NAMB’s Largest Replant Summit Mobilizes 181 Churches for Renewal

The North American Mission Board reported on August 28 that nearly 400 pastors and ministry leaders attended its August 25–26 Replant Summit in Alpharetta, Georgia, making it the largest gathering of its kind the organization has hosted. Participants represented 181 churches in 24 states, giving the meeting significance beyond a single region or local network. The summit centered on Scripture, teaching, worship, prayer, church renewal, and multiplication. Those emphases reflect the complicated work facing congregations that have experienced long decline: replanting is not merely a branding exercise or a short campaign to improve attendance. It commonly requires leaders to reckon honestly with a church’s condition, rebuild trust, recover a clear sense of mission, steward aging facilities and limited finances, and help long-time members imagine faithful change without treating their history as disposable. NAMB’s report also situated replanting within Send Network, its church-planting family, signaling that renewed churches are not meant simply to survive. They are encouraged to regain enough spiritual and organizational health to serve their communities, develop leaders, cooperate with other churches, and participate in planting or renewing congregations elsewhere. That multiplication emphasis matters nationally because many American towns and neighborhoods already have church buildings and remaining congregations, yet those churches may lack the momentum, leadership pipeline, or community connection needed for a new season of ministry. A replant can preserve a gospel witness and a ministry location while inviting a congregation to embrace the costly work of repentance, reconciliation, discipleship, and outward mission. The summit’s size does not by itself guarantee healthy outcomes, but it does show a broad demand for practical and theological support among pastors who are carrying that work in very different settings.

During the gathering, NAMB recognized Daniel Sanderson, pastor of McIntosh Baptist Church in Griffin, Georgia, as its 2026 Replanter of the Year. The church, founded in 1894, had endured serious decline before partnering with its local Baptist association and beginning a process of renewal. NAMB described the congregation as regaining health and becoming multigenerational, a particularly useful picture because successful revitalization is not simply replacing one age group with another. Healthy renewal honors faithful older members while creating room for children, younger adults, new believers, and families who may not know the congregation’s history. Sanderson’s recognition also keeps the focus on patient local ministry rather than abstract statistics. Replanting often asks a pastor and congregation to make unglamorous decisions over many years: listening before changing, clarifying membership expectations, strengthening preaching and prayer, repairing community relationships, recruiting volunteers, and measuring progress by faithfulness as well as attendance. For pastors reading this news, the summit can serve as encouragement to seek outside counsel instead of carrying decline in isolation. For associations and thriving churches, it is a prompt to offer relationships, training, financial help, and shared ministry rather than waiting for a struggling congregation to close. For members of declining churches, the report suggests that renewal need not erase a church’s story; it can redirect that inheritance toward present mission. The clearest lesson is that church renewal is both spiritual and practical. It depends on the Word, prayer, worship, and gospel confidence, but it also requires humble leadership, realistic assessment, cooperation, and sustained care for real people. A renewed church becomes most persuasive when it moves from self-preservation toward serving neighbors and helping other congregations flourish.