Earlier this year, there was dirt in the baptistery at First Baptist Church (FBC) Mexia. That’s how long it had been since it had been used.

The church had lost about 100 people per decade since the 1990s, and they were down to about 115 when Robert Blackmon arrived to pastor the church last fall. All the ministerial staff had left as well as the audio/visual team and the praise team. 

The search committee chairman was honest about the church’s situation, but Blackmon saw potential. 

“I had read a lot about churches in this situation and done a lot of case studies and written about church revitalization,” Blackmon said, “but the reason I came here was because it seemed like God was giving me an opportunity to put that study into practice and see if God’s Word could actually do what I thought it could.”

Over the past few months, God’s movement at FBC Mexia has been no more evident than inside that same baptistery — where a custodian recently spent three hours vacuuming and scrubbing to prepare for what would become 12 successive weeks of baptisms at the newly revived church.

‘We just want somebody to love us’

There were still people in the congregation who remembered the church’s better days, and Blackmon said they did not want to see that completely fade away. At the same time, some expressed to Blackmon that they “kind of felt like God had abandoned them a little bit, or that He had removed the lampstand, if you want to use Revelation language,” he said.

“Preacher,” someone in the congregation told him upon his arrival, “we just want somebody to love us.” 

“To have somebody here who was excited about what God could do, it reminded them that even though they’d gone through a dark valley, God hadn’t left them in the process, and He still had a plan for them, and they could still make a difference in their community,” Blackmon said. 

Nathan Lino, senior pastor of First Baptist Church Forney, mentored Blackmon through the North American Mission Board Leadership Institute for five years and sent his resume to the FBC Mexia pastor search team. Blackmon graduated from Southwestern Seminary in 2024 with a doctorate in church revitalization.

He started with a commitment to pray, preach the Word and love God’s people, he said. A monthlong sermon series through Haggai tackled the topic of church revitalization.

“I was really honest about where I thought the church was and what some of (the) issues were and how God’s Word could address those things,” Blackmon said. 

People who had been hurt by recent conflict in the church needed their new shepherd to listen to them as they processed what had happened. They loved their church and wanted to move forward, but pain was a hindrance at first. 

The church began praying together more faithfully, and Blackmon started making a lot of hospital visits. “People have responded well to that because they know that I love and care about them,” Blackmon said. “I think they feel God’s love and care through that kind of attention.”

A brighter future

About 200 people now worship at FBC Mexia each Sunday, and the children’s ministry has grown from around five to more than 30. On Easter Sunday, the 350 people who attended marked the largest attendance at any service since the 1990s, the pastor was told.

“To have somebody here who could lay out a plan and say, ‘You’re not the only ones who have ever gone through this, this is really common, even in Southern Baptist churches, and God has turned those churches around, and He can do the same thing here,’ that gave them a lot of hope that was lost over the last few years,” Blackmon said.

Church members have begun the image repair needed in the community, now spreading excitement about FBC Mexia as well as sharing the Three Circles evangelism method to spread the name of Jesus. It has become unusual for the church to have a worship service that doesn’t include a baptism. 

“We had a young man in his 20s who was coming from a life of sin, and he started coming on Sunday mornings and felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit,” Blackmon said. “He was baptized. I started a discipleship group with young men in the church, and he meets with us every week, goes through a Bible reading plan, keeps a journal, prays with us.”

Giving has increased enough for the church to consider hiring additional staff members.

“I think a lot of people have been faithful here for a very long time and just needed a little bit of direction and vision, but now that they have that, they are the ones jumping in and making ministry happen,” Blackmon said. “My job is really to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, and they are the ones who are out there doing it.”