'God's lead' takes Estero church from surviving to thriving

Courtesy photo

Jennifer and Frank Brand are flanked by their children (from left) Joey, Jamie, Adrienne and Ava Joy. He is pastor of First Baptist Church in Estero. The once dying church is planning to expand its facilities and plant other churches.

ESTERO (FBW)—Four years ago the dozen members attending First Baptist Church in Estero considered closing the church but a faithful few prayed the church would survive. Today, the congregation not only survives, but thrives in its southwest Florida community.

As the Florida church prayed, the Southeast Baptist Association in Indiana planned a joint mission trip with Royal Palm Baptist Association in Florida. The Indiana team that conducted nightly services at First Baptist Estero included Frank Brand, the associate pastor of First Baptist Church in Sellersburg. During the trip, the group showered and dressed for services at the Estero parsonage. Brand told Florida Baptist Witness he prayed for the church as he showered.

"I said, 'Lord, bless this church. This is a nice home and somebody that You call will come to serve and live here,'" Brand remembers telling God.

He didn't know that church members were praying for him as he prayed for them. As the mission trip neared its end, the tiny congregation approached the young associate pastor about coming as its pastor.

"I looked at the desperate situation they faced, and said 'no,'" Brand recalled.

Two months later, he called the church back to say he could not stop thinking about the church at Estero. He asked them to continue praying. While the hurricanes of 2004 delayed his return trip in view of a call, the Georgia native and his wife of 14 years, Jennifer, contemplated moving their three young children away from her native Indiana to Florida. They recounted the few positives of the church situation: a debt-free facility and a growing area.

"When my wife got excited about it, I knew we were moving," Brand said. "It was a real step of faith."

The family of five moved into "the biggest parsonage in the world" three years ago, and the new pastor began work. Admitting "things were tight when we first came," Brand and his family settled into the community, and he adopted Hosea 10:12 as his motto: "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord til He come and rain righteousness upon you."

With the pledge "to keep on plowing and keep on planting," he preached and led the music in every service. After a year, his wife's cousin, Jim Hamilton, visited from Indiana and stayed two years to lead the music.

Every week, Brand said, the congregation "couldn't wait" to see the new blessings that God would provide. Almost every week someone made a profession of faith, not "just transfer growth," Brand said.

Not long after he came, Brand said he encountered a team of men unloading equipment at the church. He asked their leader, "Can I help you?" The man replied, "I don't know what to say except that we have things to do."

Brand learned that a "man of means" had sent people to the church to give it a face-lift. They painted, rewired, landscaped and installed irrigation in what Brand called "an extreme make-over."

Changes are not limited to the facilities. God has accomplished an "extreme make-over" in the heart of the church as well. Today the congregation counts more in just the youth group than voted on the new pastor's call four years ago, with almost as many in children's church. The pastor's family also grew. Ava Joy, "our big surprise," the pastor's youngest daughter, was born last year, he said.

More than 300 attend worship in two services and two Sunday Schools "during season." Pastor Brand said the pattern for the last three years shows that attendance peaks during the winter and "then everybody goes home," but the summer attendance swells to match winter numbers. A Southwest Florida Roundup Jamboree attracted 450 for worship and a barbecue in November 2007. A second full-time staff member, Assistant Pastor Wayne Rogers, now ministers to senior adults, although Brand said he has put "a lot of different hats" on his fellow Southern Baptist Theological Seminary alum.

Pastor Brand does not let an opportunity to pray with and for residents of Estero pass him by. When someone relates to him a problem, he stops and prays with the troubled person on the spot.

"The first chance you get to pray with them, do it," Brand offered as advice for any leader. "I take them immediately to the throne of God."

Brand said his neighbors in the community tell him, "You're doing a great job," but I tell them, "It is God doing it and He continues to amaze us."

The pastor is also quick to praise former Interim Pastor Phil Messenger, "one of my heroes," for his part in leading the church "during one of its most difficult times." Also the few church members who remained in the church "stood in the gap," and worked to change the dire situation, Brand said. Two deacons, Lowell Mason and Dewey Martin, were instrumental in the church's survival, he said.

Now far beyond worrying about its survival, the congregation has big plans for its future. The church hopes soon to expand its facilities and to multiply by planting more churches. It also wants to continue its pattern of annual mission trips. A construction team worked in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and 14 members ministered in an orphanage in Guatemala last summer. Included in its future plans is calling a minister to children, "as the Lord provides," Brand said.

In the meantime, the pastor said he and his congregation intend "to remain faithful and consistent."

"We keep following His lead and He keeps blessing," Brand said.