Covenant Grace Baptist Church pastor Ben Skaug preached to a near-capacity crowd on Easter Sunday.
Two Greenville County congregations located less than three miles apart (as the crow flies) have combined to form Covenant Grace Baptist Church.
More than 300 members of the former Buncombe Road and Leawood Baptist churches came together Easter Sunday for their first worship service as Covenant Grace.
“Instead of competing with one another, we decided we could accomplish more for the kingdom of Jesus Christ together than we ever could as individual churches,” a Covenant Grace spokesperson said.
The new church will meet at the former Leawood campus. Ben Skaug, who was pastor at Buncombe Road, will assume the role of pastor at Covenant Grace. William Moseley was serving as interim pastor at Leawood.
Wayne Batson, who was Leawood’s minister of music, will assume the same role at Covenant Grace.
“This is a great thing,” said Ron Davis, director of missions for Greenville Baptist Association. “Leawood was a struggling church, and Buncombe Road has a lot of people but not enough building.”
“If done right, mergers can breathe new life” into a community, Davis added. “This could be a model for other churches.”
Davis said three churches have already expressed interest in purchasing the former Buncombe Road Church property.