BRANDON—What started out in the living room of Lovic and Angie Brandon’s home has now grown into a large congregation with more than 200,000 square feet of space that is being used to “glorify God by reaching Brandon, America and the world for Jesus Christ,” said Mark Penick, pastor of First Baptist Church Brandon since 2021.
The church was started in 1915 by two brothers, Lovic and Mark Brandon, whose father was the original founder of the town of Brandon. Located in the “heart of Brandon,” the church today is experiencing exponential spiritual growth with increases in baptisms and weekly attendance.
“God is moving in a fresh way at First Brandon,” said Penick. “By God’s providence, in the past three and a half years, we’ve seen 245 baptisms and more than 300 new members join the church.”
While recognizing that numbers aren’t the motivation for ministry, the pastor emphasizes that every number represents an individual reached with the gospel.
We are blessed with the challenge of many people to reach around us.
“Numbers aren’t everything, but they are individuals,” he continued. “Every one of those souls matters to us.”
Like most of the Sunshine State, the Central region—particularly the Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater areas—has seen an uptick in growth due to cost of living, the aftermath of the pandemic, nationally recognized schools, and a robust job market. Recognizing this growth, the church is fixing its eyes on reaching people.
“There are more than one million people within a 10-mile radius of the church and well over three million people in the greater Tampa metroplex,” he said. “We are blessed with the challenge of many people to reach around us.”
Back to the basics
With the exponential growth of its church and region, First Baptist Brandon has committed to “going back to the basics” of what a New Testament church is and how it should teach and reach people, said Penick. Recognizing that the campus footprint is large, Penick is looking to leverage its ministry resources and campus to reach people and share the gospel.
“The church has had decades of impact in our area,” said Penick. “This has included adding an Academy and our Ministry Activities Center, a fully functioning and active recreational gym that is open to the community.”
“Over the past three and a half years, our focus has been going back to the basics of the New Testament church—preaching and teaching Jesus Christ resurrected, knowing that He will draw all men, women, boys and girls to Himself, and equipping individual believers to reach our growing neighborhoods with this message,” he said.
The growth, Penick said, is being fanned and sustained by staying focused on being “biblical” and not getting distracted by the “latest gimmicks, trends or styles.”
“We are an ordinary church with an extraordinary living and breathing message,” he said. “We have spent two years going through the book of Luke, and now we’re into Acts and we’ve refocused the church on the gospel and what the church is to be about as New Testament believers, rather than focusing on the latest gimmicks, trends, or styles. … There is nothing like the local church when it is being biblical.”
The pastor said that the in-depth sermon series on Luke and Acts “helped us focus on the life, ministry, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, along with the gift of the Holy Spirit to empower us to live bold on mission together–to tell others the good news. This informs our mission and vision for the church along with our core competencies of mission, fellowship, evangelism, discipleship and worship; everything we do is filtered through these tenets, and if it doesn’t drive our mission, we don’t do it.”
Planning for the future
To keep up with this growth and mission to reach all people with the gospel—the church has begun long-range planning to assess the various needs to be addressed. Using a “phased approach,” Penick said that a “Great Commission welcome center, renewing the worship space, and addressing some other needs with our facilities” is on the horizon.
Our people celebrate being a part of God’s plan in taking our past legacy as a historic church and now using us to reach a growing Brandon and Tampa today.
In addition to structural planning, the First Baptist Foundation will continue to build the church’s legacy through a pastoral fellowship for young men who have a clear calling on their lives to be local church pastors. The church also looks forward to “living on mission and spreading the kingdom of God at home and abroad” by expanding the number of short-term mission trips and planting churches—including one north of Dallas.
At 110 years old, First Baptist Church Brandon has no intention of slowing down.
“Our people celebrate being a part of God’s plan in taking our past legacy as a historic church and now using us to reach a growing Brandon and Tampa today,” Penick said.