By Barbara Denman –  January 5, 2012

The elementary school student three decades ago was determined to do his part to grow a church that had been planted in his family’s living room, even if it was a simple job of tackling the grass with his mower.

As a seminary student in Louisville, his green thumb in planting churches again blossomed while launching churches around the country and later planting churches for Highview Baptist Church in that Kentucky city.

Perhaps church planting was in his spiritual DNA, because Jimmy Scroggins, now 40, has set his sights on starting new churches in South Florida, where an estimated 6.6 million unreached people live. As the pastor of the First Baptist Church in West Palm Beach, he has set a goal of leading his church to start 100 new churches in the three-county region.

In the past year, the church has launched two new congregations—La Iglesia Familiar and Family Church in Abacoa. He also has two potential church plants on the drawing board, one targeting the city’s Haitians and another on the western end of the county where the population has grown exponentially.

It’s an ambitious task, but one Scroggins believes is grounded in the Great Commission and fed by the Holy Spirit which calls the New Testament church to “preach the gospel to all kinds of people in ways they understand,” he said.

“South Florida is a unique place, located below the Bible Belt,” Scroggins explained, “It is different—it’s more cosmopolitan, it’s more diverse, it’s more unchurched and it’s more under-evangelized.”

He set for himself the challenge to see “if a historic church can reach people where they are while simultaneously launching as many churches as we can.”

With an estimated one million people in Palm Beach County who do not profess a faith in Jesus Christ, Scroggins concluded that it would require a thousand new churches with 1,000 members each to reach the spiritually lost in that county.

“We can plant as many churches as we can for the rest of our lives and still not reach the lost here.”

“Family Church at Abacoa” was birthed on Florida Atlantic University’s Jupiter campus a year ago and now garners 200-250 in attendance each Sunday. The church was created after Central Baptist Church in Jupiter disbanded and merged with First Baptist Church of West Palm Beach in an effort “to leverage resources, talents, creativity, people, and stewardship,” Scroggins said.

The Jupiter congregation had dwindled to only a handful, said former Central church leader Bill Vorlicky. “The church was declining; we had lost our youth and our young families. We were so intentionally focused on just trying to keep the doors open, our energy was devoted internally instead of externally to spread the gospel.”

The church building was located away from the community’s explosive growth.

By disbanding and then merging with the West Palm Beach church to start the new church, members have “reached more people for Jesus Christ,” said Vorlicky.

First Baptist sent a campus pastor, worship leader and trained workers to cultivate the community, located about 15 minutes north of West Palm, and put into place activities to attract young families. Scroggins preaches each Sunday morning, leaving downtown after his second service and allowing a teaching pastor to lead the third service.

“God has blessed us beyond our anticipation. It is exciting to see the work grow here” added Vorlicky as the new church reaches families, youth and students.

Ann Marie Simon and her family were drawn to the Abacoa church by signs posted in the neighborhood. “We hadn’t been at Family Church for more than five minutes when we knew we were in the right place and this would be our family.”

After attending the church for a little more than a month, Simon was injured in a life-changing accident that left her paralyzed above the waist, she said. “Not that we had any doubt from the first day, but the outpouring of love from this church and its parishioners, confirmed that we were truly among family and in a Bible-based church, which is clearly led by the Holy Spirit.”

The Hispanic congregation, La Iglesia Familiar, meets at First Baptist’s downtown location and has drawn between 100 and 130 in preview services, in preparation for the launch in October. The new congregation is led by Bernie Cueto, who serves as campus pastor at Palm Beach Atlantic University and a teaching pastor at First Baptist.

This church starting strategy has been so successful, that Scroggins plans to replicate it when starting the new Haitian church in 2012 and a new congregation in West Palm Beach County in 2013.

Al Fernandez, team strategist for Florida Baptist Urban Impact Ministries, has been working hand in hand with Scroggins in developing the church starting strategy for South Florida needs. “The amazing thing is that God uses these conversations and relationships for us to partner with churches to start new churches that can reach different people groups within the same community.”

He added, “Even the English speaking Jupiter church is reaching people that could not be reached at the downtown building. Church planting is simply the task of expanding the Kingdom of God.”

Long-time First Baptist members have embraced Scroggin’s focus on church planting, said Bev Bonner, director of assimilation and church life. The congregation continues to flourish and reach people.

Since Scroggins’ arrival at the church in August 2008, 773 new members have been added. Weekly worship attendance stands at 1,600.

The church’s strategy is focused on Biblical teaching, building families and birthing congregations, providing inward ministry through small study groups, training parents and children, and congregational events such as fellowships and tailgate parties.

The community impact has been accomplished in neighborhoods through Easter Egg Hunts, Trunk or Treat activities. The congregation adopted a local elementary school providing backpacks, school supplies, school uniforms, student mentoring and tutoring, teacher and staff appreciation, encouragement and workdays around the grounds and facilities.

“Getting our church families involved with the communities around us is helping us to birth new congregations,” said Bonner.

Each week, baptismal waters are stirred with new converts, including 39 new believers who were baptized during a September ocean baptism.

Prior to his September baptism, Jacob Janicek, 21, was in and out of rehabilitation centers before he was led to the church by his mother who was also baptized there. Turning away from long-time substance abuse was only possible through divine intervention, he said.

“I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for the Lord. This church is the place where the grace of God can be found,” he said.

After receiving a terminally ill diagnosis, Bill Wiley and his wife, Shirley, who had been brought to the church by friends, were recently baptized. “My husband is afraid of dying,” said Shirley. “Praying to receive Christ took a lot of fear off of us. God is giving us a peace he is going to a better place.”

Whether Scroggins is cutting grass for a new church or leading a historic congregation on new paths, the lawn-mowing youngster from Jacksonville has consistently emulated Paul’s admonition-planting, watering and cultivating while relying on God to give the increase.