That’s the message of Eric Lethco, pastor, Old Fort Baptist Church, Summerville, when asked to encourage South Carolina churches. “We, as a church, made a decision about 10 years ago to engage in missions. God ignited a fire in our church. That first year, we had about two dozen people involved. Each year we added a few dozen more. Now, if you were to ask our congregation on Sunday, ‘How many of you are personally involved in missions?’ my guess is more than half would raise their hands.”
Members from Old Fort Baptist Church held a block party and health fair for the Hispanic community at Iglesia Vida Abundante (Abundant Life Church).Lethco said missions “is a process, not an event. A church can bring in every packaged program that comes along for missions development and missions involvement, but those don’t get you there. What gets the church excited about missions is getting involved in it.”
That involvement, the pastor said, has transformed the church. “Since we started a missions focus, we’ve seen believers become true disciples. We’ve seen tremendous growth since we began reaching out to others.” About five years ago, the church adopted an unreached people group in Peru and sends teams there each year with the goal of starting indigenous churches. There’s also a partnership in China and Southeast Asia. This summer the church will send its missions coordinator, Mason Van Tassel, to live in Nova Scotia, Canada, where the church has adopted a people group. Through the summer, the church will be sending teams to Nova Scotia under Van Tassel’s leadership.
Old Fort Baptist Church members share a Bible story with Quechua children at their school in Peru.Locally, the church provides medical clinics and participates in association partnerships to reach the area’s large Hispanic community. “We have a group in our church that targets the local missions opportunities. We have a partnership with other churches to start Hispanic congregations and support local shelters,” Lethco said.
“We’ve seen our missions giving steadily increase because of our church’s involvement,” Lethco said. “We’ve also seen God call a variety of families to serve in home missions and abroad in full-time missions service.”
Bobby Bailey, director of missions, Screven Baptist Association, said, “The missions strategy at Old Fort is to be a church that equips the members to be missionaries in the local community, nation, and around the world. They have demonstrated this strategy by their involvement.”