New Plant City pastor focuses on making, marking, maturing disciplies

Jun 30, 2009
CAROLYN NICHOLS
Newswriter

MICHAEL LEWIS Courtesy photo

PLANT CITY (FBW)—In outlining his dreams for First Baptist Church in Plant City, new Pastor Michael S. Lewis preached about evangelism, citing the Great Commission. He told the congregation June 14 his and their focus will be making disciples by telling about Jesus, marking disciples in baptism, and maturing disciples by teaching.

“My vision is to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with every person in Plant City,” Lewis told Florida Baptist Witness.

With that goal in mind, Lewis will employ FAITH, a Sunday School evangelism strategy that proved effective in his former church, Great Hills Baptist in Austin, Texas. More than 1,000 of the 5,500-member Austin congregation were equipped to share their faith in home visits, and the church baptized 200 new believers annually during Lewis’ six-year pastorate.

FAITH co-author Doug Williams will conduct leadership training in Plant City in July and the first FAITH banquet is set for August 16. Lewis hopes to soon have 150 to 200 church members making weekly visits in Plant City.

Evangelism in Plant City is only the first step in making First, Plant City “a church where the sun never sets.” Lewis hopes to have mission volunteers “in the four corners of the earth” telling the Good News. As has been his practice, Lewis has pledged to lead a mission trip every year, and will encourage church staff members to do the same. Lewis recently concluded a four-year partnership with Emmanuel University in Oradea, Romania. He travelled annually to Eastern Europe to coach and mentor student pastors, to preach in local churches and minister in a local orphanage.

“I am committed to missions because I have a heart for global evangelism,” Lewis said.

While a pastor in Texas, Lewis was named to the Southern Baptist Executive Committee as a representative of the state. Now a Floridian, Lewis relinquished his post and his office as vice-chairman of the 84-member committee at its June meeting at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Louisville.

“I enjoy Kingdom work and seeing God work in miraculous ways,” he said. “The Executive Committee meetings were always a lot of joy.”

Since Lewis began his tenure in Plant City May 17, an average of 15 new members have joined the church weekly, and with an average attendance of 1,100 in worship, the church already is planning to move to two worship services and two Sunday Schools in January 2010. With continuing growth, the church has the option of moving to 54 acres of property it owns three miles away from its downtown campus.

“We will measure everything by what God is doing,” Lewis said. “We seek God’s resources and timing and ask, ‘When is that door open?’ We will move forward wisely and prayerfully.”

‘THE LITTLE LEWIS BOY’

Lewis grew up in Savannah, Ga., in the home of Harry and Ella Lewis, lay leaders of First Baptist Church in Richmond Hills. The younger of two sons, Michael Lewis made a profession of faith at 12 during a week-long revival. He said he overheard two men in the church talking after the meetings ended. One asked the other, “What happened in the revival?”

“The other guy said, ‘Not much. The only one saved was the little Lewis boy,’” Michael Lewis recalled.

As a teenager, Lewis was greatly influenced by the 100-member church’s first youth minister, Buddy Hucks, who “had a tremendous walk with the Lord and taught us well,” he said. Lewis and several friends were involved in a Prayer Club in high school. His first sermon was preached to the Prayer Club members during his senior year.

“It was clear to them and to me that it was the Lord, because preaching was not what I would have chosen. I would not have wanted a leadership role,” he said.

The men Lewis overheard discussing the revival could not have known that “the little Lewis boy”—after Columbia (S.C.) International University and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary—would be pastor of his home church 15 years later. Among the 1,700 additions to the church during his six-year tenure were childhood classmates and friends—some who “couldn’t believe I turned out to be a pastor”—Lewis was able to see come to the Lord, he said. He accepted the Texas pastorate in 2003.

SMOOTHING THE WAY

While he and his wife of 19 years, Liliana, were praying about the move from Texas to Florida, Lewis said his daughters, Charity, 15, Faith, 14 and Hope, 11, came to him one by one to show him Scriptures they discovered in their own prayer times. The Scriptures mostly supported the move east, he said.

The Lewis daughters—all “wonderful, godly young girls,” according to their proud father, are already involved in the church’s student ministry. Homeschooled until now, they will enter Plant City public schools in the fall.

“Our move has been filled with grace. We have been embraced,” Lewis said.

Recently retired First Baptist Pastor Ron Churchill has smoothed the way, his successor said.

“He is a great encourager, and has been open to me from our first conversation,” Lewis said of Churchill. “He told me ‘I’ll never say a negative word, and I’ll be your biggest fan.’”

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