It’s hard to tell a church that you think it’s going to die, but Bryan Smith was trying. There were less than 10 people left in a Southern Baptist congregation in East Tennessee. They didn’t have a pastor. They didn’t have enough elders for an elder’s board—just two men, both too sick to take on the responsibility. The money in the bank barely covered the utilities and the building was falling into disrepair. The faithful few thought a new pastor and a few good sermons could save them. They wanted Smith, the church development specialist for the Holston Baptist Association, which serves Southern Baptist churches across four counties in the Appalachian Highlands, to find them someone who could really preach.