What’s Best for the Kingdom: Planting ReFuel Church
“On our launch day, I was praying that somebody would just show up,” T.J. Terrell said. “We had just a little over 100 people.” Terrell launched ReFuel Church in Greer, South Carolina, after connecting with the South Carolina Baptist Convention’s church planting team.
He first felt the call to ministry at 18, sharing that he was “a young man in college sifting through the Word while everybody else as doing what any other college freshman would do.” Pursuing the calling through time spent in Scripture and through a mentor, he felt the Lord telling him the time had come. “I did my first public sermon the following year in October of 2013 and have been preaching ever since then.
After spending time as an interim and then lead pastor at another church, he felt the Lord calling him to church planting. “I had no idea what that looked like or where to go, how to even start,” Terrell said. “I prayed about it, had my wife pray about it, and sought out mentors.” Once he found out about the church planting team at SCBaptist, he submitted an application, and quickly found a mentor in Chris Jackson, pastor of Riverside Baptist Church.
Connecting to Plant
Although only a mile down the road from one another, Terrell and Jackson had never met. “It was very interesting to see, here’s this guy that’s a mile and a half down the road that because of just busyness and circumstances, I never connected with,” Jackson said.
Riverside Baptist had supported a church plant in the 80’s, but this was the first time they developed a residency program to directly equip and send out a future church planter. “It’s really exciting to see this grow and to be able to weekly see how God is using Pastor T.J. in the start of ReFuel Church and now in the success of what God’s doing with ReFuel Church,” Jackson said.
Sending is part of Riverside's DNA. In nearly 50 years, the church has sent more than 50 people into ministry including Jackson himself, who was sent out from Riverside before returning as lead pastor in 2016. “What we say at Riverside is what's best for the Kingdom is best for Riverside,” Jackson said. “And if that means 30 people walking out of the door to go be part of a church plant, we’re for that.” That conviction is what made the residency program a natural next step to be an extension of what the church already believed.
Strengthened in Differences
For Terrell, the yearlong program provided an opportunity to sit down with other local pastors and learn about ministry in a different context than he knew. “Growing up in a Black church, we do things a lot different than we would in a predominantly white church,” Terrell explained. “We’re still preaching Jesus, but just learning how to do ministry a different way. Learning the nuances and the different avenues of how we approach ministry.”
The learning curve wasn't always easy. Jackson admitted the cultural differences were "at first a little bit of a hinge point” and that the Convention connected them with other pastors who'd navigated similar cross-cultural partnerships also able to give to help another young church planter.”
But working through differences provided a learning opportunity for Riverside Baptist as a whole. “Because of the logistics and the demographics around our area, primarily we’re Caucasian as a whole,” Jackson said. “So Pastor T.J. coming in and helping us see things from a different perspective was really just such a blessing.”
Reaching People in Greer
“The thing about Pastor T.J. that’s always been so obvious to me is he has a heart to reach people with the Gospel and to lovingly care and minister to those people,” Jackson said.
In Greer, Terrell shared that the area ReFuel Church is aiming to reach is called Sunnyside. He described it as an area that could be seen as declining, but their hope is to bring revitalization and new life. “We thought that would be a nice area to go do ministry and allow that area to come back up and have some Gospel believers within that side,” Terrell said.
One unique aspect of the church is that from the launch date, the worship service provided an American Sign Language translator. “Just because of us having an interpreter, we’ve seen the increase in deaf people being able to come,” Terrell said. “Not many churches service the Deaf community, so people are coming simply because we have an interpreter and so they feel included within a worship service.”
Getting More Done Together
The connection to Riverside Baptist has continued to support ReFuel in their early months. Riverside shares their building and, through relationships with other churches in the Three Rivers Baptist Association, helped resource everything from musical instruments to outreach opportunities in the community.
“Our church supports not only through our facility, but through financial giving,” Jackson said. “So by putting dollars behind our mouths, we have come alongside and tried to be a part of what ReFuel is doing to reach the community.”
Alongside church partnerships, ReFuel is also supported by the Janie Chapman Offering for State Missions. “The Janie Chapman Offering is unbelievable. It helps church planters like myself and others to be able to know that there doesn’t have to be a strain or a burden when it comes to doing ministry,” Terrell said.
He has already felt the weight of that blessing in tangible ways. “Thanks be to God, we’re able to be here and able to do ministry and not have to worry about the stress,” he said. Without the financial burden on their shoulders, “we’re able to get things done more effectively and efficiently.”
Even though ReFuel Church is a recipient of the offering, they already see the importance of sacrificial giving. “They say that ‘churches plant churches.’ With the Janie Chapman Offering, we’re able to be not only recipients of that, but we’re also able to give to help another young church planter.”