In 2000, while a student at the College of Charleston, Brandon Bowers experienced Christ for the first time and committed himself to serving wherever God might use him.
Church planters Brandon and Ashley Bowers (with Brailey, 6, Brinkley, 2, and Bryson, 4) hope to reach young adult couples in the growing West Ashley area of Charleston.“My story in Christ starts in Charleston,” said Bowers, and his story will soon continue in Charleston. Drawn back to “the very place where God changed [his] life forever,” Bowers, on Aug. 1, will leave behind a thriving ministry at an established church in Spartanburg to plant a new church in Charleston’s West Ashley area.
Along with his wife, Ashley, and their three young children, plus nine young adults from Spartanburg’s First Baptist Church, Bowers will lay the groundwork this fall for the launch of Awaken Church early next year.
Bowers, 33, said the need is “immense” for a stronger evangelical presence in Charleston. There are 650,000 people in the metropolitan area, yet 84 percent of them claim no church affiliation, he said. Also, in a five-mile circle surrounding Roper St. Francis Hospital in West Ashley, there are upwards of 140,000 residents, only 3,000-4,000 of whom are in a Southern Baptist church on any given Sunday, he said.
“It is an area that is incredibly lost and disconnected from most of the spiritual activity that happens in our state,” he said.
However, the “vast need” of Charleston is about more than cold statistics for Bowers, who grew up in nearby Summerville, as did his wife. For the couple, it is personal. Charleston is “a place we’ve been burdened about,” he said. “It is the city I was lost in [but] where God used a ministry there to find me. I really want to plant a church that does the same thing [for others] in that city. I’m in it for the long haul.”
Bowers will not be going at it alone. Nine young adults from Spartanburg First Baptist Church – where Bowers has served since 2008 as minister to college students and young adults – will be joining him and his family. They include a physical therapist, an elementary school teacher, a computer science major with a calling to student ministry, and a married couple finishing up course work at New Orleans Seminary, among others.
“It’s an interesting dynamic,” said Bowers. “I asked the Lord to send me a Caleb – someone else who believes in what he is calling me to do. It’s exciting to be able to go and start a church with some of our closest friends.”
Bowers envisions Awaken Church reaching young families in a section of Charleston that is experiencing an economic rebound in the midst of a national recession. Many young adults in the area work in medicine, engineering and education, and jobs are plentiful at the Boeing airliner assembly plant in North Charleston. The population in the West Ashley area is expected to double in the next five years, Bowers said.
“We’re targeting 30-to-35-year-old married couples with one or two kids, middle class, with jobs, but in debt,” he said. “They grew up in church, but they’ve been out of church for a few years.”
Awaken Church will start with a “core team,” meeting in homes during the fall, to “build the DNA of discipleship into our church,” Bowers said. Sunday night meetings will begin in January 2013, with Sunday morning services scheduled to launch in March. “We’re praying God gives us a facility,” he said.
Spartanburg First Baptist Church will commission Bowers on July 22 and has agreed to be a sponsoring church for the Charleston plant. Awaken Church is the first of 10 churches that Spartanburg First Baptist will help plant over the next decade as part of its “10 by 10” initiative.
“We are committed to staying in this with Brandon until his church is up and running and replicating,” said Steve Wise, Spartanburg First’s minister of missions. “We want to be with them as they plant their first church.”
Under the “10 by 10” plan, Wise said, Spartanburg First Baptist will plant 10 new churches in 10 years, sending out at least 10 families with each new plant; partner with 10 other churches in each plant (with each church committing at least $10,000 in support for three years); call out 10 church planters from within the congregation; and begin 10 mission “outposts” in Spartanburg, targeting areas of “great physical need and spiritual darkness.”
Wise said Spartanburg First will plant churches in Spartanburg and in other areas of South Carolina, as well as in North America, Africa and Asia.
Bowers is grateful for the support from Spartanburg First Baptist, but recognizes he will be stepping out on faith – and without a salary. “It’s scary to step away from that and start from scratch,” he said. “It’s got to be a call from the Lord.”
“We’re trusting the Lord’s provision in this,” he said, adding that he will get an outside job to “bridge the income as needed” until Awaken Church is established.
He hopes Spartanburg’s “10 by 10” church-starting model will help “bring understanding as to how strong, traditional Southern Baptist churches can support church plants.”
“How do churches get behind the call to plant churches like we see in the New Testament?” Bowers asked. “What will our state look like 20 years from now if we don’t? We want to be a conduit to help some of that communication happen.”
– For more information about Awaken Church, visit AwakenCharleston.com.