Leaders of the nation’s largest predominantly Black denomination gathered in Birmingham this week to map out a post-pandemic revival plan.

COVID-19 brought worship services to a halt for months in 2020, forcing churches to start or improve their online broadcasting capabilities.

“We can never go back,” said the Rev. Jerry Young, president of the 7.5-million-member National Baptist Convention USA, which concluded its four-day mid-winter board meeting in Birmingham on Thursday at the BJCC East Exhibition Hall. “We need to make sure the church remains relevant without becoming irreverent. We need to be effective and efficient.”

National church conventions have been begun to resume with a sense of normalcy, although many of the leaders now wear protective masks during their meetings.

“It was a new model, with a heavy emphasis on teaching,” said Young, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Jackson, Miss., who was elected in 2014 and re-elected in 2019 to a second five-year term as national president.

Pastors vowed to renew their sense of mission and urgency of evangelism, putting the pandemic shutdowns behind them.

“On one hand, it was traumatic in that it caused us to stop doing what was normal,” said the Rev. Melvin Owens, president of the Alabama Baptist State Missionary Convention. “So, we had to change. In actuality, the church never closed, because we did do live streaming. We relied on technology. It reminded us again of our commission to ‘Go ye therefore.’ Sometimes you get into a routine and get satisfied to stay in these walls, but our mission has always been the street, the world.”

Owens, pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Lafayette, said thousands of Baptists attended meetings at the BJCC this week for worship and training sessions on evangelism, outreach, music and preaching.