RANGER—In a bit over two years, The Woodbridge church plant has grown to about 170 mostly unchurched people of varied ages in Sunday morning worship, and at least 40 baptisms.

Church planter Jared Johnson has done this with shoe leather, acts of service and simply inviting folks to the church that meets in the Ranger Academy of Martial Arts.

“America has voted on whether or not they want to go to church, and the church is dying,” Johnson told the TEXAN. “You can do all the neat gadgets and tricks you want to get people there, but they’re not going to come on their own unless they feel love and trust.”

The Woodbridge’s story starts in 2005, when a pastor told Johnson, “If I would start a church with five people who weren’t steeped in tradition, I’d be further along in one year than with a church that started with 100 people steeped in tradition.”

Johnson traces his call to church planting—and to church planting with a focus on the unchurched—back to that remark. In 2015, he left a church staff position to begin a one-year church planter apprenticeship under Nic Burleson, pastor of Timber Ridge Church in Stephenville, which had just started in 2011.

Plan A was to start a church in an under-churched big city. Plan B was to focus on a section of a city and make a more focused impact on the unchurched.

“Then,” Johnson said, “I began to ask myself, ‘How big would that section of a city be?’ And as I was passing through all the little towns on my way home from the big city, I felt like the Holy Spirit tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘This big.’ That’s when we began to see the value of ministering to a small town.”

He and his family—wife Laine and four children under 8—didn’t know anyone when, in February 2016, they arrived in Ranger, a community near his hometown that he had rejected the first nine times it came to mind. 

Ranger sits just off Interstate 20 about 75 miles west of Fort Worth. It had a population of about 50,000 during its early 1920s heyday as an oil boom destination. Today, only around 2,400 people remain. An initial demographic study showed only about 10 percent of the town’s residents attended church, most of whom were senior citizens.

“I went around Ranger and asked people to help us start a church, people not in church,” Johnson said. “We started a launch team and probably had 20 folks, give or take, who were pretty invested and excited before we had our first church service.”

Jared and Laine Johnson met weekly in their home with the launch team. Three preview services in August 2016 led to the grand opening service that about 75 people, all from Eastland County, attended. SBTC’s church planting ministry added strength to the effort by providing basic training, financial support and coaching.

The Woodbridge worships with contemporary music and a four-instrument praise team. A monthly rotation provides leadership for KidBridge, aimed at children between birth and fourth grade and coordinated by Laine Johnson. 

Those fifth grade and older stay in the worship service. Youth meet Wednesday nights in their “One80” group, while students from Ranger Community College meet Thursday evenings. Adults meet during the week in three life groups.

Sunday mornings start early, with volunteers rolling up the martial arts mats and punching bags, setting up the chairs and children’s classrooms and then replacing everything after the service.

The Woodbridge story mostly takes place in the community.

“If the city is doing it, we’re involved,” Johnson said. “We try to partner with the city with everything we can—city, school, whatever.

“We’ve done a lot of things to earn a good reputation,” Johnson added. “One of our most effective ways of discipling people is to put people in charge of something and walk with them. We ask people early on to serve.”

The Woodbridge returned the city park to a place of useful beauty, including transforming the unused tennis court into a regulation basketball court, painting playground equipment and park benches, landscaping and more.

For the last three summers, the church has provided free family movie nights in the park. Other community outreaches include popsicles and water at the summer parade and popcorn and hot chocolate at the winter parade, a harvest event in October that includes a pumpkin smash and pumpkin toss for parents and a variety of activities for youngsters, including a hay maze.

“It’s a pretty big deal,” Johnson said, referring to the church’s emphasis on local involvement. “We don’t make it into something religious. We just try to bless the community and invite people to church.

“With whatever we do, we invite people to church. We tell people there’s no bad day to bring somebody the first time.”

Johnson’s advice to his volunteers each week: “Find a heart and heal it. Find a need and fill it.” 

The church’s name—a bridge between God and people, joined together by a now-empty wooden cross—reflects its mission. 

“Our goal is to bring people closer to God, to the unchurched, de-churched and atheist,” Johnson said. “A lot of people don’t come to church because they don’t know anyone there. They don’t feel loved. 

“My job as pastor is to teach people to love people. We stress the importance of loving, so love them, and invite them.”  

LAS COLINAS Women attending the SBTC Empower Conference Feb. 25 will enjoy a session just for them featuring worship along with a message from noted Christian author and speaker Lisa Harper. Using her mix of humor and sound biblical teaching, Harper will encourage and inspire during the women’s session on Monday afternoon from 1:00-4:15 p.m.

Registration for the conference is free and available at sbtexas.com/empower.

David Dunn is an unassuming middle-aged man who runs a home security system during the day and dons a cape-like poncho to fight crime at night.

That’s when he becomes the “Overseer,” a shadowy figure with super strength who makes headlines for his good deeds but is viewed with suspicion by the Philadelphia police, who consider him a vigilante. They want him in jail.

That threat of arrest, though, doesn’t prevent Dunn from trying to solve the city’s latest crime: the kidnapping of four cheerleaders by a crazed man known as the “Beast,” who has multiple personalities and has killed several people.

Dunn and his son, Joseph, believe they can pinpoint the Beast’s location by using police records, a computer program, and a ton of detective work.

Their hard work pays off one day when Dunn finds the Beast’s abandoned warehouse, sets the cheerleaders free, and goes “mano a mano” against this evil villain.

But then the plan goes awry. The police show up and surround Dunn and the Beast. Both are arrested and committed to the psychiatric ward, where they will be studied by a doctor—Ellie Staple—who believes they have severe mental problems. She also thinks the two men are wrong in their conviction that they have super strength.

Superheroes, she insists, don’t exist.

The film Glass (PG-13) opens this weekend, completing the trilogy by writer/director M. Night Shyamalan that began with sci-fi/drama film Unbreakable (2000) and continued with the thriller Split (2016). It stars Bruce Willis (Die Hard) as Dunn, James McAvoy (Split) as Kevin Wendell Crumb/the Beast, Sarah Paulson (Ocean’s Eight) as Staple, and Samuel L. Jackson (Avengers series) as Elijah Price.

The film is part-superhero film and part-thriller, but it’s mostly just weird and dull.

Dunn, the Beast and Price all have extraordinary talents (or is it powers?) and believe they are superheroes, yet Staple refuses to acknowledge their abilities. Everything, she says, has a natural explanation.    

Glass has the surprising/shocking ending that Shyamalan’s films are known for, but it also has a muddled message about talents and everyday superheroes — even though those are supposedly the film’s major themes.

There’s also this: Much of the action in the film’s final scenes takes place outside, in the daytime, which lessens the hair-raising potential. There’s a reason thrillers and horror films often take place at night. They’re just scarier that way. At times, the outdoor scenes in Glass border on goofy.

Warning: minor/moderate spoilers!

(Scale key: none, minimal, moderate, extreme)

Violence/Disturbing

Moderate/extreme. The opening scene shows Kevin holding the four cheerleaders hostage in a warehouse; they’re hands are chained. We hear Dunn, off screen, beat up two young men. Kevin turns into the Beast and fights the Overseer; the battle is tame but still violent. We see a flashback scene of Kevin being threatened by his mother; she approaches him with a hot iron but the scene quickly cuts way. The Beast squeezes a man and breaks his back; we hear the sound of it. Price slits a man’s throat with glass. (We see it from behind and later see the body.) Someone is shot in the stomach. Several people die. The film’s most troubling aspect involves Kevin’s split personalities—he has around 20 in this movie—and his transformation into the Beast, which looks nothing short of a muscular man who is possessed. He growls like a dog. He walks on ceilings and walls. It’s eerie.

Sexuality/Sensuality/Nudity

None. Although one of Kevin’s personalities is a gay man who flirts with a male worker.

Coarse Language

Moderate. About 13 coarse words: A– (5), b–ch (2), s–t (2), p—y (1), misuse of “Jesus” (1), b—ard (1), GD (1).

Other Positive Elements

David and his son are close and care for one another. We also see people reach out to Price and Kevin, despite their violent past.

Other Stuff You Might Want To Know

David is a widower whose wife died of cancer.

Life Lessons

Among the film’s major messages is the importance of a child’s upbringing and/or the negative impact that trauma can have on one’s life. Kevin/the Beast was abused as a child and, supposedly, developed his multiple personalities as a way to repress his memories. Dunn was bullied as a child and nearly drowned, and then later in life survived a train wreck that killed every other passenger. Price was born with a debilitating bone condition and was involved in a fair ride accident at a young age. Shyamalan wants us to feel compassion for the men, but with the exception of Dunn, it doesn’t happen. That’s because the violence and flesh-eating stuff overshadows the brief flashback-to-childhood scenes we watch. Speaking of that …

Worldview/Application

Shyamalan also wants Glass to help people consider the “extraordinary things” all of us can do. In other words, we have superhero-like skills, yet “we can be talked out of” believing it is so (as happens in Glass) he told USA Today.

Glass, though, is an odd way to convey that message. Outside of David Dunn—who is a good guy and who does act like an average-man superhero—none of the other so-called superheroes are inspiring. In fact, they’re appalling. Price slits a man’s throat with a large shard of glass. The Beast breaks a man’s back, kills another man, and then begins eating human flesh. (In Split, he’s even more animal-like.) Once again: Why am I supposed to be inspired by these out-of-control murderers?

Scripture (Matthew 25:14-30) teaches that we all have talents and—in a sense—we all can do extraordinary things through God’s power. That’s definitely true.    

Glass ends with a dialogue about talents and superheroes that would make sense at the end of, say, Spider-Man. But not at the end of Glass.

I enjoy movies that leave me with a reason to be hopeful about the world. Glass doesn’t do that.

What Works

David Dunn as a superhero. McAvoy is impressive.

What Doesn’t

The movie’s promotion of Kevin and Price as superheroes.

Discussion Questions

1. Did you consider Glass a superhero film?
2. Did you feel sympathy for Kevin and Elijah Price? Why or why not?
3. How can a child’s upbringing impact (both negatively positively) their adult life? Can it turn them into a so-called monster?
4. Did you like the movie’s ending? Why or why not?

Entertainment rating: 2 out of 5 stars. Family-friendly rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Rated PG-13 for violence including some bloody images, thematic elements, and language.

Not that long ago, I was young and hip. I knew about the latest trends, the latest songs, the latest gadgets. It was my life.

But the process of growing older and having children changed that. My interests also evolved.

Thus, when my 10-year-old and 7-year-old sons came home a year ago and began doing “Fortnite” dances, I asked what any middle-aged man would ask: What’s Fortnite? Google took care of that.

I had a similar reaction recently when I watched a new documentary, Social Animals. It follows three real-world young people as they post nearly everything about their lives on Instagram. Yes, I knew about Instagram. Yes, I even have a (mostly ignored) Instagram account. But I didn’t fully grasp the negative impact it is having on young people.

The 87-minute film—which is streaming on all major platforms—is an eye-opener for parents raising children in a selfie-obsessed culture.

Launched in 2010, Instagram is the preferred social media platform for today’s teens. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, which are text-heavy, Instagram is image-driven. The user takes a picture and posts it. A written message is optional. The goal is to get the most “likes.”

Social Animals tells the story of Kaylyn, a high schooler who is hyper-obsessed with her looks and has half a million followers; Emma, a teenager who had to change high schools because she was bullied on Instagram; and Humza, a New York City photographer who illegally scales tall buildings and bridges to capture the perfect Instagram image.

Their stories are told without narration or commentary, but that’s not needed. By the time the credits roll, you’re convinced that Instagram—without strict boundaries—is bad for a young person’s mental and social health.

Girls primp and pose for the picture-perfect, model-like shot.

“I look awful!” one says to the other while deleting the “bad” pictures.

In between the stories of Kaylyn, Emma and Humza, we hear from other teens who use Instagram.

“I took a shower, I blow dried my hair, I curled my hair, I did my makeup, and it took about an hour and a half just to get ready for a selfie,” one girl says.

Another girl uses a special app to erase acne in her pictures.

It’s a world where inner beauty means nothing and looks are everything. It’s a world where “likes” and “followers” determine one’s meaning in life.

Scripture tells us that “charm is deceptive,” “beauty does not last” and each person is “wonderfully made” (Proverbs 31:30, Psalm 139:14). But you wouldn’t know that by scrolling Instagram.

It was directed by Jonathan Ignatius Green, who said some parents watch it with their teens.

“I think our biggest goal is to stir a rich conversation,” Green told me. “[Social media] is powerful. It impacts our entire world—not just teenagers, but adults, too. Hopefully the takeaway is, ‘Hey, I need to take a look at this and maybe reflect on my own behaviors on social media and my own motivations for doing some of these things.’”

Social Animals includes some rough content. It’s not for everybody.

But its core message—and its implicit warnings—should be heard by today’s families.

Content warning: Social Animals is unrated; treat it like a PG-13-type film. It includes no nudity but does show girls in swimsuits. It also includes some coarse language, including some strong language.  

Kutter Callaway, assistant professor of culture and theology at Fuller Seminary, wrote a discussion guide. Download it here.

For more information, visit SocialAnimalsFilm.com

Entertainment rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Family-friendly rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

Editor’s note: As the SBTC enters its 21st year, we will be sharing reflections from those who laid the groundwork for a new state convention. The TEXAN interviewed John and Sharon Yeats at November’s 20th anniversary celebration at Houston Second Baptist Kingwood for this article, the first of a yearlong series.

KINGWOOD Constructive change often depends on an effective communication network to engage like-minded people in common goals, something Thomas Paine kept in mind when penning Common Sense at the dawn of the American Revolution.

John Yeats knew it, too.

Years before the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention was formed in 1998, Yeats realized that theologically conservative Baptists in Texas needed a publication representing their views. Yeats, now executive director of the Missouri Baptist Convention but then pastor of South Park Baptist Church in Grand Prairie, began producing The Plumbline, a periodical distributed widely to Southern Baptists in Texas who were concerned about denominational liberalism.

“We would go into the fellowship hall of our church, lay pages out on the tables, walk around the tables to assemble them and mail them out,” Sharon Yeats told the TEXAN.

Before the SBTC’s formation, John was called away to the Indiana convention to lead state communications and public policy efforts, followed by similar roles in Oklahoma and Louisiana. He became Missouri’s executive director in 2011. A member of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, he has held the elected post of SBC recording secretary since 1997. He has pastored churches in Texas and Kansas.

“This 20-year anniversary of the SBTC means a great deal,” John said. “Our church that we pastored here in Texas was at an impasse in that we could no longer doctrinally cooperate with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. So we looked for a suitable alternative and helped lay the groundwork for that alternative by publications and networking,” he said, noting that his Grand Prairie church became a “common site” for theologically conservative Baptists to meet.

“It was just a delight to see the thing blossom,” Yeats said of the SBTC’s founding, adding that he had recommended Jim Richards as the convention’s first executive director. Yeats said he had served with Richards and Gary Ledbetter, SBTC director of communications, on the SBC’s Christian Life Commission, which later became the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Yeats lauded the SBTC executive director’s leadership style and said that Richards’ guiding principles had become a model for other state conventions. 

Yeats also praised the idea of a confessional fellowship, stating that in his own state’s convention, this “gives us a platform to communicate with people about who we are as Missouri Southern Baptists.”