Our Church

I was called to Chatham to revitalize Chatham Baptist Church, a wonderful 150-year old congregation which had been declining for several years. Our town of Chatham, VA has 1300 residents, and is the county seat for Pittsylvania County located in “Southside” Virginia. Chatham is home to Hargrave Military Academy, which our church helped found; and, Chatham Hall, an Episcopal prep school for girls. Our entire community is undergoing tremendous social and economic change due to the loss of tobacco, textile, and furniture manufacturing. Individuals, organizations, and institutions have come together to reimagine this area and our church is part of that process. And, in the midst of all that, we still do many of the things that traditional Virginia Baptist churches do. So, we’re walking a fine line between reinventing ourselves, and honoring the traditions that are valuable to our members and community.

Our Missional Approach to Ministry

Here are some of the things we have done here since 2004:

• Started a Boys and Girls Club, an after-school program targeting underserved kids. About 80 kids attend each day, and they do homework, get snacks, play games, learn life skills, and have access to a computer lab.
• Founded a community music school for kids under the name, Chatham Arts. About 30-children take violin, cello, piano, guitar, and voice lessons at our church each week. The goal is to form a community youth orchestra. The music school is a partnership with Virginia Tech and the Renaissance Music Academy of Blacksburg, VA. See photos here.
• Collaborated with artists and educators in our community to offer Soundcheck, a monthly teen open mic night. On the last Friday night of each month, about 80-teens gather in our church basement, which gets transformed into a “coffee house” for the evening. Outreach magazine did a feature on us in the Nov/Dec 2006 issue, Partnering For Art’s Sake.
• I pulled together a coalition of area pastors to form Chatham Cares, a non-profit corporation. I serve as president and our mission is to design, build, and operate a community center, for which we have received a $3-million grant. Our county does not have a recreation program or community center, so we’re excited about this project. Update: On May 19, 2008, The Community Center at Chatham opened to rave reviews.
• We revamped our community VBS in 2005, increasing attendance from 60 to over 180 each night. You can see photos here.
• In conjunction with the Chatham Arts Community Music School, we host classical music concerts in our sanctuary featuring touring performers and groups, such as The Van Brugh quartet, the Irish Broadcasting Company’s resident string quartet. These concerts are funded by ticket sales, local support, and grants from the National Endowment of the Arts.
• On January 20, 2008, we hosted the first community interracial celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s life and legacy at our church. The Danville, VA newspaper covered the story here.
• We also do some seasonal stuff like our parking lot movies, Sundown Cinema; and, Family Skate Nights.

Articles, Video About Us in the Media

• Our local paper, The Star-Tribune, has run several articles about our ministry, and you can access those articles here.
• The Danville, Virginia daily newspaper, The Register and Bee, ran this story, Community Center Coming To Chatham last July.
• The Religious Herald, Virginia Baptist’s state paper, ran a frontpage story about our church written by editor Jim White titled, Small Church, Big Impact.
• Outreach magazine featured our arts outreach in the Nov/Dec 2006 issue, in an article written by Alicia Kaszuk, Partnering for Art’s Sake.
• Chatham Cares articles and a video clip from WSET-TV in Lynchburg appear here.

Measuring Our Missional Impact

We recognize that not everyone who participates in our community ministries will attend our church. While some do attend, and we continue to reach out to others, missional ministry is most accurately reflected in participation in each ministry. Here are some numbers of how we’re impacting our community. We are now reaching –

• 180-kids, 5-18 years, who are members of the Boys and Girls Club;
• 80+ kids who attend the club each weekday;
• 30-children and teens who take music lessons each week at our community music school;
• 70-to-100 families per week who are connected with these 2 programs;
• 60-80 teens who show up for Soundcheck each month;
• 20-30 senior adults from our community come to our monthly Adult Fellowship luncheon;
• 50-150 people attend our classical music concerts and music school student performances;
• 25 senior adults participate in our monthly bus day-trips;
• our two worship services reach 100 per week;
• about 50-60 people attend our Sundown Cinemas during warm weather;
• 70 people attended our Family Skate Nights;
• 65 members of our church participate in Deacon Team Ministry, a gifts-based ministry to our membership and community.

For the future, we’re exploring other ministries such as a “soup kitchen,” developing visual arts programs for kids, and a bunch of other courses and programs that will help revitalize not only our church, but also our community.

I hope all this gives you some idea of what we are doing in our small congregation and why we are doing it. Stop in often, because things change quickly in our small town!