Church Restarting

By Karen Willoughby 

BLANDING, Utah – A determined woman decided last October that enough was enough. She wanted to go to church! She had previously attended First Baptist Church of Blanding, but due to changes in leadership, the church was no longer meeting and the building was not being utilized as a church.

Apparently, God wanted a church in Blanding too, because as soon as Sarah Workman made a commitment to see the church was restarted, a former pastor showed up from Florida with his wife and plans to hike the scenic southeastern Utah area for a month. Don Camp added supply preaching at First Blanding to his plans, and his wife Lorene Camp added pianist duties to hers.

“Don and Lorene came for a month at the reopening, and the members’ attendance took off from there,” Workman told UI Connections. “We average 25 people and one Sunday we had 33 people at church. It’s been wonderful!    

“There are hurting people here [in Blanding],” Workman continued. “If our church could just get a thousand prayers, we’d be okay.”  

First Baptist Blanding, started in 1950, needs a bi-vocational pastor, a new roof for the parsonage, and various other long-neglected maintenance issues. As the only Christian church in town, after at least two others have closed, its gospel witness has become essential to the community.

“This is God’s work,” Workman said. “It was my heart to take on this challenge [of getting the church reopened.] I just knew God wasn’t going to let it go, and He definitely has not.”

Various men sent from the Utah Idaho Southern Baptist Convention have preached at 10 a.m. Sundays since Camp went back to Florida last November. Gideon Baptist Association provides for supply preachers’ lodging, meals and gas. Soon, First Blanding will be under the leadership of an interim pastor, Terry McIlvain, who will provide some consistent and stable leadership as the church prepares for calling a new pastor.

Camp and his wife returned this May 1 for another season of hiking in scenic southeastern Utah. He didn’t plan to be speaking, but since the congregation knew the Camp couple were back and that he was available to preach – and his wife to play the piano –  Camp said, “I’ll be standing at the ready, but only if needed.”

Camp spoke of the scenic attractions in southeastern Utah. “There’s sheer walled cliffs, mesas, hills, washes, slickrock, cedar forests, and sand,” he said. “There’s the Edge of the Cedars National Park, Five Kiva Pueblo trail head and so much more. It’s all this that has kept us returning sometimes twice a year for 20 years.   

“Blanding is one of a kind,” Camp continued. “Going South, its mostly public lands, rough and broken country, open to all and you won’t see another person all day long. Mainly it’s just peace and quiet. Free range cattle. Free to roam.”

First Blanding doesn’t yet have Sunday School, small groups, youth ministry, men’s or women’s Bible study, and often they don’t have anyone to play music, so usually it’s familiar hymns sung acapella.

What the church does have, Camp told UI Connections, is good-hearted people.

“They’re hungry to hear the word of the Lord and they appreciate it so much,” Camp said. “I was pastor here from December 2008 to mid-2010. I remember so distinctly that there was no dissension in the church. I’d never seen a group of people so loving and caring. A spirit of love and cooperation was there. Whoever comes here is going to love the people here.”

Cindy Freyberg told UI Connections, “This property, it’s Blanding’s only hope.”  Freyberg, who lives in Georgia, had come out to southeastern Utah once or twice a year for at least 10 years to work with Native Americans. Shepherding an enthusiastic group of young folks, she has presented several delightful Vacation Bible School experiences over the years, Workman said.

“Rob Lee [executive director of the UISBC] last November asked if we would come help Blanding,” said Freyberg, who coordinates mission trips (among other duties) for the 60-church, Polk-Haralson Baptist Association in Georgia. “I called Sarah [Workman] and she said they hadn’t had Vacation Bible School for five years.”

With help from Freyberg and a Polk-Haralson Baptist Association mission team, First Blanding is to host a city-wide (as many as will come) VBS this summer, using Lifeway Christian Resources’ 2025 curriculum, Magnified!, based on Psalm 34:3.

“The kids will be exploring the ‘bigness’ of God in the smallest of things,” Freyberg said. The Magnified! theme encourages youngsters to examine the details of God’s creation and realize how much God loves them. Its five key themes: God’s creation, care, love, forgiveness, and faithfulness, explored through Bible stories, songs, crafts and rec time. 

Along with hosting VBS, “We’ll go to a park, set up with a clown and cook hot dogs,” Freyberg said. “We’ll each wear the same [design] t-shirt. We put scripture on the back that will apply to all and address their beliefs.”

As for the building, Utah Idaho construction missionary Nathan Harden plans to lead a team of volunteers from Tennessee who are coming to redo the roof of the parsonage, replace the siding, and other building projects in July. Rob Lee at the UISBC Convention helped the church raise the money to pay for the building supplies.

It’s all part of First Baptist Blanding’s restart, with the help of longtime friends from Florida, Georgia, Idaho and Tennessee, plus Gideon Baptist Association, UISBC, and a very determined woman with a heart to serve the Lord.