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Gutting it out for God’s glory
HOUSTON—Pastor Zach Brackett at LifeBrook Church in Houston says he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy any of the hardships the church has endured in the past five years. Yet he can see how God has used the obstacles for his good and the good of the congregation.
A few months after Brackett arrived at the church, the baptismal waters began to stir once again, but a backup somewhere in the line sent the drain water flooding into the church offices. Then COVID-19 hit right as he was getting to know his new flock.
Later in 2020, lightning struck the church sanctuary and it caught fire, displacing the congregation for two and a half years. They were able to convert the fellowship hall into a worship space, but a year and a half of struggling with the insurance company took a toll. After that came a year of rebuilding the sanctuary.
Twice during that time, the church was robbed, including once by a criminal taking the contents of the church safe early on a Monday morning.
Earlier this year, Brackett thought the church campus had escaped unscathed after Hurricane Beryl until he realized the winds had picked up a 7.5-ton air conditioning unit from the roof and thrown it onto the power lines behind the church. The unit had severed the lines, so when power was restored, sparks flew and smoke billowed.
The insurance deductible was so high that the church paid nearly $100,000 to replace the unit and repair three others. The church budget is just over $450,000.
“Jokingly, some of the pastors around here call me the unluckiest pastor,” Brackett said. He is no stranger to sleepless nights spent crying out to God, but “it has opened our congregation up in a beautiful way.”
“We weren’t in our sanctuary for two and a half years, but we got to see people come to Christ,” he said. “We got to see people get baptized. We got to see people get discipled. It stretched our congregation, and we began to realize the church has nothing to do with this building. This is where we meet, but we are the church.”
The hardships helped LifeBrook be more flexible regarding the past and what needed to be done to reach people in the future.
“Even in me, the past five years as a pastor have been a very humbling time and a time where God has drawn me back to His Word and the call to be faithful,” Brackett said, noting success in God’s eyes is determined by faithfulness. “God has used it to grow me a lot as a leader and as a pastor and help make me more reliant on His strength.”
LifeBrook was founded as Lazybrook Baptist Church in 1962, but it changed the name about two years ago as recommended by a discovery team charged with discerning God’s plan for the church’s future. Lazybrook is the name of a nearby neighborhood, but Brackett said he had heard all the lazy church jokes he could handle.
The church had been in decline for about a decade when Brackett arrived, and the discovery team, aided by the Union Baptist Association, charted a way forward. “We put everything on the table,” the pastor said, adding that church leaders wanted to know where God was leading, not where they wanted to go.
They started with overhauling the bylaws and making church membership more meaningful, Brackett said. They streamlined the church schedule. “We were keeping our people really, really busy doing a ton of things, but if you’re so busy with stuff at the church building, how can you actually live out the gospel in your neighborhood?”
“We got to see people get baptized. We got to see people get discipled. It stretched our congregation, and we began to realize the church has nothing to do with this building. This is where we meet, but we are the church.”
One major community need the discovery team cited was childcare. During COVID, more than 20% of preschools in the area closed, Brackett said. “We have a lot of dual income families—a lot of young professionals in their 30s with kids. One of the preschools has a waitlist of around 200.”
LifeBrook drew up plans to bring one of its buildings up to code to start a preschool that would care for 85 students, but some of the money for that ministry was in a facilities fund that was used to replace the 7.5-ton air conditioner that fell victim to the hurricane.
“Now we’re just trying to figure out what we need to do to finance those renovations so we can do that for the community,” the pastor said of the preschool.
Through the hardships, LifeBrook—with an average Sunday attendance of 110—has been busy ministering to the community. When storms hit, they send people into the neighborhoods with chainsaws and meals. They send volunteers to read with local elementary students, provide lunch for the teachers, and contribute to toy drives and food drives. They partner with a local moms group for an Easter egg hunt, a trunk-or-treat, and a holiday hayride.
“It’s been a crazy journey, but I believe God has some great things in store for our church,” Brackett said. “What I will say about church revitalization is it’s a long-term journey. It’s not a quick fix.
“… I’d encourage other pastors [to remember] that faithful service over the long term makes a great impact. Oftentimes, things get hard, and as pastors it’s easy to get frustrated and want to leave right before God does something amazing. But I think there’s beauty in having pastoral grit.”
