Roopville Baptist reconnects with community through service and gospel

ROOPVILLE, Ga. — Three years ago, Roopville Baptist Church averaged seven people in worship and faced a painful reality. The 145-year-old church many people remembered was gone.

Pastor Nathan Williams said that did not mean the church was finished.

“The plan was we’re going to love Jesus, we’re going to love each other, and we’re going to love this community,” Williams said. “That was the plan.”

Since then, Roopville Baptist has grown to an average attendance of about 50 and has recorded 20 baptisms, 12 of them connected to salvation decisions. But Williams said the turnaround began before the numbers changed. It began when the church accepted that it had to rebuild trust with its community.

Williams describes what happened at Roopville as reconstruction, not because the church rebuilt its facilities, but because it had to rebuild trust, identity, and mission.

The first step was listening.

Church members went door to door in Roopville, a small, one-street agricultural community with no traffic light, asking people what they liked and disliked about the church. “We had a few doors shut in our face,” Williams said. “More than a handful of times, you would hear, ‘I’ll never step foot in that church.’”

The solution was to point back to Jesus in everything they did.

They had to fall back in love with Jesus.

“How we see coming to church is, ‘I’m so in love with Jesus that I just want to serve,’” Williams said.

Early in the process, the church stayed in the Word and prayed through the slow time. They did Bible studies on Wednesdays. Williams preached an early sermon titled, "I Can’t, But He Can.” The book Reclaiming Glory by senior director of replanting at the North American Mission Board, Mark Clifton, was also a big help early on in the process, Williams said.

Then, they got to work.

The church opened its facilities to the community. If someone wanted to teach karate in the fellowship hall, Williams said, the answer was yes.

“If there’s somebody that wants to teach karate in the fellowship hall, then we’re going to let them teach karate in the fellowship hall,” Williams said.

A group of older ladies in the church started a monthly luncheon for elderly shut-ins, widows, and widowers. The church also purchased bounce houses for the community to use and served at homecoming festivals, parades, and community events.

The church also worked to reintroduce itself. Leaders changed the church logo and began marketing the church with cups, Frisbees, and wristbands to signal a new era and let people know Roopville was still there, but it was a new day.

Williams also reached out directly to the mayor and town council. His message was simple: Roopville Baptist wanted to serve and become a pillar of the community again.

“I want you to know that we’ll do anything we can,” Williams said.

As the church served, the community began to notice.

In 2023, Roopville held a one-day Vacation Bible School with 16 children in attendance.

In 2025, the church held a free bluegrass concert with food vendors and seven bands. The first year drew 500 attendees. It is now an annual event.

The church held a car show before the bluegrass festival. Leaders expected 15 cars. They got more than 50. The event created significant community buzz, and a couple of families joined the church after attending.

The church also converted its parsonage into a community meal center called “The House.” When members cleared out items from the house through a yard sale, the sale became more than a fundraiser. Two families became permanent members through contacts made there.

Even old school desks opened a door. The house had 100 of them, and the owner of a local rage room came to pick them up. That encounter led to a gospel conversation, and he later returned.

Another family, which had never answered the door during neighborhood visits, stopped at the yard sale. That conversation eventually led to the wife being baptized after she had previously been told she could not be baptized because she could not remember the exact date of her salvation.

The turnaround did not happen quickly. “The first year and a half, we got up to about 20 to 25 people and sort of plateaued a little bit for a while,” Williams said. “But even with that plateau, it wasn’t a bad thing because people were actually allowing God to work in their life.”

During that season, Williams said, the church stayed in the Word, prayed, and let God rebuild the people before He rebuilt the numbers.

For Williams, the turnaround is evidence of what God can do when believers submit to His leadership.

God is not done with the church, Williams said.

“God’s blessing waits on the other side of our obedience to Him,” Williams said. “As far as we can get away from God, He’s still right there. The quicker we get out of the way, the quicker God can actually work.”

Roopville is becoming a gospel pillar of the community again, and the church’s reputation is being restored.

“We’re family,” Williams said. “We come together and we help each other, and our community is going to know the same thing.”

Williams said he has seen hearts begin to soften toward the church.

“The biggest thing that I’ve learned about our community is that their hearts are starting to soften for the 145-year-old church,” Williams said. “People are actively seeking that community church again.”

That softening has included old members returning, even a 60-year member who once said he would never come back. His wife was saved about 18 months ago.

For Williams, the events are not the point. They are bridges to the gospel.

“I don’t ever want us to be just an event-driven church,” he said, “but I want us to be a gospel church that our events are based off of the gospel. I want people to look and say, ‘I got to hear the gospel because of that.’”

Steve Foster, evangelism catalyst for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, said the church’s story shows what happens when a congregation returns to the basics of faithfulness.

“Lives are being transformed. People are hearing the gospel. Believers are being strengthened. The church is once again becoming a lighthouse in its community,” Foster said.

Foster said church revitalization is rarely about discovering the newest program. More often, it is about returning to timeless biblical priorities: loving Jesus deeply, preaching His Word faithfully, serving the community intentionally, and keeping the gospel at the center of everything.

“If your church is small or struggling, don’t lose heart,” Foster said. “Seven people is not too few for God. Twenty-five people is not a dead end. The God who builds His Church is still at work today.”