Steward Sunday: Growing Missions
The prospect of starting a mission church from scratch is a daunting one. Almost ten years ago, the mission that I serve (Saint James Orthodox Church in Beaufort, SC) was blessed to begin offering services here in the “Lowcountry” as we call it. Having just wrapped up my time at Saint Vladimir’s Seminary, I was excited to be assigned to this area, having fallen in love with it many years before.
I was thrilled to be starting a brand-new mission church. How, exactly, one starts a mission church from scratch is rather more complicated, as it turns out. We began with the most bare-bones of plans and only a basic sense of what the goals of our fledgling mission, composed of only five committed families total, ought to be. We knew that we wanted to share Jesus Christ and the Orthodox faith here along the South Carolina coast, and we had a good sense that there would be many who would desire to receive this faith. And we had the guidance and experience of the leadership of our Deanery and Diocese.
But one of the most pressing issues at the time was the question of how we would support the mission financially, especially considering the fact that we were initiating a completely new worshipping community in Beaufort. Additionally, we were beginning without a permanent worship space or many of the other basic accoutrements needed to serve services, with the intention that I would attempt to serve as a full-time priest from day one, if possible. We had our core group of parishioners who had committed to offer financial support, but more would be needed if this were going to work as planned. Looking back on this interesting period in our mission’s history, it is with deep gratitude that I recall how much of that concern was taken off of our shoulders through two major forms of support.
The first came from a grant from our Diocese (The Diocese of the South) and deanery (The Carolinas Deanery). This grant helped us to launch the mission, rent a building, purchase what we needed to serve services and stabilize the beginning of our community’s life. And then as our Diocesan support was preparing to expire, our mission became the grateful recipients of the OCA’s Church Planting Grant.
The OCA’s Church Planting Grant assisted our mission to thrive in ways that it would not otherwise. It enabled me to work and remain a full-time priest, serving my mission and my parishioners in a greater capacity than I would as a part-time priest working bi-vocationally. This in itself was a great asset to my family, allowing me adequate time to maintain a healthy family life. Additionally, our mission was enabled to pursue a more-full liturgical life than would have otherwise been possible.
At the same time, thanks to the reduction in our mission’s financial burden, we were able to jump on an opportunity to purchase a beautiful two-acre parcel of land where, God willing, we hope to build a permanent temple once we have raised the needed capital. That piece of property is now paid for in full. This would not have happened so soon in the short life of our mission without the benefit and blessing of the OCA’s Church Planting Grant.
Our mission graduated from the Church Planting Grant in 2018, having worked to wean ourselves off of the need for external support. There was some concern from among our community as to whether we would be able to stand on our own, financially. But thanks to this grant, we were given the time and opportunity to grow our faith in God and our financial strength with fewer concerns pressing on our community, which in turn actually encouraged both growth in numbers and growth in the giving from within our community.
The OCA’s Church Planting Grant is an incredible tool in assisting the growth of new missions and existing churches in our country. Without it, our mission would not be where it is today, having grown from those five families in 2012 to 33 families in 2021. I am personally grateful for the way that the Church Planting Grant has enabled me to focus exclusively on my role as priest, enabling me to be available to my parishioners in a full capacity. Our parish is grateful to already have the incredible benefit of owning a piece of property outright, waiting for us to fund a temple to make it complete. May God continue to enable the OCA to provide this invaluable opportunity as we seek to expand the mission in our nation!
—Father James Bozeman
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