ChristianShame.com

Taking over a new church can be tough enough for a pastor, but when Bryan Thompson went to work at Victory Baptist in the spring of 2007, some extra-heavy baggage was attached.

In late 2006, Jerry Wayne “Dusty” Whitaker — the previous pastor of the church located along a well-traveled section of Riverside Drive — allegedly displayed a gun during one of his sermons.

He subsequently was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, which included other weapons in addition to the one displayed at the church, which Whitaker claimed was a prop to illustrate a point, according to previous reports.

It was disclosed that Whitaker, unbeknownst to his congregation, had served five years in a federal prison in Virginia during the 1990s for conspiracy to distribute cocaine and possession of a firearm during drug trafficking. He was at the local church for a little more than a year.

The accompanying scandal rocked the church that had been established in 1971 to its very foundations, a trauma that if not of Biblical proportions was enough to send Victory Baptist to near-collapse. The congregation went from around 90 people to about 20.

But now, some two years after that dark episode, the church is on its way back into the light under the leadership of Thompson, 31, who had never lived in a place the size of Mount Airy. But he got a taste of small-town gossip soon after moving here in spring 2007 with his wife and their three daughters, now ages 6, 5 and 3.

Thinking that the arrest of the previous pastor had faded from public memory by the time he arrived, Thompson soon learned otherwise. “Never living in a small-town before, I thought that a lot of people wouldn’t know about it,” he said during a recent interview in his office at the church.

“I found out very quickly that everybody knew about it,” Thompson said. Usually after introducing himself as the new pastor at Victory Baptist Church, he was greeted with the reply, “Oh, that’s where the gun-slinging preacher was,” Thompson recalled.

He admits there were some reservations about joining the troubled church, but figured that other congregations probably had weathered the same kinds of trouble. “Really, there’s bound to be skeletons in everybody’s closet,” Thompson said, reflecting his philosophical approach to the situation.

In the 17 months since he has been its pastor, Victory Baptist’s membership is on the rebound. This is partly credited to the efforts of the Rev. David Cox in holding the congregation together on an interim basis and Thompson’s work to rejuvenate its ministry through new approaches.

Circuitous Path To

“Victory”

While a series of developments led to Whitaker’s abrupt departure from the pulpit, it was an equally circuitous route that brought Bryan Thompson to the local church.

He spent most of his “growing-up years” in such cities as Chattanooga, Tenn., and Jacksonville, Fla. The oldest of four sons in his family, Thompson said they also lived in other parts of the country due to his father serving as a minister of music at several churches.

Yet Thompson didn’t elect to follow his father into a ministerial career — not at first anyway. After high school, he began studying accounting at Tennessee Temple University, a Baptist Christian school in Chattanooga, but decided that wasn’t for him.

“I just really believe that God was leading me to go into another direction entirely,” Thompson said of his decision to pursue the ministry. After switching majors, he earned a bachelor’s degree at the school two years later and then enrolled at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest in 2001 to obtain a master’s degree in theology.

Again, however, his path shifted in another direction far from Mount Airy. Believing that his calling was a ministry in a foreign field, Thompson served for three years in Uruguay in South America, beginning in 2004. “I really believe that is where God wanted us at that point.”

Around the time his foreign ministry was ending in late 2006, Victory Baptist was experiencing its troubles with Whitaker, whose criminal past had remained hidden to that point due to church leaders not doing a background check when he was appointed. “I don’t know how he ended up in Mount Airy,” Thompson said of Whitaker, who recently received a suspended sentence in court and reportedly now resides in Ararat, Va.

When seeking a new pastor, Victory Baptist leaders made an inquiry at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, which had Thompson’s r/sum/ on file. “I guess they first contacted me in April of 2007,” he said.

In the meantime, Cox, the longtime chaplain of local law enforcement and emergency agencies, served Victory Baptist on an interim basis and, in Thompson’s view, kept it from completely falling apart.

“He really brought a lot of healing,” the new pastor said of Cox, who recently passed away. “A lot of it was done before I got here.” Cox’s wife still attends Victory Baptist Church.

Younger Members Sought

Thompson said that his own first service at Victory Baptist Church occurred on Father’s Day in 2007. He immediately noticed that the congregation seemed to be in a depressed state, which was at least partly attributable to the crisis with the previous minister.

“Nobody was singing, nobody was happy,” he recalled. “There was no joy, there was really just a glum group of people.” The services followed a basic format of singing a couple of hymns and taking up a collection.

“I felt that I probably needed to juggle things up, maybe just a little bit at a time,” Thompson said.

Among the changes he brought to Victory Baptist was blending in a contemporary religious song “here and there” with the standard hymns. “We didn’t throw out the hymnal,” Thompson assured.

Other steps were aimed at what Thompson considers the lifeblood of a church: younger families with children. He sought to offer a full-fledged children’s ministry along with offering “non-traditional” activities such as classes on finances and other subjects. He also has relied on more-modern translations of the Bible for his sermons.

Thompson describes such steps as “just things that were out of the ordinary for a traditional church like this.”

Not everyone in the congregation embraced them, however. “There was some hesitation,” he said. “Several of them, I know, didn’t appreciate it — but I didn’t do it overnight.”

Yet given the depths to which the church had reached, changes were in store, Thompson thought, a need “to wake up and do something.”

“That’s not the direction most people are going,” he added of many traditional churches’ reluctance to adopt new ways, “but that’s what’s going to bring in younger families.”

Thompson finds it troubling that those who attend church tend to be older folks. “Most people my age just don’t see the need,” he said, blaming an apathetic, “who cares?” mentality that seems prevalent today.

“My generation’s kind of reaping the whirlwind, I guess you could say,” the young pastor added.

But he is seeing progress in his efforts so far at Victory Baptist.

While only about 12 people were spotted at some Sunday services during its interim period, attendance has rebounded significantly in recent months.

What Thompson has attempted to do here reflects his philosophy that church should be a reverent, but fun, experience. “One thing I’ve tried to do is promote fellowship — just people getting together and eating or whatever.”

His further goals for Victory Baptist include building a community outreach effort that involves helping others in need in the area. Thompson said the point of this is that if the church suddenly closes its doors at some point in the future, he wants to know that it would be missed by the community.

A long-range goal is to upgrade the church building, which has been structurally unchanged since opening in 1971. Its dark wood paneling has a “funeral-home look,” said Thompson, who enjoys reading in his spare time along with spending time with his wife.

Another goal is to remain a part of the Mount Airy community along with his family while he continues to lead the church forward.

“I’d love to be here for awhile,” Thompson said. “The school system is just great. It’s a great place to raise kids.”

Cited From:

http://www.mtairynews.com/articles/2008/11/29/news/local_news/local20.txt