Small-town Mississippi church ignites culture of revival, sees 59 baptized

By Lindsey Carraway
Writing Specialist

POPLARVILLE, Miss. — Three years ago, it was an emotional moment for Kipp Smith as he looked around the theater full of students, church family, and members of the community. After the evangelistic message, at least 100 attendees answered the altar call to surrender their lives to Christ. It was an exact picture of the vision that God had given Smith years before.

And God hasn’t finished yet.

After serving in student ministry in Nebraska, Louisiana, and multiple places in Mississippi, Smith followed the Lord’s direction to serve as pastor of First Baptist Poplarville almost 10 years ago.

At the start of his ministry, the church was in decline with about 80 members and no vision forward. Smith recognized the issue instantly: the church had not done a revival in years. With his background in student ministry, he had learned the value of a revival for God’s people, regardless of how long they have walked with Christ. But it would take more than a single week of evangelistic sermons to stand taller in their faith.

First Baptist Poplarville began a culture of revival.

Vision

“God gave me a vision of First Baptist Poplarville doing an event at the Brownstone Theater,” recalled Smith, “which is on the campus of Pearl River Community College. Now, that makes no sense whatsoever when you looked at the size of our church at the time, because here is the Brownstone seating about 850-900 people, and it’s one of the best theaters in South Mississippi.”

In the first years of revival, held in the church building, attendance was minimal and decisions were few. Smith affirms, however, that the revivals “were still helpful in the life of the church.”

Almost six years into revivals, the church decided it was time to reach out to the college about the rental cost for Brownstone. As it turned out, they would be able to rent the theater for a lower price as a nonprofit. It was time to try it.

“You can imagine the emotion I felt when we had it there,” said Smith. “As I looked around the room that night, visually, it was exactly what God had showed me. It was just a holy moment.”

This past August, First Baptist Poplarville ended their revival at Brownstone for the third year in a row. Since the start, they have seen around 250-300 salvations over the years, most of those occurring when they moved their final night of revival to an offsite location.

The ending, however, was unique this year. It started as an idea from the guest evangelist, Ronnie Hill, who suggested that troughs be set up in the parking lot for anyone wanting to be baptized after.

Smith was skeptical that they could get permission, but Dr. Adam Breerwood, president of Pearl River Community College, approved the idea. With the help of the schools’ Christian coaches, two 12-foot concrete troughs were brought in on the back of a flatbed and situated in the parking lot. The Poplarville fire department graciously filled up the baptismal troughs.

“When we had the service that night,” Smith said, “we had no idea if anybody was going to respond. You can’t control that. You just present the message, and when it was all said and done, we baptized 52 that night. We had baptized six the night before during the Tuesday night of revival in the church.”

Smith recounted the exciting night as children, whole families, football players, basketball players, volleyball players, and college students from all over, gave their lives to the Lord, getting baptized one right after another. He couldn’t thank Dr. Breerwood enough for his support, as well as coaches Michael Avalon and Seth Smith, active members of First Baptist Poplarville, for bringing their teams, many of whom were saved.

“We know the Lord is working all over, but it sure is fun to see it,” said Smith. “We were in awe of those young people who were so ready to make the commitment and be baptized right then and there.”

Smith recalled his concern that parents would be upset about missing their students’ baptisms, but every student seemed to have a phone out, dripping wet, calling their parents on FaceTime, or holding the phone for another friend so their family could see their baptism live.

Before that next Sunday, Hill challenged Smith again: “You need to have the baptistry filled up in advance.” The church baptistry takes hours to fill up, and Hill suggested that there could be somebody who did not get baptized that night who would still want to make a decision.

Sure enough, that following Sunday, one young man responded at the end of service. Without a change of clothes, he was baptized in the ready baptistry. In one week, 59 souls were saved.

Preparation

Three weeks before a revival, First Baptist Poplarville gets ready for revival. Smith shared the key ways they prepared this year:

A Sunday morning service three weeks before explored the topic of “How do you get ready for a move of God?” That night, guest speaker Wade Mathis, pastor of Kennedy Springs Baptist Church in Magee, spoke on the same topic.
The following Sunday featured a night of worship and testimonies from church members who had been saved in previous revivals and experienced radical transformation because of Jesus.
Starting the Friday morning before the revival that weekend, the church committed to 24 hours of prayer. Members signed up for one-hour increments and used a prayer guide in the prayer room of the church or offsite.
On Saturday night, the revival began with a “Men of Influence” dinner. Over 150 men gathered to be discipled and learn how to lead their family spiritually. After dinner, a night of worship and preaching challenged men with the Gospel.
The regular revival began Sunday morning, and continued Sunday night, Monday, and Tuesday. A ladies’ luncheon that Tuesday impacted over 100 women through the testimony of an influential member who shared her journey of living for Jesus amid cancer.
Finally, Wednesday night concluded the revival at the Brownstone.

Provision

Smith encouraged churches seeking revival to “think outside the box” and have their events off campus. By going to a neutral site, other youth groups and churches came that likely would not have walked through the doors of First Baptist Poplarville. The entire college football team and numerous other athletes attended because the event was right on their campus.

Smith highlighted that the evangelist and worship leader are “absolutely critical” to the ultimate goal of seeing people come to know Christ personally.

Over the years, Smith had developed a friendship with guest evangelist, Ronnie Hill, through youth events in other states. Hill’s story began in tragedy as a product of date rape, but God redeemed his broken beginnings and uses Hill as an incredible speaker of God’s Word. “We know each other’s heart. He is definitely a gifted evangelist,” said Smith.

The guest worship team was Chris McDaniel and his band. Once a money-making country music star who was highly addicted, McDaniel was radically changed by the Lord and walked away from that life. Through Hill and McDaniel’s passion for souls and powerful testimonies of the Gospel, God faithfully pulled together the spiritual results of this year’s revival.

And God provided in the material ways, too.

“We budgeted $6,000 for this event, but when you add up the expenses, they’re at $13,000,” said Smith. “So we take a love offering.”

Instead of passing an offering plate, First Baptist Poplarville keeps a box at the front and the back of the sanctuary. Additionally, a group of women stood outside the Brownstone the last night with buckets, not making a big deal about it, but standing there if anyone felt led to give.

When they totaled up the offerings, they had $7,000 — exactly what was needed.

“We had a vision to see people saved, and God took care of the financial part. It was only a God thing for sure,” said Smith.

“I have served at churches running thousands and then I moved to small-town Mississippi. We look and see what God has done here with multiple services completely packed out, we see our youth group running 125 students in a small town, and we see what God’s doing here in these revivals. But isn’t that like God to go, ‘We’re going to touch the world, but we’re going to do it in a small town’?”