Living Intentionally After Palmetto Collective: A Missions Pipeline in Utah
Wells Jernigan hasn’t fully answered the question yet, but it’s something he’s working through. The question, “Where is the most strategic place you can be for Jesus after graduation?” is central to the Palmetto Collective, a two-year program run by the South Carolina Baptist Convention that equips college juniors and seniors to be missional leaders of the Gospel.
Discovering the answer to that question is what drew Jernigan to apply. “At the time, I was exploring ministry, specifically missions, and what that would look like,” Jernigan said. Since then, he has committed to serving as an International Mission Board Journeyman in London. Because Palmetto Collective provides hands-on missions and ministry opportunities through short-term mission trips, Jernigan found himself spending time in Utah working alongside church planters like Bobby Wood and Michael Cooper, getting a firsthand look at church planting.
Lostness in Utah
The partnership between SCBaptist, Palmetto Collective, and Send Network in Utah is an intentional effort to build missions pipelines. Cooper, lead church planting catalyst for Utah and Idaho and pastor of Valley Light Church, shared that the city is home to nearly three million people in the Salt Lake City metro alone. “Right now in Utah, we are only 2% evangelical Christian,” Cooper said.
Facing the lostness before them, Cooper emphasized the importance of partnering in the missional effort. “At this point intime, there’s been no better partner than South Carolina in helping us reach our communities, our neighbors, and start new churches in Utah, both by sending people and resources, and partnering with and loving on church plants,” Cooper said.
Utah presents a unique opportunity for missions. “We have a place that’s very lost, very desperate, and needs the Gospel. Many have never heard the biblical Gospel,” Wood said. Wood serves as the teaching pastor for Redemption Church in Ogden and the president of the Redemption Family Churches. “It’s hard to believe that exists right here in America. You don’t need a passport. You don’t need to learn a new language,” he said. “We have a lost people group in our backyard, and we just need laborers to come and reach them.”
Living on Mission
Some of those laborers came from a two-week trip with the Palmetto Collective—and never left. Both Maura Santa and Lauren Napier are graduates of Palmetto Collective who decided to choose a strategic location to live on mission after college. The experiences through the program equipped them, and their lived experiences sent them to go.
“Palmetto Collective helped me think through that calling and putting in that focus of missions into my everyday life,” Napier said, “thinking of it as a strategic move instead of just a dream to do one day—no, this is something you can actually do today.” She currently serves as Partnerships and Outreach Coordinator at Valley Light Church, one of three churches she first worked alongside during her time with Palmetto Collective.
For Maura Santa, missions weren't on her radar. “When I joined Palmetto Collective, I was actually a really new Christian. I was planning to move back home to live in New Jersey with my family,” Santa said. “But through retreats and also just learning about the need for Jesus in different areas, I was able to slowly discover that missions was something I wanted to do.”
Living on mission looks different for her as a teacher. “I think I’m the only Christian in my whole school—teacher or student,” she said. She easily could have pursued a career in education elsewhere, but her choice to live and work in Utah was intentional and driven by sharing the Gospel in her day-to-day life. “I’ve been able to share with people that I’m building relationships with,” she said. “That’s what I feel like my main ministry is right now in Utah. It’s pretty simple, but it is something important that is still needed.”
The Palmetto Collective Pipeline
Napier and Santa aren’t the only Palmetto Collective graduates living in Utah. The Palmetto Collective pipeline keeps producing.
Paige McLemore works with a Christ-centered nonprofit after spending two summers in Utah. The Janie Chapman Offering helped make that possible. “We got free housing when we moved out here. We got classes,” she said. “All of that money supported students like me who come out to Utah post-grad to be trained and have a period of time to figure out what it means to live on mission.”
Mariah Gonzalez has lived and worked in Utah since 2023, serving with Redemption Church and working alongside mission teams that come to Utah. To any students considering a call to missions, her answer is simple: “Go, why not?” She said, “What do you have to lose? Jesus is worthy of big decisions. You’ll find joy in being faithful in bold decisions, offering up your life to the Lord.”
For the SCBaptists who are sending their people and their resources to Utah, Wood expressed his thanks for the enduring partnership. “You may have just given a small amount of money. And for you, that may have cost you a lot,” Wood said. “But you can’t discount the Kingdom impact and the eternal glory that comes as a result of your faithful giving.” And for young adults like Jernigan, Napier, Santa, McLemore, and Gonzalez, that giving made saying yes possible.