Cresson church plant launched Easter Sunday 2025, looks ahead to celebrating one year of ministry; 13 baptisms in first year

In April 2022, Alan Stoddard moved back home to Granbury from pastoring churches in New Mexico to care for his mother prior to her passing “a year and a half ago.” He said, “God used that [circumstance] to bring me back to Texas.” 

“[Our sending church, Granbury Baptist Church, has planted about 10 churches here locally, so I thought], ‘If a church planting option opens up, I want to take that,’” said Stoddard. “I've been in the ministry for 35 years now, but my call to [get involved in church] planting is that I just didn't want to sit around when I still had [ministry] to do, so I'm like, ‘Why not give all that effort to church planting?’” 

Launching Imagine Church with 75 attendees, 2 baptisms

Through Granbury Baptist Church, Stoddard connected with Northeast Texas Church Starting Strategist Nic Burleson and took the church starting assessment in Marble Falls in May 2025. Then, with the support of Texas Baptists and a team of 12 church members from Granbury Baptist Church, Stoddard planted Imagine Church in Cresson, a neighboring city to Granbury, on Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025. 

“Our pastor, Lonnie Lerhman, put us on stage and said, ‘We're going to plant a church called Imagine Church with Alan and Gina. We're looking for 12 to 20 people to go out for 6 months to a year, or forever,’” explained Stoddard. “We received another 10 to 12 people along the way, and we planted this church in five weeks. We remodeled [our new] building inside. We had a worship leader, we had kids' leadership, everything happened so fast.” 

Stoddard said Cresson is “a prime location” to plant. 

“[Cresson is] a community where they're building new homes like crazy and… they're not all the homes are up yet, but probably by this summer we’re going to see the first set of new homes going into these big subdivisions,” explained Stoddard.

In the five weeks leading up to Imagine Church’s launch, Stoddard and his team focused on three outreach strategies. 

“One, we blasted out social media, letting it be known. [Two], we set up a table at a dollar store that's near the church, and we [handed out] free nachos, free handouts and invited people… The other [focus was] relationships that people had. [Our team] just invited their neighbors and their friends, and it really worked,” explained Stoddard. 

Imagine Church launched “on Easter Sunday with 75 people” and baptized two in their first service. 

“Matter of fact, one lady [we met at our dollar store outreach], her daughter got baptized [in our first service]. She had already been saved, and she said, ‘I would like to get baptized.’ It was awesome!” said Stoddard. 

The next week, Stoddard said they saw “about 45 people” in Sunday service. He said as the church has grown, he is seeing “a real hunger for small church life… where [people] can be known [and have opportunities to serve].”

“Staying focused on the mission” and engaging the community

Burleson said in their first year of ministry, Imagine Church has been “very involved in community engagement.” Stoddard shared three ways the church has served the community, including hosting a Thanksgiving dinner. He said the dinner “provided us a way to have presence” in the “up and coming Texas community.” 

“We had 80 people at it [and] three professions of faith,” said Stoddard. “We had some music that was lightly going, live music, and then we greeted everybody and very conversationally told who we were. We had people fill out cards if they had prayed to receive Christ, and then we gave them some follow-up materials. We gave them a Bible and [shared that] we wanted to try to join them on their own spiritual journey.” 

Stoddard said the church is also “big on going door-to-door” to share the gospel. 

“Usually, you go door-to-door, and you only do it once, and you're just doing it to try to get people to the church, which is not bad, but we want to keep going and doing these kinds of events to show a presence in the next couple of years. Instead of ‘Oh, we're just trying to get you to our church.’ No, we want to get you to Jesus,” said Stoddard. 

Stoddard also shared that he is “in the process of becoming a chaplain for the volunteer fire department of Cresson.” 

He said these community engagements have spurred church members to serve and find community. He said he has also seen “a good amount of people who've been called to ministry” out of the 55 regular attendees and 13 people baptized. 

“It’s been a joy to work with Pastor Alan and Imagine Church. They’ve done an incredible job of staying focused on the mission and engaging their local community with the good news and hope found in Jesus. That evangelistic focus is one of the primary reasons they’ve baptized so many people in their first year,” said Nic Burleson, Northeast Texas Church Starting strategist for Texas Baptists.

Looking ahead to Easter and one-year of ministry 

Ahead of celebrating their one-year anniversary on April 20, Imagine Church is starting a “30-day period of showing gratitude for our partners” through “social media blasts.” Stoddard said a video will also be shown to celebrate everything God has done over the last year of ministry. 

Leading up to Easter, Stoddard said, “we are reaching out like crazy.” 

“We have a group called International Commission coming in, and we're going to do outreach for the whole week before [Easter], going door-to-door inviting people to church, seeing how they respond to that, pray for them, [and] if we can, share the gospel with them,” said Stoddard. 

Stoddard said,“Texas Baptists have been just outstanding!” 

“Of course, financially, they're helping us out. There's also a partnership with a ministry that helped us get $3,000 worth of grant for worship equipment,” explained Stoddard. “The church planter training that they did was superior… I was so thankful that we did that. Through equipping, through those partnerships, through the good relationships with other pastors, just to check on us and see how we're doing, [Texas Baptists have been very supportive].” 

Stoddard said he has a desire for Imagine Church to become a sending church. 

“I'm wanting to get to 120 people. If we reach 120, what I want to do is plant another church and… take 30 people to go plant a new church somewhere,” said Stoddard.

Stoddard encouraged church planters and those considering church planting not to attempt to plant alone. 

“My biggest [encouragement] would be ‘Don't go alone’... If you go alone, you have to pull everything off yourself. Having partnerships allows you to get people, prayer, [and] some financing [invested in your church],” said Stoddard. 

Stoddard asked for prayer as the city of Cresson continues to grow. 

“We want to see the Lord work uniquely in our area. It's needed – there's one other church in the area – There's plenty of people, [but] not enough churches for our area. So, I would ask people to pray for us,” said Stoddard. “[To Texas Baptists], I would say thank you for the partnership. We are incredibly thankful. We can't overstate that, and we're excited about the future.”