist? No!"

Samuels, an Anglo, had met A.B. Vines, a younger but more experienced African-American pastor, at an associational event.

"Dr. Vines was pastor of Highland Park Baptist Church just a few miles away from us in the Paradise Valley area. It had about 200 members. He had a tremendous vision of what we could do in San Diego," Samuels said. "I didn't have a vision, but I had the heart. I visited his church. The preaching was phenomenal; there was energy, life, momentum, and he had a crazy faith in God."

Another option
In January 2005 the churches met and voted to merge Bancroft with Highland Park, becoming New Seasons Church. They gave themselves two months to make the change.
Both admittedly lost members after the decision, but out of the chaos the multicultural New Seasons emerged - one church, two locations, three languages.

The churches decided that the English-speaking New Seasons congregation would meet at the larger Bancroft facilities and Highland Park's two growing language churches - a Tagalog-speaking Filipino congregation led by Richard Lee, and a Spanish-speaking congregation led by Guillermo Monje - would stay at the smaller Paradise Valley site.

Vines' first decision as pastor of the new church was to call Samuels as executive pastor. Together, they got busy remodeling the outdated facility.
"We put $120,000 into the sanctuary," Vines said. "It was all done in 45 days - raising the money, making the plans, getting contractor bids, all new sound equipment, everything." In March, they were ready.

Growth follows the dream
The new church began to grow as the people caught Vines' vision for being a spiritual hospital and lifestyle transformational center for the city. Some of the former members started coming back, buying into Vines' dream of New Seasons becoming the largest church in San Diego.

"I just believe God," Vines said. "Nothing God does dies, but you can't experience the growth unless you have faith. We don't do anything from a small mentality. About 500 people now attend the two Sunday morning services. We plan for 1,000."

Samuels said, "We have been this blended church for less than a year, and there are still some growing pains. There are still some people who absolutely hate my guts for doing what we did. Some still won't speak to me, but that's OK. I know the Lord is pleased with this. Most of the members are glad to be here. There is a God-given energy that we never had before."

Any growing pains the church may still be going through are not apparent on Sunday morning. People hug and hold hands in the service. They sway side by side. A little African-American girl runs and hops in the lap of an Anglo woman, giving and getting a hug. A young teenage girl helps a stooped elderly woman find a seat, and then sits with her.

What a change from the first days of New Seasons.

"There were some people from his church who said 'I'm not going to have a black pastor,'" Vines said.

"That's true," Samuels agreed, "but those were the same people who weren't crazy about me either!"
Some were positive

While it's a fact that a number of the members at both churches were not pleased with the merger, others were more positive.

Narri Cooper, who was a member at Vines' church and made the transition to New Seasons, said, "My first thought when I heard about the merger was, 'Oh, my Lord, what are You up to now?' I was excited, expectant. And I trusted my pastor."

Joan McCune had been the church secretary and a member at Bancroft for 20 years. "When I found out what was going to happen, my first thought was, 'No, I don't want to do that.' I told myself that I could change churches. I could walk to a little Nazarene church just a couple of doors down from my house. But, you know, God never gave me permission to do that, so I stayed. I love the sweet spirit here."

When asked if the problem were ethnic or racial, McCune paused, then said, "No, I don't think so. I think in most cases, people just didn't want to change. Change can be hard."

Samuels' wife, Pam, is one member who said the merger was just what they needed.
"I love going to this church! I love sitting under the teaching of Dr. Vines. I love that Cal and I have found our perfect niche. Cal is doing exactly what is perfect for his skills. He is happier than he has ever been."

"God has blessed me by giving me Pastor Cal," Vines said. "I love to preach and study God's Word. I do conferences and mentor other pastors, but I don't like the paperwork! Organization is not my gift. But Pastor Cal keeps things running smooth. He takes care of the administrative tasks and all the stuff that goes with that, leaving me free to do the ministry God has called me to do."

Praise-filled worship
The worship service at New Seasons begins with music that gets the congregation excited - not loud or fast, just really good. Some people stand, sway and clap. Others are more sedate. The outward expression of the heartfelt worship is real. During this praise time, Vines comes into the service and sits on the front row. After the music, Samuels stands and leads the congregation in prayer.

And how they pray! Heartfelt "Bless you, God," "Praise you, Jesus" and "Thank you, Lord" come from every corner, every row. By this time, people are praising God and clapping their hands. Pastor Vines ascends the platform and the people clap louder, welcoming their leader in anticipation of what he will deliver.
"Hallelujah," he says. "Hallelujah," they reply. This echoing continues for a few seconds, like a mighty wind moving in the room.

As Vines preaches, exalting the Word, the congregation talks to him - "Amen!" "That's right!" "Hallelujah!" - encouraging him. His voice soars to the rafters, and then goes down to a whisper, feeding the congregation spiritual meat. All the while, the worshippers' Bibles are always open, pages flipping as he moves through the scripture passages. He paces across the platform with a raw energy, towel in hand, wiping his face as the Spirit moves everyone in the room.

New tradition
A new church needs its own traditions. A new one for New Seasons is "salvation candles." Large candles are mounted on each side of the platform in the sanctuary. If someone has been led to faith in Christ that week, the candles burn during the Sunday morning services. If no one has been saved, the candles are dark. "Bless God, there hasn't been a Sunday since March when those candles haven't been burning," Vines said. "I've told my people that if there is a Sunday when we can't light those candles, it means we have failed the Lord and we will have to come to the altar, fall on our faces and confess our sin to God that we've let a week go by without bringing someone to Him."

Most of New Seasons' growth has come from conversions and people new to the community, Vines said. "We don't try to get folks from other churches. I don't want people from other churches. I've had people who have come over here because of some problem at the other church - they're upset with somebody, somebody hurt their feelings or they're mad at the pastor. But I tell them to go back and make it right at their church first. They don't need to come here because they are running away from someplace else."

FAITH
Vines has faith that New Seasons will continue to grow. The church participates in LifeWay Christian Resources' FAITH Sunday school evangelism strategy as a means of sharing the gospel. They attended a FAITH National Institute at Immanuel Baptist Church in Highland, and haven't looked back.

"One thing (SBC president and pastor of First Baptist Church in Daytona Beach) Bobby Welch taught us in FAITH is that your church will grow, so don't put off planning for the growth," Vines said. "I know that right now it may not make the most sense for me to have an executive pastor, but this is an investment in the future. Pastor Cal and I are learning how to work together, how to trust each other. That takes time. If I were to wait until we have 150 more members to get an executive pastor, plus deal with all the people, I'd be in trouble. This way when the growth happens, he and I already trust each other and know how to work together. We won't miss a beat ministering to the people. You have to look to the future and plan your staff accordingly."

New Seasons has an interesting mix in their FAITH teams. "We have to have every flavor - black, white, Hispanic and Asian - to reach out to this community," Vines said. "We've been focusing our visits on the area behind our Paradise Valley site. When we knock on doors, we find rainbows. We never know what language we are going to need, so as much as possible, we combine colors and languages on our teams."

Michael Dunn, New Seasons' FAITH director, leads the teams with a contagious enthusiasm. As the teams gathered to go out, he got the people primed for good visits. "People, we are going to usher someone into the Kingdom tonight!" he cheered.

When the teams returned, members of one team were almost bursting to give their report. "We got one!" said Kim Shropshire, the church's youth minister. "We knocked on this lady's door and she kept saying, 'Just a minute, just a minute.' So we kept praying. When she finally came to the door we went through the FAITH survey. She kept asking questions. Her little boy was coming to the door, banging on it with his sippy-cup, and she'd tell him, 'Just a minute, just a minute.' Then, her brother kept coming to the door asking, 'Jennifer, are you alright?' and she'd say, 'Yes, I'm alright. Just a minute!' So when I finally asked her if she wanted to pray to ask Christ into her life, she said, 'Right now?' and I told her 'Yes, right now, right here on your porch.' And she did!
"We were all laughing and crying. We invited her to church Sunday and told her we'd meet her. We gave her the church's phone number, our home phone numbers, our cell phone numbers, everything!"

"Hallelujah! We'll have those candles lit on Sunday," Vines shouted.

Blended staff
The ministerial staff at New Seasons doesn't look like the typical church staff. But it reflects the congregation - black, white, yellow and brown. Each staff member has his own specific ministry and in weekly staff meetings, reports what has happened in his ministry area that week.

When they go out, the multicultural staff sometimes gets attention. Samuels laughed when he recalled that he was "the only white person (at Black Church Leadership Week at Glorieta last summer) as a member of a predominantly black church staff."

"That was unusual, to say the least."

What's even more unusual, he added, is for a white, older pastor to work under the authority of a black, younger pastor. In fact, Vines is the youngest person on the ministerial staff.

Vines described his staff in sports terms. "On a football team, you've got the quarterback, and sure, he gets lots of attention. But you also have a guard. Is a guard a quarterback? No. But is he necessary to the team? Yes. Is he a great athlete? Yes. The kicker - he may just get in once or twice in a game, but he's often the one who wins the game. Everyone has to play his role. I love and appreciate the whole team here."

The blended staff is just one more thing New Seasons does to reach out to all lost people. And at New Seasons, lost people are the focus. Everything the church does revolves around spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ to San Diego. It's their passion.

Center city
Vines said about 75 percent of the church's membership lives within a seven-mile circle around the church.

"I'm hoping that will go up to about 90 percent," he said. "I really want this to be a community church. I'm committed to being a community pastor. We will match our community, period. ... I believe you should bloom where you are planted. If I'm in a multicultural melting-pot, that's what the church should look like."

Samuels has done the demographics. In a seven-mile radius around the church, it's 42 percent Asian, 22 percent Hispanic, 18 percent white and 10 percent black.

"What we want is for the community to see us as a refuge. We want them to look over here and see us as their church, a center of ministry and healing."

The area of San Diego where New Seasons sits is what Vines called "the center city," outside the inner-city, but with many of the same problems.

"There are meth labs all around us," Vines said, pointing to the surrounding hillsides. Poverty is a way of life, he noted, offering as evidence that 100 percent of the children at the elementary school across the street are on the government's free lunch program. "With that comes all the other problems found in poverty-stricken areas - gangs, violence, drugs and alcohol."

The community needs New Seasons. It needs that spiritual hospital where soul-sick people can go for rescue and healing. Vines sees the needs and his heart weeps for them.

"Lost people keep me up at night," the pastor said. "I want to see them saved."