Every year at the Replant Summit, we celebrate a pastor who is doing the good and hard work of replanting by naming a Replanter of the Year. In 2023, Ryan Durham, pastor of Calvary Loup City in Loup City, Nebraska, was named Replanter of the Year. He and his wife, Brandy, were called to replant this dying church after initially committing to serving once a month.
Below is a brief excerpt from a recent interview on the “Replant Bootcamp” podcast between Ryan and JimBo Stewart, NAMB associate director of Replant.
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JimBo Stewart: I’m excited to have you on the podcast. I’ve enjoyed getting to watch and see how God has used you and Brandy in this journey. Last year at the Replant Summit, we were able to bring you guys down and announce you as Replanter of the Year. Tell us just a little bit about the church you’re replanting and how you ended up there.
Ryan Durham: Sure. Well, the church is in Loup City, Nebraska, which is about 45 minutes north of I-80, in central Nebraska, a farming rural town, farm and ranch town, about a thousand folks.
The church was dying and hadn’t had a pastor in two to three years by the time they reached out to us. I met with them in June 2022 and they were really just asking if I’d come out once a month for the summer, on a rotation. And so my wife and I went out to meet with them.
We fell in love. I almost started crying just talking to them and it ended up in a job interview I didn’t expect. And one of the first questions I asked them was “Why are you guys fighting so hard to keep this church alive when there’s so many other churches in the community?”
Some of their answers just blew me away. I expected it to be, “We used to be this, and we used to be that, and the building ….” And all they talked about was the gospel and their love for Jesus and their love for their community.
My heart just broke for them. And before we made it back to Kearney, which is where we lived at the time, about 45 minutes away, I looked over at my wife and she said, “I know we’re never leaving”.
And we haven’t. We have fallen in love with that community.
JS: Tell us a little bit about your experience with the Calvary Family of Churches.
RD: We joined Calvary in 2015 and I started seminary shortly after that. (We) got to know Mark Hallock with the CFC and Jeff and some of the other pastors and got invited to join the CFC cohort, the internship they do with some of the pastors.
Really, that’s where I first started hearing about replanting. The first book I was given was actually Mark Clifton’s book, Reclaiming Glory. He it gave me that and said, “Hey, just read this. Let me know what you think.” And then I think the second one was, Am I A Replanter?
And my world changed – just thinking over the questions and all the reality of it and just having never thought about that. (Replanting) became our passion really and we were blessed to be led to Calvary, where that was also their passion and their mission.
JS: What have been some of the biggest wins you have experienced over the past two years in your ministry?
RD: There’s two that jump in my mind immediately. One was our first baptism. His name is Paxton. The story behind this family, to me, is just amazing.
The other one I would have to say, and I’m just going to say her name’s Ms. Megan. This was early on when we first started. And, again, fairly new to being a pastor, especially a full-time pastor.
We hadn’t been there very long, but she had some severe health issues and needed a transplant, but didn’t know if she was going to have enough people to take care of her if she had this transplant. And so we hadn’t even been there but a few weeks, and she comes to me and she says, “Hey, I need this transplant or I’m going to die, but I don’t have anybody to take care of me, so I’m not going to get it.”
We sat down and had a conversation and I tried to love her on her the best I could. One of the things we told her – and my wife and I just kind of looked at each other and it was one of those silent, we understood it. I looked at her and said, “Miss Megan, if my wife’s got to quit her job to come take care of you for a few weeks, that’s what we’ll do. If that’s the only thing keeping you from doing this transplant, don’t worry about it. She’s a new Christian, a new believer, struggles with a lot of tragedy in her life. And so she just wasn’t sure but she was, like, “You know what? I really believe the gospel. I don’t understand everything, but I believe that you love me and I’m going to believe you.”
One year later, on Easter weekend, I picked her up to go do our first church outreach event. And she looks at me and she says, “Can I tell you something I haven’t told anyone?”
I said, “What’s that?” And she said, “My doctor called me last night and said my liver has regenerated to the point that I’m so healthy, they’re taking me off the [transplant] list.” You know, just watching her discipleship, her growth and knowledge of the Lord and love of the Lord grow over the past two years has been amazing.
And in some moments when I struggle, I remember those two conversations and sometimes it’s enough to say, “OK, this is worth it.”
JS: What advice would you give to somebody starting Day 1?
RD: Honestly, celebrate everything. I started this when we first started at the church. I had a notebook and, I’ll be honest, I got away from it. I’ve had to make myself get back to it. I write down everything good that happens. And it can be the smallest little things.
If there’s something simple, positive that happened at the church or in the community, celebrating that with our congregation and creating that culture of positive encouragement over everything, people feel loved by that. They’re drawn to that.
It doesn’t matter how small the thing might seem. You might even seem silly at first, but go over the top celebrating it because that energy and passion really is contagious. And it’s given my people this energy that they just want to storm the community with the love of Jesus.
Be sure to listen to the entire interview to hear more of how God is working in Loup City, Nebraska. You can register for the 2024 Replant Summit here.
Published August 6, 2024
