Each session of this year’s Annual Meeting at Columbia First Baptist Church featured a panel discussion focusing on promoting cooperation, reigniting evangelism, and encouraging missions engagement among South Carolina Baptists.
Admitting Challenges, Continuing to Build Trust
Chris Spires, convention vice president, hosted a panel on cooperation, focusing on the barriers, benefits, and goals behind the continued investment of SCBaptists in the Cooperative Program. The panel included D.J. Horton, pastor at Church at the Mill; Alex Sands, pastor at Kingdom Life Church; and Josh Powell, pastor at Taylors First Baptist Church. All three panelists served nationally at the Southern Baptist Convention in some capacity, and all three also served as previous Convention presidents.
When asked about the barriers that hinder SCBaptists from cooperating, Powell said, “I think the problem we have is that this requires a lot of trust.” He emphasized that although there may not be enough trust among Southern Baptists as a whole, SCBaptists should continue to “gain trust among one another to lead and pull in the same direction.”
Sands shared that from his personal experience, his church was not a Baptist church when he planted it in 2003. For him, approaching the Greenville Baptist Association meant leaning into the resources and knowledge they offered. “We were helped by CP dollars. We’ve been nothing but supported in the convention,” Sands said.
Reigniting Evangelistic Efforts
Lee Clamp, SCBaptist associate executive director-treasurer, hosted a panel discussion on evangelism, which included Adam Venters, the Baptist Collegiate Ministry director at the University of South Carolina; Corey Watson, teaching pastor and evangelism director of First Baptist Simpsonville / Upstate Church’s Harrison Bridge campus; and Ed Stewart, pastor and planter of New Creation Baptist Church.
Venters shared that Carolina BCM has a thriving collegiate ministry that reaches local and international students, and 29 students came to faith in Christ this school year. He emphasized that SCBaptists are often asking the wrong questions when it comes to reaching the next generation. “If you ask the right question, people will respond,” Venters said. “We see students come to know the Lord because we ask them good questions,” he shared, highlighting the need to relationally engage young people.
First Baptist Simpsonville/Upstate Church was recently named by Outreach Magazine as the fastest growing church in the Southern Baptist Convention. Corey Watson, teaching pastor for their Harrison Bridge campus, shared that the church set goals to “efficiently and effectively” reach the lost. “We set some goals over 2024 to have 3,600 intentional connections and 1,200 conversations about Jesus,” Watson said. He admitted that he was initially discouraged by the numbers he saw. “We know we should share the gospel, but many of us don’t do it,” he said.
He encouraged pastors to model evangelism in their personal lives, putting into practice what they preach. “We are in the business of equipping and empowering our people to think in drastically different ways about evangelism,” Watson said. Of the evangelism goals, he said the church has met 93 percent of their initial aim, with a “majority coming from our laypeople.”
New Creation Baptist Church decided to replant after a season of decline. After years of no baptisms, the church saw 32 baptisms in one year. Pastor Ed Stewart emphasized the importance of having a presence in the community. “My conviction for the Woodfield Park Community is to go into the neighborhood, make connections and have conversations, and as you do that, listen to people,” Stewart said. “Jesus is the answer,” Stewart said, but the key to sharing the gospel is “by being present.”
Remaining Steadfast in Sending and Celebrating
Wes Church hosted a panel on missions with Tommy Meador, pastor at Northwood Baptist Church; Judd and Debbie McKinnon, missionaries with the International Mission Board; and Charlie Swain, SCBaptist’s Next Generation Strategist.
Debbie McKinnon shared that, with global crises, “more than ever before we have seen firsthand more openness to the gospel. People have lost hope, and we bring true hope,” she said.
For Swain, the biggest challenge to calling out missionaries is that SCBaptists have “abandoned pipelines to missions,” stating that many churches no longer teach missions education to children and students.
— Anna Gardner is the creative editor for the South Carolina Baptist Convention.