As the pastor of a fledgling church, the Rev. Drew Bennett knows that new congregations live a gypsy life, borrowing places to meet. It is usually years before purchasing a permanent site is possible. Bennett is pastor of Church of the Redeemer in Winter Haven, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America, and his congregation was started in October 2008 as a mission of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Lakeland. The church started with about 60 people, worshiping in the auditorium of Winter Haven High School.

Things were going well, and then in April, Bennett got a call from his friend the Rev. Ivan Lambert, pastor of Covenant Presbyterian, a sister church in Winter Haven. Lambert had an offer. Covenant was dying and wanted to give its property and buildings to Church of the Redeemer.

“It was a shock. We never dreamed or even talked about this,” Bennett said this week. He and Lambert sat in the office that used to be Lambert’s and is now his. “The big thing for a church planter is you spend three to six years figuring out how to get the resources you need. Here’s an opportunity to go into something without a mortgage.”

On Sept. 27, Covenant held its last worship service, and the next day signed over the deed to its 4.5-acre campus to Church of the Redeemer, which marked its first anniversary last Sunday with a joint service with some of the members of Covenant. It was a day mixed with sadness and joy, the two pastors said.

Covenant’s act of generosity brought to a close its 44-year history in Winter Haven. It built its 200-seat sanctuary overlooking Lake Elbert in 1967, two years after it was organized as an Associate Reformed Presbyterian church. The congregation switched affiliations to the Presbyterian Church in America in 1981 and by 1990, it was averaging more than 275 people in worship.

The following year the church suffered a split and was never the same, Lambert said. Both the congregation that formed after leaving and eventually Covenant itself weakened. By 2006, when Lambert was called as pastor, the church was in trouble. In the past year, he said, attendance at worship had dwindled to about 60.

In February, Lambert and the church’s five elders discussed their options and soon after, Lambert had the idea of giving the property to Church of the Redeemer, even though it meant he would lose his job. At first, some of the elders were not sure about the idea, but at a second meeting, “they were all on board,” Lambert said.

In a sense, the two churches represent the outlooks of different generations. Lambert, 46, led a church that was traditional in its approach to worship and Sunday school. Bennett, 34, said Church of the Redeemer’s approach is borrowed totally from Trinity, which has a contemporary-style worship service and favors small-group Bible studies in people’s homes.

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