SCBC staff member named NAMB missionary to Upstate

The North American Mission Board has appointed Abi Elrod as a US/C2 missionary, a position of service in the United States or Canada for two years.

Matthew and Abi Elrod

Elrod, currently employed with the South Carolina Baptist Convention as an assistant in the church multiplication office, began her appointment as a missionary in the Greenville area on July 1.

“I have always been open to be wherever God wanted me to serve, and have felt like the basis of my work will be in serving others,” Elrod said. She was called to missions while a teenager serving on staff at a Girls in Action (GA) summer camp in her home state of Kentucky. “Missions is part of who I am.”

As she fulfills the NAMB appointment, Elrod and her husband, Matthew, will concurrently serve as a care team with the Texas-based ministry, Apartment Life. They will reside in a community apartment complex in order to build personal relationships and help meet basic needs of the residents. The two ministry opportunities work well together, Elrod said.

“As a US/C2 missionary I will work to build community relationships through discipleship, storying [telling Bible stories in sequential order], and with churches in the Greenville Association to develop strategies to reach cultures within the community,” Elrod said. Her four years of SCBC experience in church-planting work will also be used in coaching new networks of church-planting support and relationship building.

Elrod is the second SCBC multiplication team assistant to be called to the mission field since 2006. “The Lord has blessed SCBC with extremely gifted personnel who are concerned about far more than just fulfilling the requirements of a job,” said Wayne Terry, SCBC multiplication team associate executive director. “Abi Elrod and Jessica Sullivan are two great examples of this.” Sullivan currently serves as a Journeyman to India through the International Mission Board.

Elrod holds degrees in religious studies and American sign language from Gardner Webb University. In addition to new ministry assignments this summer, the Elrods will celebrate the birth of their first child.