Cliff Marshall, START Team

START TEAM

Cliff Marshall, Team Leader

In 2018, Ricky and Sarah Wilson moved from Cincinnati, Ohio, to plant a new church in Spartanburg. When Ricky reached out to the Start Team to get information about church planting in the state, he wasn’t yet connected with an SCBC church. The strategists on the Start Team introduced him to the leaders at Impact Community Church in Duncan and worked with them to create a church planting residency. This allowed Ricky to learn the culture of Spartanburg and develop a core team under the authority and guidance of the church. Ricky completed the SCBC Start Team church planting pathway of assessment, training, and coaching and, in 2019 Impact Drayton was launched in the Drayton Mills area of Spartanburg. Since then, the church has relocated to the Clifton area of Spartanburg and changed its name to ID Clifton. When Ricky and Sarah moved to Spartanburg from Ohio, a young man named Taylor Little made the move with them. In 2016, Ricky met Taylor at a flag football game and shared the Gospel with him. After several breakfasts and several more Gospel conversations, Taylor began following Jesus. When Ricky told Taylor that God was calling him to move to South Carolina to plant a church in 2017, Taylor knew God was calling him to be a part of that, too. As Ricky worked on plans to launch the new church, he continued discipling Taylor. From the beginning, Ricky desired to start a church that would start more churches, and he began training Taylor to be the first church planter that the new church would send out. In 2019, Taylor began serving as a church planting resident at ID Clifton just as Ricky had once done at Impact Community Church. In 2021, Taylor completed the Start Team assessment and training process, and early next year he will be sent out from ID Clifton to another area in Spartanburg to plant a new church. The mission of the Start Team is to create a movement of multiplying churches in South Carolina. The story of Ricky Wilson and Taylor Little can become the norm at our convention. By providing multiplying church collaboratives and cohorts, the strategists on the Start Team are continuing to create a culture where churches plant churches. By providing tools like church planter assessment, training, and coaching, they hope to make the daunting task of planting a new church a little easier for the already existing churches of the SCBC.

START Progress

• Hosted a Multiplying Church Collaborative in the Lowcountry region in partnership with the

Savannah River Baptist Association. Twelve pastors and two Directors of Missions attended.

Out of that event, two Multiplying Church Cohorts have begun with another scheduled to launch in the fall of 2021. One new church has started from these cohorts.

• Five Multiplying Church Cohorts are currently meeting monthly in the Upstate. These groups are the result of Multiplying Church Collaboratives hosted by the Start Team in Greenville and

Spartanburg.

• Hosted a Multiplying Church Collaborative in the South Charlotte region in partnership with the York Baptist Association. Pastors and other leaders from nine churches and two associations attended. Two Multiplying Church Cohorts are now meeting monthly in that region.

• Strategic relationships between the START Team and nine associations in the state have resulted in partnerships between church plants and existing churches.

• Hosted four Church Planter Training cohorts where nine new church planters have been trained in basic church planting competencies. These men will be planting churches in three different regions of the state.

• Thirteen potential planters were involved in church planting residencies hosted by existing

SCBC churches in 2021. These residencies were supported by 16 churches in five key regions of the state.

• Ethnic diversity among SCBC church plants continues to grow. Churches have recently been planted or will be planted before the end of the year that will reach African Americans,

Brazilians, Chinese, Ukrainians, Messianic Jews, Hispanics, and Vietnamese. There have also been new churches planted where the congregations are multi-ethnic.

• Eighteen new churches received monthly covenant assistance funding in 2021. This funding is made available through the Janie Chapman State Missions Offering. Seventy-three percent of

South Carolinians live in six association regions. There are funded SCBC church plants in all those regions.

Prayer Requests

• Pray that the Multiplying Church Cohorts would result in pastors discipling new church planters to be sent from their churches.

• Pray for continued collaboration between the START Team and local associations that would fuel strategic church planting efforts in the six key regions.

• Pray that new churches be planted to reach every ethnic group represented in South Carolina.

• Pray that every SCBC church would partner with a new church either through financial contributions, sharing facilities, assisting with mission projects, or regular prayer support.

• Pray for church planter wives to be loved and supported.