Southern Baptists plan evangelizing drive around Philadelphia

Monday, June 5, 2000 | 8:22 a.m.

The Southern Baptist Convention is the nation's largest Protestant denomination, but the 15.7 million members are concentrated in the rural and suburban heartland. In the Philadelphia area, it has no more than 12,000 members in 125 churches, many of which are only loosely affiliated.

In an attempt to set up a high-energy "regional church" that will create satellite churches of its own, seed money and advance workers have already been sent to the Montgomeryville area. Plans in the next few years call for church "plantings" and evangelizing drives around Philadelphia.

Other target cities include Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Las Vegas and Phoenix.

"This is a huge undertaking," said the Rev. William F. Mitchell, missions pastor for the 10,000-member First Baptist Church of Orlando, Fla., and advance man for the effort in Philadelphia.

First Baptist Church of Orlando and the denomination have each committed $250,000 to the "Heart for Philadelphia" project, to cover Mitchell's trips north, the lease of a field office in Lansdale, market research, advertising, facility rental, and the initial salary of a pastor.

The Rev. John Cope, 42, executive pastor of a mega-church in Lakeland, Fla., has been selected for that post and has said he will move his family to Montgomeryville in August.

The church "plant" will take place right down the road from the Bharatiya Temple, a Hindu temple slated to open June 18 in Montgomeryville. But despite controversy that followed the Southern Baptists' recent prayer campaigns for "lost" Hindus, Cope, Mitchell and other officials said their teams will be respectful of non-Christians when they canvass homes. They said their target group is lapsed and "unchurched" Christians.

"If you put a dot on the Montgomery Mall and go six miles in any direction, you'll find almost 200,000 people," Mitchell said. "A lot might have church affiliation, but on any given Sunday as much as 65 percent of them don't attend anybody's church."

For some area churches, the prospect of a regional church raises fears of "sheep-stealing," said David Mills, head of the 35-church Bux-Mont Coalition for Evangelism. But the Southern Baptists said their intent is not to lure people from other churches.

The Rev. Phil Olson, a church-growth specialist for Evangelicals for Social Action, which oversees church plantings for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), said he had observed Southern Baptist tactics and been impressed.

"As they do their neighborhood surveys, the first question is: 'Are you active in a local congregation?' If you say yes, they walk away. ... They simply don't want to be accused of spiritual cattle-rustling," Olson said.