A Church for Downtown Spartanburg: We are not content to be just another church in Downtown Spartanburg. Our primary vision is to be a church for Downtown Spartanburg partnering with businesses, city government, schools, community-oriented groups, and other churches to make Spartanburg a better place to live and work, with a focus on the aesthetic and economic revitalization efforts in the downtown area.

Who we are Trying to Reach:  While the Lord uses the word “all” in terms of people and geography, we recognize that we are finite. Therefore we are simply trying to establish intentional and meaningful relationships with our family, friends, neighbors, and surrounding community that provide opportunities for us to be servants of salt and light.  Our primary mission is local, though we are involved in national and global efforts as well.

How we are Trying to Reach Them: We believe churches are like people; they have certain spiritual gifts. We believe our spiritual gifts are worship, fellowship, and hospitality. In other words, we have a great time together. We believe in playing to our strengths, taking the Gospel of Christ seriously, and having a great time living life. This means we go where the people are, where the fun is, and simply be ourselves as we are in Christ. Lord willing, we will earn the right to be heard and make a difference.

Being a New Church: We love being a new church.  Church planting has always been one of the best methods to rediscover the depths of the Gospel and examine our lives as we work them out in very practical situations, together.   Of course, being new means we are not able to do everything the established churches can do and that we do not have everything that they have.  We are quite fine with that, recognizing that these things take time.  Therefore, we’ve set our short-term sites on three seasons together.

Our 2009 Goals-Getting our House in Order: In 2009, our goals focused on developing a clear mission/vision and making sure our church operated smoothly, efficiently, and in spiritual health. We believe that growth, evangelism, discipleship, and outreach happen naturally as we deal with these foundations.

Our 2010 Goals-Developing Community and Relationships: In 2010, we have continued to “get our house in order.”  But, we have also made tremendous strides in developing relationships in the community and with each other, and have continued to add new ministries including Youth and Children.  We have been preparing ourselves for the third phase of our life together in 2011.

Our 2011 and Beyond Goals-Turning Outward: With a solid foundation laid, and healthy ministries in place, we are ready to serve our friends, family, co-workers and downtown community in a manner consistent with our vision to be a church for Downtown.

Having a Building: Buildings are both a blessing and a curse, depending on the stage in the lifecycle of a church. Right now, not having one works very well for us. It forces us to keep first things first, remembering that Christ is who and what we are after, rather than our property; it is Jesus we are seeking, not a symbol of our success. Not only that, at this point in our life together, our resources are much better spent in ministry, than in property.We are thrilled to support the Arts in Spartanburg and rent the Chapman Cultural Center for worship on Sunday mornings. It is a beautiful building, and is well suited for all of or worship needs including Sunday school rooms, nursery, and top-notch audio/video equipment. Most importantly, it is Downtown. Our office/fellowship space is also more than adequate for what we are at this point, with over 2900 square feet of what feels like your family room.

One day, it will be nice to have our very own facility, but it won’t look like your ordinary church. With all of the empty space downtown, we’d love to renovate an existing building that would allow us to share the space with the community, and perhaps open up a café, and other retail shops in it. That would generate more foot traffic in the downtown area and preserve some of our town’s beautiful architecture.