On any given Saturday, Flint Hill Baptist Church, Fort Mill, ministers to between 600 and 1,500 people who come to its church property. They come for Victory Sports Outreach, which offers everything from men’s and youth flag football to children’s baseball and soccer.
The Flint Hill Church sports outreach team prepares dinner, lunch and general concessions so that families can bring their children to practice and not rush to eat supper. Flint Hill members partner with other churches across Fort Mill to host up to 2,000 people on any given Saturday. Church members coach, cook, set up, clean up, and teach Bible studies to mothers – all of which open the doors to share the gospel.For many churches, a successful sports ministry would be the primary story. At Flint Hill, it’s only part of the story.
Constituted in 1792, Flint Hill is both the oldest church in York County and the county’s first Southern Baptist church. Historically progressive, it is reported to be the first church to reach the Catawba Tribe with the gospel and the first to reach diverse people groups in the York County area.
“This church is about as historic as a church can be,” said pastor Chris Autry. “Sometimes history can get in the way of a church’s future, but God started moving here in 2006 and there is a new movement in the church. The people here see a need in the community and move forward toward meeting that need.”
In 2006, a year before the church called Autry as its pastor, Flint Hill was approached by Greg Pendarvis, a local Mission Service Corps missionary with the North American Mission Board and director of Victory Sports Outreach. Pendarvis wanted to offer sports missions on church property adjacent to its buildings.
“The church decided to clear that property, and Victory Sports now allows us to connect with about 2 percent of the area’s population,” Autry said. “We feed families that come in, coaches share the gospel, and our church is able to minister to families needing low-cost recreation.”
Averaging about 120 in Sunday school, Flint Hill also has embraced God’s call to engage in other community ministry as a result of its involvement with Victory Sports.
Autry said, “Because our people decided to try something different, we are starting to realize that God will use us to creatively reach people. This isn’t the pastor dictating what’s going to happen or trying to make something happen. This is the church gathering together, seeing a need, and moving together. As the pastor, I’m the shepherd, but we are co-laborers of the gospel.”
Sue and Skip Liles lead Flint Hill’s Angel Food Ministry. Last year, the church helped area families save more than $22,000 in groceries.“Through Angel Food Ministries, which provides food for friends and neighbors who are struggling financially, we are now connecting with about 200 families per month, saving our community as much as $22,000 per year in grocery costs,” Autry said. “As we communicate with these families, we verbally share the gospel and provide Bibles. We are able to build relationships, and God is meeting needs that we didn’t even know existed.”
The church now contributes to Back The Pack, an initiative of the Rock Hill School District. The Rock Hill School District Foundation calls Back The Pack “a discreet program designed to provide nutritious, nonperishable food for malnourished students to take home on weekends.” Autry said plans include a future partnership with a school where encouraging relationships can be built with teachers.
“We approached [South Carolina Department of Social Services] about ways we can help families, and now DSS calls us with needs,” Autry said. “Again, that allows us to build relationships in the community.”
A clothes closet serves about 100 families per month, and the church is ministering to the National Guard troops.
“These ministries are God’s best tools, under the Holy spirit, to engage people,” Autry said. “We are not interested in a huge church campus; the sports ministry has opened our eyes to go into the community at different points of service with the gospel. It’s a great vision and the church is stepping up to the plate.”
Autry said the church will be focusing on small groups in the community – natural discipleship groups in the natural environments of people’s lives.
“We want to multiply groups so that in about 10 years we have a church that’s ready to be planted,” Autry said. “We have 102,000 people within a five-mile radius of Flint Hill, and there are only four Southern Baptist churches here.
“As a church, we are learning to really know and understanding a daily trust and dependency on Christ,” he said. “We are taking each step forward as we can, as God-honoring as possible. Our ultimate goal is for Fort Mill and the surrounding area to know and experience Christ through what happens here – literally touching our community – not confining ourselves to the building, but going into the community.” – SCBC