Here, There, and Everywhere
For Rev. Virgil Hull, all of southern Florida seems to be open game for church planting.
Steve Dennie
July 1988
A person can get real confused talking to Rev. Virgil Hull about where exactly he's starting a church.
First, he's talking about Friendly Church in Fort Myers. Then it's Family Church in Fort Myers. Well, which is it--Friendly or Family?
Just when you get that straightened out, he mentions Fellowship Church, which you find out is in Lehigh Acres. Then he's talking about starting churches in Naples and Haines City. And what's this about La Belle?
And then--this is where you decide you must be going nuts--you hear something about North Carolina.
What's the deal here?
It's easy to explain. Virgil Hull is a visionary. Visionaries talk that way. They see possibilities here, possibilities there, possibilities in between. Give them the time and the resources, and they'll turn those possibilities into realities. That's why visionaries make such good church planters.
Virgil Hull started the first UB church in Florida. For some odd reason, it's called First UB. You'll find it in Holly Hill (the Daytona Beach area). During his 25 years as pastor there, First mothered a new church in Port Orange, which is called Faith UB. (See if you can catch a pattern. You've already been given all the clues.)
Last summer, Hull returned to fulltime church planting--which, a little time with him reveals, is obviously his first love.
The conference and denominational Board of Church Extension targeted Fort Myers, a city of about 275,000. It's in the southern part of the state, about 175 miles south (and a tad west) of Daytona Beach, located on the western coast of the Florida peninsula (Daytona's on the east side).
Even before making the move, Hull was contacting people he had been told about. This resulted in a Bible study group of about ten people. He drove to east Fort Myers about noon every Thursday and returned to Daytona around 2 a m. Then in June, he moved there.
Working alongside him has been Rev. Wayne Clyatt, his associate pastor in church planting. "Wayne is top notch," Hull says. "He came out of my prison ministry at First Church. I was in the prison ministry real big for about five years. I had a two-and-a-half hour Bible study every Tuesday night. Wayne attended that, got on fire for Jesus, and studied for the ministry."
He sent Clyatt to Fort Myers a few weeks early to find meeting places and work with the Bible study.
How do they divide their duties? Well, they don't. "We don't have much structure. We just do whatever needs to be done. I'm very task-oriented, while he is people-oriented. That makes us a good team."
That summer, Hull attended a "Phones for You" telemarketing seminar in Los Angeles and liked what he learned. They launched a telemarketing campaign in August, making 33,000 telephone calls--not completed calls, just dial-ups. "A lot of people didn't answer. In August, everybody who can gets out of Florida," says Hull.
Nevertheless, they built a prospect list with 2187 names. "After the phone calls, we sent five mailings--always beautiful, first-class literature--and then made personal visits."
Friendly Church (east Fort Myers) held its first service September 27, with 130 present. Not bad for openers. But, "We were expecting 300 to start with," Hull says. "Wayne argued that we would have 500, because the calls were too good to be true. We had 470 families promise to attend the first service."
Fifty families also promised to bring cookies. Only one man did bring cookiesÉbut not quite enough for 130 people. That was a problem.
Then there were problems with the meeting place--a Seventh Day Adventist gymnasium. No air conditioning. Terrible acoustics. "That was the dumbest thing I ever did," he admits.
Nevertheless, as the mailing and personal contacts continued, a congregation began to solidify. This past March, Friendly Church averaged 60 people. In May, it formally organized, with 28 adult and 9 youth members.
Meanwhile, Family Community Church was taking root in the suburb of Lehigh Acres. Their first service was held Easter Sunday evening in an American Legion Hall. Forty-four people attended, though they used just one advertisement and no telemarketing.
"For months, we have been trying to find a better place to meet," Hull said this past May, when he attended the General Board meeting. "The American Legion Hall reeks with cigarette smoke and liquor smell. Just on the other side of the double doors is the bar. A terribly drunk, loud woman came to that first service. She sang louder than anyone else there, and had an answer for everything I said. Some people thought she was part of our group. I thanked God that she came, because I want to reach the ungodly. But it hurt us. Some fine, elderly people were turned off."
Meanwhile (once again), in north Fort Myers, Fellowship Church is in the earliest stages. They hope to start holding services in October and officially organize in February.
And, "Naples will be number four," Hull says. That's a city south of Fort Myers. He wants to launch that church next February.
By the way--have you noticed the pattern with these churches? All of the churches Hull has started in Florida begin with the letter F--First, Faith, Friendly, Family, Fellowship.
So what will he call the church in Naples? "I'm not sure. I'm running out of names that start with F. I may have to change my tactics."
What's after Naples? "We were going to try Tampa next. It has 1.7 million people. But we have found real interest in Haines City."
This came about by accident. He, Bishop Wilber Sites, and Rev. Ralph Fry (pastor at Lake Brantley UB) were carrying on at a Bob Evans restaurant after a stationing committee meeting. Soon, their waitress joined in. Hull asked her, "Where are you from originally?"
"Dayton, Ohio," she said.
"Well, I've preached revival meetings all around that town," he told her.
"Where?"
"Have you ever heard of the Prescott area?"
"Prescott!" she responded. "That's where I grew up! I was in the Prescott Avenue United Brethren church." She attended there when Bishop Clarence Kopp was the pastor. She didn't know he had become a bishop. She now lives in Haines City. "I want back in the United Brethren church," she told them.
It's a start.
And in La Belle....
"A UB minister gave me the name of Geri Carpenter, who moved from the Midwest. She now lives in La Belle, about 20 miles east of Fort Myers. We visited her, and she said, 'I'll get some of my neighbors together.' So for four weeks, before the winter people went back to the north, we had a Bible study with an average of 14 people. We'll start it up again in the fall."
As you can tell, there's plenty to do.
They continue making weekly mailings to about 2000 people. They keep the phones going. They knock on doors. They hold Bibles studies. They took 15 girls and 1 boy from Friendly Church on a youth retreat. And things are happening.
Rev. Hull compares himself to a missionary. He is only getting the churches started. Other pastors will fill the pulpits once a work is established. That will free him to continue starting other churches.
"I want the pastor coming in to know that it's his baby. It's a unique thing. I hope it will work."
And somewhere down the road, he'd like to pioneer in North Carolina. He envisions a North Carolina Conference. Right now, UBs have nothing going in that state. But then, 30 years ago, the same was true of Florida.
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