Most pastors with church memberships of 12,000-plus would laugh at the thought of leaving and planting a new church. James Merritt didn't laugh, and today he is pastor of the new Church at Cross Pointe in one of the fastest-growing areas of suburban Atlanta. Merritt is a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention and hosts a weekly television ministry called Touching Lives. Preaching editor Michael Duduit recently had an opportunity to visit with Merritt at his new church facility.
Preaching: As pastor of the First Baptist Church in Snellville (GA), you were leading one of the larger churches in the region, preaching to more than 3,000 people each Sunday. Now you are in essentially a start-up situation. What led to this, your decision to leave a large, established church and start a new work?
Merritt: We had spent almost eighteen years at Snellville, had a great ministry. The people are tremendous, wonderful people. God did a lot of great things there — far beyond anything I ever dreamed I would be capable of doing on my own. But in Gwinnett County, the real strong growth is towards the northern part of the county.
So several years ago I had gone to the church with a plan. The vision was always to reach the most people that we could for Christ but the plan was that we would go up north of the county there — Snellville is in the south end of the. We would start in a school or something with a couple hundred people. Do it just like any other church start: start in a school, try to get your legs under you, maybe eventually buy some property and build a multi-purpose building. Grow incrementally. So I was going to attempt to pastor one church at two locations.
What happened was this came about — the situation changed drastically with 71 acres and 360,000 square feet of buildings right off of interstate 85 here in Atlanta. A piece of property that was on the market for over $20 million originally was bought for $9 million by some very wonderful, good, godly men — who gave it to us. What I quickly realized as all of this was coming together was the Lord began to move in my heart. I just did not feel like I could do justice and give leadership to Snellville — which is already a mega church — give it the kind of leadership it needed as well as give something as massive as this the kind of leadership that it needed. So I prayed it through, talked it through with my wife, my family — they all unanimously agreed they felt in their own heart that this was something God was leading us to do.
I've never planted a church in my life. Don't know a whole lot about it. But you know, God just gave me a passion for it. And with all due respect to Snellville, I believe that we are in a location or situation where I've got the opportunity to do more than I was able to do in Snellville. I pray that will be the case. Snellville is still a great work but I just felt like this was an opportunity that I could not afford to pass up.