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Genesis of a growing Baptist movement

A firecracker of a man has helped put Bell Shoals on the national map. He's not content to sit quietly in the pews.

By S.I. ROSENBAUM Times Staff Writer
Published September 28, 2007

A.T. and Margie Herring try to decide where to go next during the Family Impact Summit last Friday. "We have the same family values that are being expressed," Margie Herring said.
	[Chris Zuppa | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Daniel Wallace | Times] At Bell Shoals, from left, Milton and Barbara Lovelace, Sharon Olsen, Vicki Hamaker, Beverly Hamrick (standing) and Kim Jackson pray as protesters call the church summit antigay.

Two years ago, members of Bell Shoals Baptist Church gathered to protest the opening of a Valrico bikini bar.

Last weekend, the church hosted a two-day conference featuring some of the biggest names in the national Christian right movement.

Many of them said they'd never heard of Bell Shoals - or Brandon - before they were invited to speak here.

"It's a little out of the way," laughed Rena Lindewaldsen, who teaches law at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. "But you know, God does things in unexpected ways."

How did the church go from hyper-local activism to hosting a conference of national proportions?

In some ways, Bell Shoals has been on a path to prominence for years - since about the time of that bikini bar rally.

If you observed the crowd gathered there that day, you'd notice a bearded, sun-scalded man with a bullhorn: Terry Kemple.

A former executive director of the Florida Christian Coalition and the state's Right to Life chapter, Kemple had also led Bell Shoals' issues committee off and on for 12 years.

At the time the bikini bar was proposed, in the spring of 2005, Kemple was working on a national teen sexual abstinence campaign. A church member called and asked for his help fighting the bikini bar.

"It was something I knew how to do," Kemple recalls. "It was a training God had given me."

Throughout that summer, Kemple led rallies, organized petitions and filed appeals to keep the bikini bar from opening.

It didn't work. The bar is still open today.

But that fall, Hurricane Katrina wiped out Kemple's abstinence program by sucking up charity dollars.

He felt God had a new plan for him.

With his wife, he founded the Community Issues Council.

"Our mission is to educate and unite the church," Kemple said, "to effectively and legally engage our community in issues of the day. The reason we are in the moral abyss that we're in is that the church has stayed within its four walls."

Kemple is the organization's only employee. Although it has no formal ties to Bell Shoals, Kemple remains on the church's issues committee.

And he is close to Pastor Forrest Pollock.

Pollock remembers praying with Kemple two years ago "about taking the vision of Bell Shoals ... more on a national basis."

Pollock said he was answered: Bell Shoals should become a model for other churches to become more politically active.

"We felt like Bell Shoals had something to offer other churches," Pollock said. "Many churches don't know where to begin, how to start a community issues committee like we did, how to speak out on issues without threatening their nonprofit status."

Last year, Kemple and a delegation from Bell Shoals attended a conservative Christian political conference in Washington, D.C.

That was when Kemple got the idea for his Community Issues Council to stage a similar conference on Bell Shoals' sprawling campus.

Pollock supported the idea. For help, Kemple turned to Clint Cline, a former Bell Shoals member.

Cline's advertising company has worked with many of the biggest organizations in the Christian right. He won't release his client list, but he said, "Many of the people (at the summit) came because I placed a request."

The summit's speakers included Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council; former presidential candidate Gary Bauer; former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris; and presidents and vice presidents of organizations like Focus on the Family and Exodus International.

Many said they were there because Cline invited them.

While the guest list was star-studded, the summit's audience turnout was smaller than expected. Kemple said he sold more than 200 tickets, but it seemed that even the biggest events drew fewer than 130 people.

Organizers were pleased, though.

"I think it went well," Kemple said. "There's reasonable chance we'll do it again."

Said Cline: "While it would have been nicer to have more people there, the people who were there were engaged and motivated. And it takes one person to begin a revival, to begin a revolution, to begin anything."

Kemple said that while he was busy organizing the event, one of his aides sent him a joking e-mail.

Now that Pastor Falwell has passed, she wrote, maybe Brandon will become the next Lynchburg, Va.

Kemple smiles at the idea. It's not his intention, he said. "The focus here is local."

But he added, "You never really do know. That's not in my control. That's in God's control."

Reach S.I. Rosenbaum at srosenbaum@sptimes.com or 661-2442.

[Last modified September 27, 2007, 08:06:39]