New pastor wants to change Flint Hill Baptist image

Flint Hill Baptist Church may be one of the oldest churches in the area, but new pastor Wayne Deffinger desires it to be known in the community for something else.

“One of my goals is that when people think of Flint Hill, instead of thinking ‘old church’ and ‘old people go there,’ they’ll think, ‘church that’s changing people’s lives,’” Deffinger said.

Deffinger, who caught the preaching bug when asked to preach for Youth Sunday in high school, took over as Flint Hill’s 36th pastor in August. The church’s previous pastor, Larry Twitty, served as interim pastor for three years.

Originally from Cincinnati, Deffinger, 47, has served in the ministry for 23 years. He is married to Stephanie Deffinger, whom he met at Ridgecrest Conference Center near Asheville, N.C., while he was attending Southern Seminary in Louisville, Ky. The couple has two children, Isabella, 11 and Hayden, 9.

A graduate of Georgetown College in Kentucky, Deffinger said knew he wanted to work with teenagers and originally thought he would be a teacher. But as he stood in the hallway while working as a long-term substitute and listening to high schoolers’ conversations about partying and sex, his plan shifted.

“God just broke my heart for teenagers,” Deffinger said.

Deffinger spent the next two decades as a youth minister at Baptist churches in Cincinnati and Kentucky until moving to the Charlotte area in 2012 to take his first senior pastorate at Oakhurst Baptist Church in Charlotte, a church that has been replanted and reconstituted in the past year.

The church’s membership had been in decline for years and Deffinger said he saw “the writing on the wall,” but had hoped for a better outcome.

“I thought I could kind of turn things around with God’s help,” he said.

Deffinger sent applications everywhere, hoping that he could stay in the area and in the ministry.

“I was willing to work at Walmart,” Deffinger said. “I knew God would take care of me and my family.”

When Deffinger perceived he was on the short list in Flint Hill’s application process, he and his family inconspicuously visited a service one Sunday to get a feel for the church and its congregation.

What they felt during their visit was a church with a sense of community on the inside but that was actively engaged in reaching the community on the outside, Deffinger said.

“It’s not really a city church, it’s not really a country church, it’s a family church,” Deffinger said.

Still, getting people to attend church in what Deffinger describes as a “post-Christian society” is an uphill battle.

“There’s more people that don’t go to church than go to church,” Deffinger said.

There used to be a common train of thought among American church leadership that if you have a nice church with nice programs, people will come, Deffinger said, but that is no longer the case.

“Simply opening the doors is not going to make people come,” Deffinger said.

The church already runs some effective outreach ministries, Deffinger said, such as an ESL ministry and a clothes closet.

But he sensed more could be done, beginning with a shift in mindset.

Beginning with a sermon series called Thrive, Deffinger encouraged members to reach outside the walls of the church and begin to see their homes as “the home-base of ministry.”

The series helped open congregants’ eyes to “what it’s going to take to thrive as a congregation, not just survive,” Deffinger said.

Despite the challenges ahead, Deffinger said he is ready to get started.

“There’s something very rewarding about being able to walk alongside people and challenge them, laugh with them, cry with them and do life with them,” Deffinger said.

“This church desires to meet people’s needs. I want to be a part of that,” he said.

This story was originally published October 16, 2015 at 3:19 PM with the headline "New pastor wants to change Flint Hill Baptist image."