Johnson Ferry Baptist Church proposes new worship center

Members of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church on Sunday learned the outline of what its leadership is calling a “Forward Vision” that proposes building a new worship center on its East Cobb campus.

The plans also call for extending church-planting activities in the metro Atlanta area, as well as expanding global missionary projects.

On Sunday, members attending services were shown a nearly 12-minute video with Senior Pastor Rev. Clay Smith introducing them to the future plan, which he said would be detailed over the next month (you can watch the video in full at the bottom of this story).

Members also received a “Forward” guide book with scripture passages they will be studying during that time. The objective, Smith said, is for Johnson Ferry to act boldly over next two years as “a launching pad for what we do in the next 20 years.”

At Sunday worship services, he asked members for “100 percent participation” and to be “all-in” in helping take the next steps to plot the church’s future.

“We are inviting our entire church body to move forward together in faith and generosity to make a generational difference,” said the message about the Forward Vision plan on the Johnson Ferry website.

“This about more than a building,” Smith said in the pre-recorded video, which included segments from other church leaders and members involving in the East Cobb congregation’s campus and community activities.

“This is about strengthening unity, expanding capacity and accelerating our mission,” Smith said in the video.

Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, which has 4,700 members, is located on a 37-acre campus it has occupied since 1983 on Johnson Ferry Road near Woodlawn Drive.

As East Cobb News reported in May, church leaders have been contemplating building a new worship venue in recent years due to membership growth and to have the sprawling congregation worship under a single roof.

Currently Johnson Ferry holds three modern worship services in the gymnasium of its vast activities center and a traditional service in the sanctuary.

Neither are large enough to accommodate what church leaders say they need to transform the 44-year-old faith community for the long-term future, into a “multi-generational, multi-ethnic congregation.”

In May, they described a new worship center with a capacity of 2,500. The renderings shown on the video introduced on Sunday don’t indicate a size for the new structure, which would connect to the activities center.

While some nearby Baptist congregations have been contracting—Roswell Street Baptist in Marietta recently announced it would become part of First Baptist in Woodstock—Johnson Ferry has been challenged by accommodating its growth during significant generational change.

In 2018, Smith succeeded founding pastor Rev. Bryant Wright, who guided Johnson Ferry to national prominence. He was a two-time president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., but told Smith he was retiring from his Johnson Ferry post to pave the way for a forward-thinking vision for the church.

The Johnson Ferry sanctuary holds around 1,200, and the gym in the activities center has a capacity of 1,600. Church leaders say three-quarters of their attendance is in the latter space.

“They don’t always have community together,” Shane Bruce, Johnson Ferry’s executive pastor, told East Cobb News in May.

This spring, Johnson Ferry Baptist members were asked to provide feedback to a special exploratory committee, then underwent a 40-day fasting period as church leaders contemplated future plans, which they said they would announce in the fall.

In July, the church purchased 1.7 acres at 919 Johnson Ferry Road next to the sanctuary that had been residential property.

According to Cobb property tax records, Johnson Ferry paid $2 million for the property, which is where the new worship venue is being planned.

Smith said in a recent video on the church website that two donors have come forward with funding that would more than cover the purchase amount.

When asked for more information last week by East Cobb News, Johnson Ferry communications director TJ King said he couldn’t say more until after Sunday, but that the land purchase was a “huge answer to our prayers!”

The extended community outreach includes “planting” another Johnson Ferry congregation in metro Atlanta, but specifics haven’t been announced.

During a sermon at one one of the modern worship services Sunday (you can watch it here), Smith urged members to attend church for all five weeks as the future plans are detailed.

He preached from the Gospel of Matthew about the miracle of Jesus walking on the water, and asked members to “get out of the boat” and place their faith in helping establish a future for their church.

“When is the last time you attempted to do something great for God?” Smith said. “That’s what we’re intending to do in this campaign.

“We haven’t been asked to do something like this in about 20 years and we have in many respects a whole new generation that’s been called by God to rise to the moment and to attempt something great for God.”

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• Johnson Ferry Baptist Church exploring new worship facility