Upstate churches changing and growing with America’s religious landscape

By April A. Morris  

APRIL 19, 2012 11:01 a.m. (0)

A job at one of the Upstate’s industrial or business powerhouses wasn’t the lure that brought T. Brown (short for Thomas) to Greenville from his Pawleys Island home. He was following a call from God, the Anglican pastor said.

Brown moved with his family last summer to “plant” a new Anglican church, St. Paul’s, in Greenville as a mission of All Saints Church in Pawleys Island, where he was formerly assistant rector.

Despite visiting several churches, Sandy Delapp, a former member of All Saints, had never found a fit after her family moved to Greenville from Pawleys. She quickly offered her home as a meeting place when Rev. Brown came to town.

Delapp said for her, the appeal of Brown’s ministerial approach has been the gospel-based sermons and traditional rites like weekly communion. As of January, the new congregation meets in Second Baptist Church on Camperdown Way before that congregation’s 11 a.m. service.

“People are not looking to ‘do’ church anymore, but are genuinely searching for an authentic encounter with the living God,” Brown said. “Just punching the church card that the parents punched no longer fills the thirst of knowing Jesus and developing a real relationship with Him.”

Searching for a different relationship with God seems to be a nationwide trend.

According to a 2008 survey of more than 35,000 Americans by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, people are seeking religious connection, often changing affiliations from their childhood religious association.

The survey reports that one in four adults said that they have switched religious affiliation from their childhood faith, either to a specific faith or away from a religious tradition. In addition, 16.1 percent of respondents reported no religious affiliation, more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children.

Millennials, ages 18 to 29, were less religious than older Americans, with one in four reporting they are unaffiliated with a particular faith.

South Carolina may be bucking that trend, however. Only 10 percent of Palmetto State residents surveyed reported no affiliation, according to the Pew Forum. And according to a 2009 Gallup poll, South Carolinians ranked the third highest in church attendance, with 56 percent reporting they attend worship weekly or almost every week, behind only Alabama and Mississippi.

The Upstate is trending toward the nontraditional, however. A variety of fledgling, more unorthodox churches are appearing, while more mainstream churches are beginning to offer contemporary worship in addition to their traditional services.

Greenville’s First Presbyterian Church, dating back to 1848, is solidly among the latter. The downtown church has offered a contemporary Sunday worship service for about 10 years, said Graydon Tomlinson, worship director of Ignite, the name given to the contemporary service.

Ignite began as a contemporary service in the evenings and moved to Sunday mornings about seven years ago, Tomlinson said. He has been worship director for the past four years, and said the service’s typical attendees are not all the very young people one might expect. Many regular members are in their 40s and 50s.

With a live rock band, the service offers more music than traditional worship – original, modern and traditional hymns – along with a freer worship order, he said, though Ignite still retains traditional elements like prayer, confession and scripture reading. Even so, First Presbyterian “is a typical, traditional downtown church, and this was a departure for them.”

With average attendance around 500 each week, the feel is more intimate than the church’s other services, Tomlinson said. This intimacy and sense of community, coupled with a mission for outreach, is something Tomlinson thinks is part of the appeal for many of the smaller churches popping up across the Upstate.

“I think the smaller gatherings give people a chance to connect with others attending and create a tight-knit church,” he said. “A style of worship may be not as important as a church willing to step out of its walls and be involved in the community. I think people are starved for that.”

John David Mangrum, pastor of Origins Church in downtown Greenville, agrees that people are looking for connection. “People aren’t as loyal to a church brand or denomination. They want to connect with God, connect with other people and connect with a mission,” he said.

After working in rural churches, Mangrum knew he wanted to start a church in an urban area and Greenville was the only place he felt peace about the idea. Origins meets at the Spill the Beans coffeehouse and does not plan to own land or construct a dedicated church building, but rather always meet in a location used for other purposes during the week.

“It’s easy to believe, when we live in the Bible Belt and there are churches everywhere, that people are going to them,” he said. “The area we serve, (ZIP code) 29601, is actually one of the most unchurched areas in South Carolina.”

As for the increasing number of Americans who say they are unaffiliated with a certain religion, Tomlinson said he expects that isn’t as much the case in the Upstate. “Our area is perhaps different than other areas. Church is pretty much part of the culture.”

Mangrum said he understands the fluid nature of religion in America. “It takes all kinds of churches for all kinds of people.”

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