D.J. Horton, pastor of Anderson Mill Road Church, Moore, makes this analogy: “An automobile manufacturer has a mission: to manufacture cars. Our mission as the church is to make disciples. And we can’t make enough of them – there’s no end to it.”
It’s within the context of making disciples that Horton sees Anderson Mill Road’s new 66,000-square-foot worship and education center that opened March 8.
“The mistake of so many churches is falling in love with a worship center,” Horton said. “We want to be a church that is in love with people and uses its worship center to make disciples of Jesus Christ.”
The new facility is phase one of a long-range building project that was planned before Horton arrived as pastor in October 2003. Anderson Mill Road has 27 acres of land on the west side of Spartanburg and has a 21-year history as a Christ-centered church. The recently opened first phase includes worship space, an investment in children’s space, and new adult Sunday school space. Future phases include more education space and a sanctuary. For now, the new facility allows the worship and education ministry of the church to be on one side of the road instead of divided between facilities across the road from each another.
“Everything is built for discipleship,” Horton said. “There’s no office space; no choir suite. This is a facility that creates a chair for the people who are not yet here.”
Horton said Anderson Mill Road is a difficult church to label. “We are a historic, traditional Baptist church. I preach the word, verse by verse, but we also might be on the contemporary side of blended music. When people ask me, ‘What kind of church are you?’ I just answer, ‘We are us.’?”
The new facility marks a direct investment in children’s ministry with parallels to “the standards of a modern elementary school” in terms of safety, cleanliness, and education, Horton said. “We have not created a place for children to go while parents worship somewhere else. Every parent can walk through this facility and realize our discipleship vision includes children.
“But our investment in new adult space also sends the message that we believe the best thing we can do for children is to make disciples of Mom and Dad,” he said. Within the adult area, rooms are identical, and policies prevent decorations and naming. Bulletin boards in each room strengthen communication. The rooms are interchangeable.
“Our biggest ceiling for growing the kingdom has been shattered. We now have space.”
Jim Austin, executive director-treasurer of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, said Horton and the congregation of Anderson Mill Road Baptist Church “have implemented a thoroughly biblical model of how a church should function. Through worshipping Christ, they reach those without him and make disciples of those in him. I thank the Lord for their kingdom focused intentionality in ministry.” – SCBC