Greenville, Greer and North Greenville Baptist associations are embracing the call to plant churches that will reach the new people who are moving into the Greenville area. The three associations are hosting the New Work Vision Tour March 6-7 to provide church leaders with an opportunity to explore potential sites for new work and how they can form strategic church-planting partnerships.
On any given Sunday, only 22 percent of the population of Greenville County attend a church service, according to statistics provided by associational directors Ron Davis, Cleatus Blackmon and Randy Bradley. While population growth has exceeded 10 percent during the past seven years, the number of Southern Baptist churches has remained virtually the same and attendance has declined, they also note. Since new churches best reach new residents, new people groups and the unchurched, planners hope the Vision Tour will both cultivate new ideas and establish new leaders of church-planting efforts.
Vision Tour participants will board buses at First Baptist Church, Taylors, after an orientation at 9:45 a.m. on Thursday to see and prayerwalk potential sites for churches. Two more tours are scheduled for 1 p.m. that afternoon, and at 9:30 a.m. the following morning.
Jim Anthony, president and CEO of Cliffs Communities, will be leading a question-and-answer session, and Frank Page, pastor of Taylors First Baptist and president of the Southern Baptist Convention, will issue a challenge message on Thursday evening.
Ministers and lay leaders, including Hispanic and African-American, who have an interest in partnering with others to start churches in Greenville County are urged to attend the New Work Vision Tour sessions, which are jointly sponsored by the associations, the South Carolina Baptist Convention, and the North American Mission Board. For more information, contact Wanda Bridwell at (864) 242-4330, or by e-mail at wbridwell@greenvillebaptist.org.