Last February, one telephone call 2,500 miles away from New Orleans changed
Scott Hanberry’s life.
Last February, one telephone call 2,500 miles away from New Orleans changed
Scott Hanberry’s life.
At the time, the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary graduate was content
managing the on-campus Lifeway Christian Resources store and serving as pastor
of a church in Hattiesburg, Miss.
The call came from longtime friend Mike Palmer, pastor at Salmon Valley Baptist
Church in Salmon, Idaho. He phoned Hanberry to request Bibles for church members
to give away on their missions trip.
“As we were talking, Scott asked me about the churches in the Coeur d’Alene/Hayden
area,” Palmer recounts. “I said off the cuff, jokingly, ‘Why
don’t you come up here and start one.’”
As it turns out, the joke turned into a life-changing decision for Hanberry.
“We were really content enjoying the ministry God had given us (in the
South),” says Hanberry, whose place of ministry always had been in the
Deep South.
However, after praying about the situation, Hanberry, his wife and two sons
made the cross-country trek to Idaho last September to plant NorthStar Baptist
Church.
For Hanberry, the experience has been an adventure. “We meet new people
everyday,” he says.
“They all have a need – and that’s Christ.
“People are friendly but skeptical,” Hanberry continues. “However,
it hasn’t been as difficult as I thought.”
Hanberry says he frequently would find people in the South who knew Bible verses
or attended church on a regular basis.
In Idaho, the atmosphere is different.
“People in the South go to church because they have to, but here, people
go because they want to,” Hanberry says. “People won’t put on
airs and will tell you if they aren’t interested in going to church.
“Here, we’re in the minority.”
To break that mindset, Hanberry spends most afternoons building relationships
with others in the area.
“We want to show our neighbors we care about them,” Hanberry emphasizes.
“Relationships are what God is all about and that’s why we’re
building them.”
His philosophy is that NorthStar will be “different, to make a difference.”
To that end, members of NorthStar distributed coffee and hot chocolate at this
year’s New Year’s Day Polar Bear Plunge. The event featured individuals
who braved the frigid temperatures for a swim in the icy-cold Coeur d’Alene
Lake.
Hanberry frequently invites the community to eat at his home also. Recently,
26 people ate gumbo in the pastor’s house.
Even his Southern accent has helped him reach others in the community, he says.
“I will go to Starbucks (coffeeshop) some afternoons, set up my laptop
computer and because of my accent, people will come up to talk to me,”
Hanberry says.
“We call it shopping for Jesus.”
Currently, Hanberry leads two Bible studies, while his wife teaches a women’s
class. Two of the classes are held at apartment and condominium complexes, while
another occurs in the Hanberry home.
Hanberry says his goal with the meetings is to bring together the 15 Bible
study participants for the church’s first public worship service this spring.
The demographics look promising for Hanberry’s church plant, whose original
membership was his wife and him.
Ninety thousand individuals live within a 10-mile radius of NorthStar, and
Hanberry says 87 percent of those are unchurched. Also, the population is expected
to double within the next 10 years.
“We’re talking about a significant number of lost people here,”
Hanberry says.
Teams from Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee are scheduled to participate
in outreach efforts this summer. Those efforts include survey work, sports camps
and backyard Bible clubs.
In fact, Moss Bluff First Baptist Church in Lake Charles prayerwalked in the
Coeur d’Alene/Hayden area last summer, before Hanberry arrived on the scene
to plant NorthStar Baptist Church. The south Louisiana church plans a return
missions trip to the area July 3-10.
“We’re in a partnership for three years,” explains Jay Ramer,
minister of education at Moss Bluff First Baptist Church.
“We hope to get our people going there, whether it’s swinging a hammer
or doing survey work.”
Hanberry hopes other such churches will assist NorthStar with outreach efforts.
“One of the things we’re seeing is that churches like Moss Bluff
are answering the call to missions,” Hanberry says. “We’re looking
for churches to grab the idea of praying, giving and going. They’ll see
missions is more than giving an offering at Easter or Christmas.”
Hanberry says he hopes NorthStar will become a church-planting hub. He adds
that he longs for five church plants in the area within the next 10 years.
“God is doing something here because he’s laying it on the hearts
of Christians to start a church,” Palmer says.
“The Lord has invited us to be involved in something for the kingdom.”
(For more information on missions involvement or partnering with NorthStar
Baptist Church, contact Hanberry at 208-772-2011 or via e-mail at scott@northstarchurch.us.)