FBC Marshall offers space for local church to worship following a church fire

Early in his twelve-and-a-half-year pastorate at First Baptist Church Marshall, Ryan Berryhill recognized that the size of the church building was not suitable for the size of the congregation anymore. He noticed there was extra building space and began seeking ways to utilize it “as God would want us to in our community.” 

“It's really come to be a congregation that [recognizes] we don't own this building. We're borrowing this building from the Lord… so we want to use it for what God wants us to do in this place, in this time,” said Berryhill. 

FBC Marshall’s Family Life Center is being utilized for a program called I20 Sports that gives kids a safe place to play sports. The church also has a children’s theater that puts on productions “at least twice a year.” Berryhill said hosting a day school for First Methodist Church Marshall has “been in the works.” 

“[We] recogniz[e] that the building, the facilities that we have, they're a gift from God and a gift for our community and wanting to manage those the best that we can.” 

‘An unbelievable sense of unity’

On Dec. 9, 2024, around 1 a.m., FMC Marshall caught fire. 

“[My wife and I] get up about five in the morning… [and] my wife looked on her phone, and I guess she saw it on Facebook that people were streaming live videos of the church on fire, and she said, ‘Oh, my gosh! First Methodist is on fire!’” explained Berryhill. “Immediately, of course, your heart goes out [to them]. No one wants to wake up on a Monday morning or any other morning and find out that the church is on fire, and then I think the very next thought was, ‘Well, we have space.’” 

Around 7 a.m., Berryhill sent a text to David Luckert, lead pastor of FMC Marshall, “Praying for you. We have space.” 

Berryhill built a “strong relationship” with Luckert through the ministerial alliance in Marshall. He is also a bi-vocational pastor, teaching math at Marshall High School, and has formerly taught with Luckert’s wife, Cathy. 

Luckert was aware that FBC Marshall had an extra worship space that was not being used. He responded to Berryhill’s text that, as he was processing how to move forward from the fire’s destruction, Berryhill and his church came to mind. 

In 2017, Berryhill said the congregation moved to the church’s remodeled chapel to better suit its size. 

“We do have a sanctuary that we haven't been using. The sanctuary probably can seat six or seven hundred people… [and it] has just been sitting idle, so we had the space, and I sent him that text [to offer it],” said Berryhill. 

Shortly after offering the space to Luckert, he started getting emails and text messages from his congregation. 

“‘We need to offer our building.’ It was just overwhelmingly unanimous that this is what we needed to do,” said Berryhill. “In fact, in the 6 or 7 weeks since they've started meeting in our building, there's not been one person, not one, who has come up and said, ‘Why are we doing this? I don't agree with this.’ … So it's really been an unbelievable sense of unity around this.”

Returning the favor  

Berryhill said sharing the church’s sanctuary with FMC Marshall has “given so much meaning and confirmation” to their process of seeking how God was calling them to utilize the space. He said they “never imagined” a church fire would be the catalyst for that. 

“Several years ago, we asked the question, ‘What does God want us to be? What does God want us to do?’” explained Berryhill. “Overwhelmingly then the congregation said, ‘We want to see this used for the good of the community. We want to see community people come in and be able to use our space… and through that process, people even said, ‘We'd like to see, even if it's possible, if the situation comes up, another congregation use our property in addition to us.” 

Berryhill said FMC Marshall has returned his congregation’s kindness by doing some maintenance on the building to help make the space usable for as long as they are utilizing it. 

“[They’ve had] their insurance adjusters [come in], and they've been making upgrades to our building that have just been unbelievable. They fix air conditioners. They installed a fire system that was necessary for the [discussed] day school. They brought in their custodial staff and [have] just been cleaning,” said Berryhill. “There's been a lot of synergy going on over these facility issues that have been such a struggle.”

Joining together to celebrate Christmas 

Berryhill said he is “really feeling blessed” by how God has used the fire to get both congregations “rubbing shoulders together on Sunday morning.” 

“They're having their service, we're having ours. We're having our Bible studies, they're having theirs. But rubbing shoulders in the in-between times and [having] good conversations and good fellowship [has] been really good,” said Berryhill.

The two churches even joined together for a Christmas Eve service. 

“They have their Christmas Eve service at 6 o’clock on, of course, Christmas Eve, and so do we, and we’re coming together and worshiping in the same place [on Sunday], and we just said, ‘This is silly. If we're both going to be having Christmas Eve at the same time, let's do it together,’” said Berryhill.

For the service, the worship teams blended together, and both Berryhill and Luckert gave short messages. They concluded the night with candlelighting. Berryhill said it was a “packed house” and, at some points, was standing-room only. 

“We had communion together, and it was just a really special time. It wasn't just Methodists and Baptists in the building. You could really tell that people from different denominations and even people who aren't churched were curious about this,” said Berryhill. “The whole town was talking about the Baptists and the Methodists worshiping together on Christmas Eve… It was a really special moment in time for the community to unify together.” 

He said he would encourage churches looking to serve their communities to “get out of ownership and get into management,” advice given to him in seminary by Al Meredith, pastor emeritus at Wedgwood Baptist Church. 

“Recognize that we don’t own these buildings, we’re just the managers [and] be open to what God wants to do with God's buildings,” said Berryhill. “So, have that mentality and be open to whatever God wants to use the space for.”