In 2009, Ken Vickery prepared to attend a multihousing ministry presentation at the Greer Baptist Association office. He hesitated about going, thinking, “We don’t even have that many multihousing communities around our church.”
“Something of the Lord sent me to the meeting anyway,” said Vickery, pastor of Victor Baptist Church, Greer. “My heart was struck by the statistics: 57 percent of North Americans live in apartments, expensive high-rise communities, mobile home parks, condominiums, and townhouses. And the North American Mission Board estimates 95 percent of those residents are lost without Christ.”
On the drive back to his church, Vickery said, “I noticed we actually have tons of multihousing situations around our church, including three communities within a stone’s throw of our property.”
The church began to pray about its entry into the multihousing communities, then met with managers and asked how it could help. One of the communities, for people 62 and older, invited the church to host a cookout for residents. Vickery also approached LifeWay Christian Resources’ MFuge summer camp at North Greenville University. Students came to help church members in the complexes.
“Victor’s real heyday for membership was in the 1940s and 1950s, when we had 1,000 in Sunday school,” Vickery said. “Some would say our best days are behind us, but our vision is that God has our best days in front of us. We are not a larger-membership church, and not every member is getting involved in our multihousing ministry, but, one by one, more and more are getting involved.”
Vickery said churches must approach multihousing ministry with the idea of “taking the gospel to people. If we had gone to the complex and invited residents to our church, no one would have responded.”
It begins with building relationships through managers. Churches can’t go door-to-door in the complexes. “But working through managers,” Vickery said, “churches can become the church at the complex.”
To that point, a senior ladies’ Sunday school class, which included two members at one of the complexes, moved its class meeting to the complex on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. Attendance has grown.
At the complexes, the church has conducted missions projects, hosted block parties, provided tutoring for children, provided food items at holidays, hosted a Christmas party for children, and the choir has provided concerts.
“We are building relationships,” Vickery said. “We are there showing the love of Christ; and we’ve been blessed by taking the gospel to the complexes.” One of the complex owners has become so excited about the work with Victor that he wants to partner with churches at his other locations.
“This is work that any size church can get involved with,” Vickery said.
Ronnie Cox, Acts 1:8 strategist, missions mobilization group, South Carolina Baptist Convention, was the leader of the Greer Association presentation attended by Vickery.
Cox, a former SCBC pastor, has 15 years of experience to support SCBC multihousing ministry. He recruits multihousing church planting teams.
“Here in South Carolina, multihousing ministry is one of our top-three priorities for the next five years,” Cox said. “Within the Southern Baptist Convention, it is becoming a top priority, too.”
And it’s a ministry that is drawing attention among multihousing property owners. In July, Cox met with the chief operating officer of a company owning 24 South Carolina properties. The company asked Cox to look for local church partners for its properties.
However, it’s often not easy getting churches on board.
“In South Carolina, multihousing ministry and church planting are an uphill battle,” Cox said. “We have to show that multihousing ministry is non-threatening to the church.
“Working with a multihousing complex can be done as a church plant, as a satellite of a sponsoring church, or as a house church. We can’t do door-to-door evangelism in an apartment complex. Instead, we have to build relationships, start Bible studies, and minister to residents by responding to their needs.”
Cox said there are 1,000-1,500 major multihousing communities in South Carolina. “To be successful, multihousing ministry requires long-term engagement of people, and that’s why we stress one church for one multihousing community.”
Reuben DeJesus agrees about the long-term ministry commitment. DeJesus works in multihousing ministry through the Savannah River Baptist Association and is part of VIDA Church, Bluffton.
“Churches can’t do a one-event-and-run approach to this ministry,” he said. “Churches need to build relationships and stick with it for the long haul. You want to camp out with the community, have a long-term strategy.
DeJesus encouraged interested churches to contact Cox.
“I began by reading Ronnie Cox’s multihousing ministry guides and started conversations with him. Ronnie coached me to begin prayerwalking and to meet with the apartment complex owner. Through that, God gave us an opportunity to have a block party at the complex. Now the apartment owners have been praying for churches to serve complexes in other parts of the state.”
DeJesus said he and other leaders often misstep by bringing their own ministry ideas to the complex. “Ronnie coached me to sit down with complex owners and find out how they needed us to serve the communities. We worked as partners to provide Vacation Bible School, Bible study in the community room, tutoring, English as a Second Language for adults, and finance classes.”
DeJesus has partnered with other churches. East Pickens Church, Pickens, he said, is sending a medical team to Bluffton to provide on-site medical exams.
Ronnie Cox can be contacted at 800-723-7242 or by e-mail at ronniecox@scbaptist.org. – SCBC