CLARKSVILLE — It is said that the key to good parenting is knowing when to hold your child’s hand and when to let go.
Ronny Raines, in a sense, feels the same is true in church planting.
Raines is the senior pastor at First Baptist Church, Clarksville. When he arrived at FBC, the church was in the process of helping “replant” Kirkwood Baptist Church — a once-thriving church that had dwindled to less than a dozen regular attendees in 2016.
With FBC’s help, Kirkwood experienced revitalization and began to regain its footing. Still, Raines believed even bigger things were in store.
“For me, this whole process was really about wanting to see Kirkwood grow and get to the point that it could be an autonomous, self-supporting church again,” said Raines. “I didn’t want Kirkwood to be just a satellite campus of First Baptist.”
In late 2023, Raines’ hopes for Kirkwood Baptist Church became reality.
The Kirkwood congregation — unified and galvanized by the goal of becoming an independent church — officially reconstituted after completing a series of five criteria that had been established by the FBC leadership.
The two churches celebrated the occasion together with an evening of worship, praise and rejoicing.
Ronny Raines, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Clarksville, and Jackson Moser, pastor of Kirkwood Baptist Church, stand together in front of a poster that was signed by church members during Kirkwood’s reconstitution service.
“It was just a beautiful night,” Raines said about the reconstitution service. “It’s been a great joy for our church to see this happen, and that was just a special night all the way around.”
Jackson Moser, who formerly served as the student pastor at FBC Clarksville, is now the senior pastor at Kirkwood.
“It’s been incredible to see God at work in this situation,” said Raines.
Bill Choate, Harvest Field 3 ministry leader and collegiate ministries director for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, said that what happened with FBC and Kirkwood can — and should — serve as a model for “parent churches” all across Tennessee.
“FBC Clarksville has generously and unselfishly given direction, encouragement and resources to bolster this local congregation to bridge through the changes necessary,” Choate said. “It is crucial we see this as a reproducible model that can be reproduced across our state.”
Kirkwood was established in the mid-1800s and had once been a vibrant church. But the church went through a season of steady decline, and appeared to be on the verge of possibly closing its doors. Then, in 2016, FBC Clarksville initiated the revitalizing and replanting of Kirkwood — not just by providing financial support but also supplying leadership and sending some of the FBC family to infuse the Kirkwood campus.
“A number of people from here went out to Kirkwood just to try to bring some stability to it,” said Raines. “They started doing the connect group out there and so forth, and we also had a guy on staff here that went out there to do some pastoring. When I came (to FBC), I knew early on that we needed a full-time pastor out there at Kirkwood.”
Ronny Raines, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Clarksville, stand together in front of a poster that was signed by church members during Kirkwood’s reconstitution service.
At the time, Moser was serving as student pastor at FBC. But again, Raines sensed that something bigger was in store.
“Jackson was feeling God’s call to go another direction,” said Raines. “I met with him during that time, mentored him through all that, and then I asked him to go out to Kirkwood and just pray one day to see if God was calling him to go there and serve as, at that time, a campus pastor.”
Moser did just that — and soon felt God’s call to go to Kirkwood. He resigned from the student ministry at FBC, and went to Kirkwood as campus pastor. He has since transitioned into the role of senior pastor now that the church has become independent.
“I had communicated to Jackson when he started at Kirkwood that the goal was to see the church reconstitute and to be autonomous, self-supporting,” Raines said.
With that goal in mind, Raines and his staff developed five criteria that they wanted to see come to pass before Kirkwood would reconstitute.
“When we first laid out those five criteria, we felt like it might happen in 2025 or so,” said Raines. “But lo and behold, it happened in 2023 — much faster than any of us ever anticipated.”
Raines said the keys to the rapid growth at Kirkwood are numerous.
“Part of it is that Jackson is doing a good job pastoring out there,” said Raines. “And another part of it is that they have solid people. Also, there’s a lot of physical growth in that area, with so many new houses and so many new families.”
The five criteria that the FBC leadership established for Kirkwood were:
(1) Running over 100 in worship. “The average Southern Baptist church doesn’t have 100 people,” said Raines. “I believe it’s more like 67 or something like that. So, we wanted to see Kirkwood running over 100 people in order to move forward.”
(2) Reaching $15,000 in monthly giving. Raines said he believed this would be a good starting point, but said that the Kirkwood members quickly and easily exceeded that number.
(3) Establishing a budget that would include giving 10 percent through the Cooperative Program. “That was literally written in, right off the start — 10 percent to CP. And that was a major point to us. We give 10 percent to CP here at FBC Clarksville, and we wanted to be sure to put that into their DNA as well.”
(4) Coordinating all the governing documents. Raines noted that this included the constitution and bylaws, the personnel policies, the church charter and other such matters.
(5) Performing a building inspection. This included making sure the building(s) were up to code and were suitable to meet the needs of the church.
Raines said Kirkwood went to work on meeting those five criteria in short order.
“We weren’t going to move forward until they checked off each of those boxes — and wow, they did it in about a year and half earlier than we thought they would,” said Raines. “They just nailed it. They did great on that, and they’re still doing great now.”
Raines said that he and Moser recently met together, and Moser reported that the church is now having about 130 or 140 in attendance on Sundays and is holding two services.
Choate said it has been encouraging to see Kirkwood move into this position and to now be a “free-standing” church.
“One of the challenges we observe that churches are facing is that change in demographics where the town or city envelops the rural church,” said Choate. “It’s a tough transition — revisioning the mission of the church, sharing leadership with new members, revamping worship and discipleship programs and renovating space for that new mission. Kirkwood has done a good job of the transition.”
Raines said seeing Kirkwood reconstituted is a victory that has been especially enjoyable to watch on a personal level.
“My entire ministry has been about revitalization,” Raines said. “Pretty much everywhere I’ve been in my ministry, it’s been a revitalization situation. So that’s kind of been my DNA and that’s been my heart.
“Even on my first Sunday (at FBC), when I was here in view of a call, I was out at Kirkwood that morning to meet with them,” Raines recalled. “It was clear for me that they really wanted to reconstitute. And when I met with our church, that’s what they really wanted as well.”
Now, Raines has seen it come to pass: One church has become two. His hope is that the mulitplicaton only continues from here. B&R