New England: Where liberals failed, Baptists plant churches

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald
The Layman
Thursday, March 5, 2009

WEST PAWLET, Vt. – Four years ago in this remote valley hamlet, the last eight members of the financially strapped United Church of West Pawlet voted to disband the congregation. Tad Perry remembers the wrenching vote as “one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”

But now on a nine-degree Sunday morning, a steady plume rises once again from the chimney behind the steeple.

Inside, nearly 50 people singing catchy hymns with piano accompaniment help make the tiny sanctuary feel close to full. And the voice from the pulpit bespeaks what’s taking place—not only here, but in formerly vacant, old church buildings across northern New England.

“The mission of this church is to see lost people saved throughout this region and to disciple the saved,” says Pastor Lyandon Warren in a thick Southern accent that gives away his Waynesville, N.C., roots. His drawl also meshes with the new, Southern Baptist affiliation of the church, which reopened in May 2007 as Mettowee Valley Church. the rest