Churches reunite after 30-year split

CEDAR HILL—Church splits are all too common; reconciliations too rare. Yet reconciliation has come to Hillcrest Baptist Church and Colonial Hills Baptist Church after 30 years of separation. A special reunion service held Sunday, Sept. 28, marked the event.

“God has done something that I have never heard done before. He has brought two churches back together after 30 years,” Hillcrest pastor Mike Simmons said from the pulpit, calling the reunion “absolutely phenomenal.”

Some 1,100 were in attendance as Simmons welcomed 50 “brothers and sisters from Colonial Hills,” inviting them to stand for recognition.

Simmons then introduced Jerry Keen, president of the trustees of Colonial Hills, and Bobby Fletcher, chairman of the trustees of Hillcrest. King, a University of Texas Longhorn, and Fletcher, a Texas A&M Aggie, bantered pleasantly about their respective university loyalties.

“That will never be reconciled,” Pastor Simmons joked of the men’s college rivalry.

Keen, representing the membership of Colonial Hills, presented Simmons and Fletcher with a check for $500,000 and the keys to the Colonial Hills property, terms agreed upon by the two churches.
Quoting 1 Samuel 9:25—“And when they were come down from the high place into the city, Samuel communed with Saul upon the top of the house”—Keen affirmed the reborn unity of Colonial Hills and Hillcrest.

“We are now us,” Fletcher said.

“It is God’s will for us to be back together as a community. I look forward to seeing what God has wrought. Great things will happen.”

Following prayer, hymns and greetings, Simmons preached the reconciliation sermon from Ephesians 3:20-21, verses inscribed on the cornerstone of Hillcrest. Interweaving the account of the reconciliation with an exposition of Scripture, Simmons began with an affirmation of God’s greatness and power with illustrations of creation, redemption and reconciliation.

“God has brought back together two churches, a remnant of his people. Just as he has done something of that magnitude, so does he want to work in individual lives and families,” Simmons proclaimed.

“God is able. He is able because he is great,” Simmons continued, noting that his own research had not revealed any other pair of churches reunited after 30 years. “We have witnessed today a mighty work of God.”

Praising the ministry of Colonial Hills in many areas, including benevolence, Simmons stated, “All of a sudden, in God’s economy and sovereignty, he chooses to bring us back together.”

The September official reconciliation services occurred after months of negotiations and years of prayer. Healing began two decades earlier with a 1995 celebration of Hillcrest’s 75th anniversary to which Colonial Hills staff and members were invited.

“Bill Strawn, a Hillcrest deacon, suggested we invite Colonial Hills, and 250 came,” Simmons recalled.

 Truett Huffstutler, then Colonial Hills’ minister of music and education and former education and worship pastor of Hillcrest, was invited by Simmons to lead the worship at that 75th anniversary celebration, leading to a growing friendship between the two men.

 “At the anniversary service, I shared from Acts 15,” Simmons recalled. “Paul and Barnabas separated and went their different ways, yet Scripture indicates that they were reconciled. God wanted us to forgive, and he wanted to bless each congregation.”

Years later, Simmons and Hillcrest leaders began praying in earnest for Colonial Hills, which had begun to decline in membership and attendance.

A more recent event God used to move the churches to reconcile was the death in fall 2013 of Hillcrest deacon Thurston Bridges after a long battle with cancer. Simmons met Bridges’ cousin, Jerry Keen, during one of many hospital visits with Bridges.

Keen had been part of the 500 who originally separated from Hillcrest in 1984. Simmons asked Keen to give the eulogy at Bridges’s funeral.  Keen did so from the pulpit of Hillcrest, the church from which he had separated years before.

“Only God could orchestrate something like that,” Simmons said.

In subsequent months, “God began to lead us together,” Simmons remarked. Colonial Hills had continued to decline and leaders were praying about the direction the Lord would have them to move.  During that time, Huffstutler, who had moved to East Texas, recommended the church contact Simmons while exploring options.

In March 2014, Keen and Cecil Smith, chair of the Colonial Hills deacons, asked if Simmons would bring Hillcrest representatives to meet with Colonial Hills deacons. Simmons agreed, unaware that part of the purpose of the meeting was to gauge the level of interest in reuniting.

Exploratory meetings followed with news of the potential merger kept quiet until a formal invitation arrived for Hillcrest to send representatives to Colonial Hills for what Simmons called “serious talks.” At a special Wednesday night business meeting on May 7, Hillcrest members voted to send a fact-finding team to Colonial Hills. By then, Simmons noted, “God had begun to meld our hearts together.”

On June 22, Simmons preached at Colonial Hills on divine guidance from Acts 15:36-16:10, Paul and Barnabas, the same subject to which he had referred at the 75th anniversary service and to which he would allude in the Sept. 28 reconciliation service.

A week later, knowing that Colonial Hills intended to vote on the merger the following day, Simmons hosted some 70 members of both churches who had been at Hillcrest in 1984, at the time of the division, to come together for a special meal.

“Merger is one thing, but the foundation to all this is reconciliation,” Simmons told the remnant from the original split. “Paul and Barnabas were both right and both wrong. Tonight around these tables we must seek forgiveness and offer forgiveness.  When we leave here tonight we will forget about the split.”

The dinner was a testimony to God’s faithfulness.

“People picked up like they had never left off 30 years ago. They prayed around tables, wept and shared. Most did not want to leave that evening,” Simmons recalled.

On June 29, Colonial Hills members voted to merge churches; on July 20, Hillcrest confirmed that move with a unanimous vote at its quarterly business meeting.

The last official vote regarding the reconciliation came at the Sept. 14 business meeting at Colonial Hills, where members voted for the dissolution of the church and the turning over of the property to Hillcrest. The amount of a half-million dollars was also agreed upon to enable Hillcrest to operate the Colonial Hills facilities while integrating the new campus into its budget.

Simmons praised the facilities. Plans include moving the church’s K-4th grade Hillcrest Christian Academy, in its second year, to the 15-acre former Colonial Hills property this fall. The campus is ideal for a school, with its 54 Sunday school rooms, large gymnasium and commercial kitchen. With the growth of Hillcrest Espanol, that ministry may move to the new campus next spring or fall.

Reconciliation is an answer to prayer few expected. Simmons closed the Sept. 28 reconciliation sermon, saying, “Who would have thought? Who would have asked God? Who would have imagined?  Only God could do something like this, and it will be a testimony to a lost world, to my children, their children, their grandchildren. God has done a work that only he can do.”