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Editor’s note: Chip Parmer is pastor of First Baptist Church in Marlin. He recently shared part of his testimony with the Texan’s Gary Ledbetter.
Every church I’ve pastored for my 19 years has been a revitalization effort. We’ve been here [First Baptist Church of Marlin, southeast of Waco] for nearly two years. The church was running about 50 people at the time. One of the first things we noticed about the ministry was the church had no children’s ministry or youth ministry; they hadn’t for a long time.
That was something we wanted to address, because if we’re going to try to reach our community, we need to reach younger families. That means we had to have something for their kids.
Right away, we reached out to the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and they put us in contact with Lexi Hood, who is a consultant for the convention. Lexi came in and worked with us, helping us develop a plan and a system for our first year of children’s ministry.
That was about the time we met Janet Evans. Janet was from Marlin, but she had been with Cru for 40 years working all around the country, though mainly in New York. She was an amazing woman, a godly woman of prayer. And though she never had really worked with children, she said, “There’s a need and I’m going to step in.”
Janet became our children’s director and she was faithful, plugged in. She helped so much in making sure the structure was there and that everybody had what they needed. And we started to see some slow growth. Last year, we probably ran two to three kids (after having no children’s ministry previously), but we were faithful with it. This year we transitioned to Awana, and Janet became our Awana director. And again, she just went all in, making sure we had well-equipped teachers and doing an amazing job helping everything run smoothly and on the right track. Once again, we saw some growth so that we now were seeing five or six kids each Sunday night. Janet was a way that God had answered a new pastor’s prayers. Overall, our church attendance had also risen by 10-15, and we’d even had some baptisms following our second VBS.
[In February], Janet had gone out to dinner with some friends and got back in her car to go home and had an aneurysm and passed away. I was at a loss. I really didn’t know how to respond. I haven’t ever experienced that, didn’t know what to do. Our adult ladies, our teachers were crying. I mean, they were just so emotional about losing Janet, losing a best friend. Janet had played an integral part in leading some of them to Christ, developing their relationship with Christ.
So, I started praying and the Lord prompted me to reach back out to Lexi. I made the call, and Lexi was just amazing. She was comforting. She was compassionate. She prayed with us and then she said, “I’m going to start working on some things.” Within, I want to say 24 hours, she was formulating a plan to come help us minister to our kids and to our adults, because I think that’s the thing [the adult workers] that is sometimes missed. I mean, the kids are so important, but the teachers, they had such a close relationship with Janet and they were suffering, too.
My wife, Clarissa, and I were at the Empower Conference about a week later and Lexi introduced us to Karen Kennemur. Karen leads children’s and family ministries for the SBTC, and she was like, “Hey, let me meet with y’all in the morning.” The next morning, Karen proposed to send a counselor to come to our church to talk with the kids and the children’s workers. That’s the plan we formulated, that they were going to come in, Karen and Lexi, and Lexi would lead it and then take the kids. The kids did a painting project honoring Janet that we hung up in the church, a stained-glass cross with her favorite Scripture on there for her. Then they brought in a counselor from Houston and she talked with the adults. Our adults needed that so much.
It just helped remind me that God puts people in our lives to help us and to be there—that we don’t have to have all the answers because God has all the answers. We can go to Him and He will direct us. Especially for me, it solidified that our state convention cares no matter what size your church is. When there’s a need, they’re going to meet it. Jeff Lynn [SBTC’s senior strategist for Church Health and Leadership] was also helping in the background. I heard from [SBTC Executive Director] Nathan Lorick. Everybody reached out to me, and that was a blessing and an encouragement.
I think anytime you come in and start facing adversity, you can get discouraged. At the same time, God used what has taken place with Janet to bring joy and even a little bit of rejuvenation and growth out of death. I often think about that passage where Jesus is talking about how unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it doesn’t bear fruit. This is one of those instances where a death, although tragic and sudden—and we miss her—has produced spiritual fruit that I believe is going to be lasting and impactful.
I think that’s a great testimony to a life lived for Jesus, that even when a great saint passes, God can still use that moment to bring forth more spiritual fruit. I think that’s a great testimony to Janet.
