Letting Go to Live Again: The Costly Courage of Church Renewal

Baptist NZ recently published a remarkable story about the merger of two Tauranga churches—Central Baptist and Bethlehem Baptist. It’s more than a tale of consolidation; it’s about humility, courage, and the painful beauty of letting go.

The article tells the story of Central Baptist, a faithful, ageing church with around 100 regular attendees, and an average age of just under 80. Pastor Brian Cochran and his eldership team made the courageous decision to hand over the leadership of the church to neighbouring megachurch, Bethlehem Baptist.

Spoiler alert, the story ends with a full car park and a steady stream of old and young coming into services. It’s a great story, full of hopeful notes and happy outcomes. But woven through it—if you’re paying attention—is the quieter theme of loss, of letting go, and of dying to what was. Stories of revitalisation like Central’s are rare not just because they’re logistically complex, but because they require the kind of surrender that is deeply personal and often painful. In a way, this is what makes the story so compelling: it reflects something profoundly cross-shaped—real life emerging from real sacrifice.

The first evidence of pain in the article is from Central’s pastor, Brian Cochran. Central had tried change efforts previously without much success. The key issue, Cochran noted, was control; this time, they needed to choose to surrender.

“The churches that went with a shared leadership structure ended up butting heads after a while and often went back to square one. I concluded that for us, there needed to be one church leading – and I thought, ‘it’s not going to be Central’.” 

It’s easy to read those words without comprehending how rare and unusual they are. Central, and specifically Brian Cochran, are choosing to lay down their rights, to prioritise legacy over control, and to trust God with what comes next.

Craig Vernall, Bethlehem’s pastor, describes Brian’s and Central’s openness towards him.

“Central voted in me as a senior leader, and they voted in our elders as their elders – that’s a real laying down of their rights. They had a posture of real humility.”

This story resonates strongly with Tony Morgan’s The Unstuck Church, which outlines the lifecycle of a church—from launch to momentum, maintenance, preservation, and eventually life support. Central, like many of our churches in Aotearoa, had moved into that final stage—a season marked by declining energy, limited impact, and an inward focus on survival. In Morgan’s view, most churches in this phase do not recover unless they make bold, sacrificial decisions.

What makes Central’s journey so powerful is how they approached that bold, sacrificial decision, not with resentment or denial, but with grace and openness. At the close of the story, the narrator asks the now-former pastor Brian Cochran how he is feeling about being willing to sacrifice his job. Brian reflects:

“People have asked me how I feel about that, and I’m very happy. As far as I’m concerned, that is success, and I can go off and do something else exciting now.”

Brian, though, is not the only one who willingly undergoes sacrifice. The writer notes

One of the challenges was around music. All of Central’s worship team stood down, including one member who had been playing drums for Central for 50 years. 

Other challenges for Central included giving up their tradition of gifting chocolates to people for their birthday and other celebrations and the wearing of name tags – little things which meant a lot to people, says Craig. 

“Then people started asking things like, ‘Could we have some more hymns?’ But Brian was able to hold the course when people came to him with doubts. He just said, ‘We have agreed’.”

Once again, if you’ve not been through these kinds of changes, it’s very easy to flippantly underestimate how meaningful things like hymns, birthday chocolates, and name tags are. And for those undergoing these changes, it’s hard to understand what is so wrong with traditions that have served you so well.

And yet. Reading this story alongside Ken Morgan’s (yes, another Morgan—confusing, I know) recent piece, You Can’t Restructure Your Way to Renewal, I’m left wondering: while the outward shape of the church has changed, has the inner life shifted too? Ken observes that declining churches often focus on style and structure when what’s really needed is a return to the costly path of cross-shaped discipleship. Central’s courage in surrendering control is remarkable—but the deeper question is whether such surrender leads to lasting formation. Will the pain of letting go give birth to a community not only renewed in energy, but re-formed in the likeness of Christ? That’s the kind of resurrection we need.