By Melissa Lilley
At first glance it doesn’t quite make sense.
A businessman big into sales wants to start a church. Past retirement age, he speeds up instead of slowing down.
A predominantly white congregation on the wrong side of the interstate opens its doors to a black pastor and his new congregation.
It doesn’t quite make sense—to anyone but Phillip Cole and the Greensboro leaders and churches he’s involved in his magnificent quest.
Cole and Water of Life Community Church held their first worship service October 2006 at Southside Baptist Church in Greensboro—a black congregation meeting in the facilities of a predominantly white congregation.
Their story is inspiring new levels of awareness and cooperation in the Piedmont Baptist Association, and among North Carolina Baptists. And it inspires contributors to the North Carolina Missions Offering whose gifts help start new churches.
Answering the Call
For awhile Cole was like Moses, thinking of every reason he could not obey God. Looking back, he knows God prepared him for this new ministry.
In the early 1980s, Cole was a founding member of a new church plant, Good News Baptist Church in Greensboro. He learned firsthand the need for new churches, and became associate minister of the church in 2001.
One of Cole’s first steps in starting Water of Life was selecting a target audience. After much prayer, Cole decided missions begins at home and he focuses on people living within three square miles of his house.
For 40 days Cole prayer walked the grounds, getting to nearly every street in the three-mile radius.
Cole did not want to start church services until he had a place to meet, and he did not want that place to be more than two miles from where his target audience lived.
Larry Doyle, director of missions for Piedmont Baptist Association, helped Cole find a way to stay close to home. He put Cole in touch with Southside Baptist Church, a church Doyle knew wanted to get involved in its community.
Southside is unique in that it is a primarily white congregation in the middle of a large black population. In the 1970s when most people shunned racial integration, Southside members vowed to keep their church open to anyone.
This is not the first partnership for Southside. For five years the church sponsored a Vietnamese congregation and helped them build a facility for worship.
Working together
In Cole’s hometown it is rare to find a partnership like that of Southside and Water of Life. But black or white makes no difference to these pastors and their congregations.
“We’re their friends,” said Patrick Fuller, Southside pastor. “We eat together, we pray together – it’s like they are part of us. We have a heart to reach out to our community.”
Partnering with a new church plant is more than handing over a key to a meeting room; it is a “day-to-day” commitment, Fuller said.
Cole said both sides have to be sincere and genuine. “Both entities have to be transparent,” he said.
Southside provides Cole worship space, office space and funds and joins with his church in community outreach.
“You couldn’t ask any more of a church,” Cole said. “God’s hand has been on this work.”
The Baptist State Convention and Piedmont Association also partner with Cole. Cole attended a weeklong BSC Basic Training session for church planters to help them structure the first year of the church plant. Church planters are provided skill training, prayer experience and networking opportunity with other church planters.
Doyle helped Cole understand his spiritual gifts, and how and where he could best plant a church. Doyle said Piedmont Association—ground zero for the 2006 Crossover event—is excited about working with church planters.
“Our passion is to see our city radically transformed by the power of Christ,” he said. “We’re always looking for people to make an impact.”
Piedmont Association—which like other associations, receives about eight percent of the North Carolina Missions Offering funds its churches contribute—helps equip church planters by providing startup funds and scholarships to attend church planting conferences, and by connecting new church planters with mentors and church sponsors.
Good News Baptist Church also supports Cole and the new church.
Making a difference
Cole is not worried about making his church stand out in order to draw large crowds. “There’s no magic wand,” he said. “The message is the same – it’s the same Jesus and he saves the same way.”
Instead of making increased church membership the goal, Cole focuses on discipleship and teaching his congregation to love others and serve in their community.
“If we get the love thing right, God will bless the numbers,” Cole said. “God will bless and he will send and he will multiply.”
Cole recognizes God’s leading and direction in the new church plant and knows he is part of something special. “This didn’t just happen,” he said. “We’re amazed, and we’re blessed.”
For more information about how your church can support new church plants and other North Carolina Baptist ministries, call (800) 395-5102, ext. 5516.