EP 41: Church Revitalization in Historic Poe Mill with Mitch Miller

The Kingdom of God is not something we advance.

It's not something we achieve. The Kingdom of God is something

we receive. The Kingdom of God is part of

the gospel. It's not a reward for living out

the gospel. It is the gospel that he brought

it here to us. We didn't make it there.

He brought it here and now we get to live in it.

You know, one of the greatest ways to be miserable is to

somehow have a version of Christianity where the best part

about it is you're waiting to get to heaven.

Welcome back to the Grace Members podcast.

I'm your host, Scott Mazingo, and today we're talking about an

amazing ministry that many of us have passed 100 times without

noticing. If you've traveled from downtown

Greenville towards the direction of Cherrydale, Furman University

or Traveler's Rest, you've driven by Griggs Memorial

Baptist Church on Poinsett Hwy. It's just down from the Sphinx

in the radio room on the right. Griggs has been one of our local

partners for five years now and serves as a host of our local

summer high school mission trips called Mission Upstate.

So it's a real privilege to interview my friend Mitch

Miller. Mitch serves as the pastor at

Griggs, but you may not know that Mitch was a Kairos intern

in the very beginning of the Kairos program.

He then worked on staff with our middle school students for

several years. Mitch served at Griggs during

college, so when they called him for help with teaching on Sunday

mornings, he was glad to jump in.

That eventually turned into a full time position as head

pastor in a church revitalization effort.

So Mitch, you're worthy of that long intro.

Thanks for being here with us and welcome.

Thank you so much, Scott and Grace Church, Really, really

glad to be with you on this podcast.

So Mitch Griggs is doing incredible work in the

neighborhood of PO Mill, and it has a fascinating history of

contribution both to the beauty and the benefits of our famous

downtown Greenville, even as it sits outside the city limits.

Mitch, can you tell us a little bit about the PO Mill

neighborhood, its history, and how it is connected to many of

us who enjoy living in the Upstate?

Yeah, so PO Mill was started by a guy, FW Poe was his name and

you could still see his name on some of the historical placards

that are around our neighbourhood.

And he essentially came to Greenville to buy a bunch of

land and on that land put a a massive textile mill.

And with the mill, not after it's built, but like with its

building, he builds a village called the Mill Village of PO

Mill. And he's building houses.

He built a school or two and a store and two church buildings

that are still in the middle of the neighborhood.

They share a yard because this is early 1900s and everybody

went to church. So he said, well, if there's

going to be hundreds of houses here, they're going to need

somewhere to go to church. They're not going to be able to

agree denominationally. So we'll build them two

buildings. What a visionary.

Yeah. He knew the drill.

And so there was a Baptist and a Methodist Church right there in

the mill village. And they, those structures are,

are still there. And it was really the place to

be. It was a powerhouse of, of, of

commerce, essentially. The history on it is that people

moved here from all over the place to work at the mill

because you were compensated with a house, with schooling,

with vouchers for the store and you were essentially compensated

with a life just sort of a kit that you would put together.

Now there was ups to that. There was some down stack

because you weren't compensated very much with other resources

like, you know, just money. There's dangerous work and it's

dangerous because if you lose your job, you lose your house,

your school, your store, you know.

So there, there was probably some issues, but that was the

idea back then. And there was a time even when

it was sort of like the busy side of Woodruff Road here in

Greenville, it was like, it was like a a place to be for middle

class people doing business, shopping, living, doing life.

And it was a good life. It reaches its pinnacle.

What decade? It's a little muddy, but like

anytime between 1920 and 40, we're talking Pinnacle for sure.

But then there were definitely people having, you know, working

there. It was a little bit less, but

still many working there, getting a decent wage, a decent

life, decent compensation all the way up until the 60s.

And then the mill eventually did close in 1977.

OK. After the mill closes in 1977, a

lot of interesting things start happening.

One would be that a lot of the people who this was their skill

set, they moved here or their parents moved here for this job

and this was their line of work, are now out of work and kind of

hard to transition into a different kind of job, new job,

especially since all the other mills were also simultaneously

closing. And so they, many of them would

own the home that they were in by this point.

And so in the family, there starts some generational

poverty, but around a home that the family owns and it's getting

passed down to son and daughter. And then even now, even today in

2024, so much later, there are still some legacy families who

are living in mill houses that their grandparents or or even

further back owned and bought in those days from the mill or what

have you. And so there is a place to be,

but there's other parts of their life that didn't make as much

progress as they would have on a different side of town from that

economic downturn in the middle villages of the West side.

And it was, you know, speed up by crime waves, drug waves

especially, and other difficulties that come with just

low income life. And those things really started

moving and affecting people and still are to this day.

Like one of the things I did after I got to Greg's was talk

to not just the people of Poe Mill, but talk to even some of

the police that patrol back there and other community

leaders as well. But quickly you find out it's

it's it's at this interesting neighbourhood is not a violent

place. In fact, it's a friendly place.

There is like if you Google Poe Mill, you'll find some of the

crimes that have happened there. Most of them are one off

interpersonal conflicts, not so much the nature of the

neighborhood at play, just like in any literally any

neighborhood. So that but it because of the

difficulties of the neighborhood, it gets cast in a

certain light on the news. But it's a friendly place.

People know each other, people love each other.

There's community there, but it is essentially riddled with

addiction issues, alcoholism and then substance abuse.

And of course, with that comes difficulties with stable homes.

And then you have, you know, the generational issues of kids

growing up in that, you know, instability and what what they

begin to face because of it. And that is, that is the PO mill

that I walked into in 2015. And so I would think income

status would be just an easy place to start really painting

the picture. I think I looked on your

website, it looks like most families are right around the

poverty line, like household income, $30,000 a year.

Does that sound right? Yeah.

Well, the individual income is about half that, 15,800.

Then we do have statistics. We have some research from

things like neighborhood scout.org and some other places

where you can get some pretty good insight that it is about

30,000 a year for a household. But here's something that there

is some notable interesting things about that.

Like one thing is we know of multiple households with more

than one family in them. So you might have mom and

grandma. So 2 generations working.

It's not just one family unit. It's actually a blend.

Now we also know of just sisters or cousins or other ways in

which multiple family units are in the same home reporting that

income. And so it's, it's a little bit

more difficult of the picture than even that shows, but that

does show that what we basically have is 50% of our senior

adults, I think it's a little more are living under the

poverty line. And then 50% of our children are

living under the poverty line. 14% I believe it is of our

neighborhood is single parent households, mostly single moms.

Additionally, you got I think it's 7% are widows and some of

these numbers if you don't know the context are about are about

double of a regular neighbourhood its size.

So 7% widowed. And then one of the crazier ones

that keep people in facing some of these difficulties

financially and then in other ways is 21% do not have our

neighbourhood residents don't have access to a vehicle or

don't own a car or have a car. And man does that play a huge

role in your overall well-being in our world right now.

So in in Greenville it is not there is bus stops and they do

use the bus and it does get you down to Cherrydale, does get you

to downtown or a little bit further W over the Woodside,

what have you. But we're not we're we're doing

an OK job, but it's not it's not a real transit city.

It's not very conducive to public transportation all the

time. So.

So we're going to talk in just a minute about how you go about

kind of building a church in this community.

But some other mitigating factors kind of the downside of

Greenville becoming one of the best places in America to live

is you have some gentrification issues.

Once you talk a little bit about that and maybe even touch a

little bit on some some of the race issues that you're facing

in the PO Mill on the West side of town.

Well, starting with the race issues, those go deep and they

are historic. That's a, it's a really

complicated topic in a sense. In a sense, it's not complicated

that we have people who were intentionally ostracized and

marginalized about, I guess that would have been at least in our

community. I mean, I'm sure it's still

happening, but like systemically from a government position, it

would have been about 75 years ago roughly.

But there are still people for sure who remember not even being

able to live in the same part of the neighborhood as their

coworkers at the mill. And so for us at Pome Mill,

there was most of them. The people who worked at Pome

Mill were received a home or somehow or another begin to live

in Pome Mill proper, right by the mill.

But for example, African Americans, they were, they were

essentially made to live across the street and behind our church

to I guess that would be the north.

And that is a place called Bruton Town.

You can also see this a lot with, for example, I believe

it's Judson and Sterling. Those were two neighborhoods for

the essentially the same mill or the same area.

But historically those were racially divided.

And so because that was, it seems there's certain parts of

town where that seems like that was a long, long time ago.

There are other parts of town, our part of town, you will have

particularly our, our seniors, our elderly, they will remember

some of the stuff you hear about in the history books.

They will remember separate pools, separate water fountain,

separate restaurants. And there has been some healing,

obviously over the decades. There isn't anything like that

going on now from that high level of, you know, those rules,

those regulations. But there is still race issues

at play that are tough. They're tough to watch and

they're tough to be around. And the root is still the same

and a really a misunderstanding of creation, God's image and the

gospel and the future, the gospel future we have where all

tribes and tongues and nations and kindreds are around the

throne with one voice praising Jesus because we're all the

people he made and we are the people he saves.

And I will say on a day-to-day ministry level there, there's

times where you don't notice it or that it's not prevalent or

that it's not affecting the way, for example, camp is going,

which is our kids kids program in the summer.

But then there are times here and there where it is, it's

quite an issue. And the best way that we know to

address that as a church, besides preaching the truth in

the gospel and the love of Christ is to make sure that we

never take over. We, we want to partner with all

the groups, whether we have a quite a diverse community,

particularly a rising demographic of Spanish speaking

families and other minorities as well.

And so we always want to come underneath and never try to host

something on our own for them, but rather we're hosting this

together as a community. And there's a certain techniques

that we use to ensure that we're communicating that we that we're

all created in the image of God. And, and if we're on team Jesus,

we're on the same team. And there's, there's no caveats.

But yeah, there there is, there is some difficulty there.

So how do you then go about building building a church given

this historical context? This is where we want to learn

really what church revitalization looks like.

So talk. Take us through either through

personal story illustrations. What does it look like to step

into this diverse context and begin to love your neighbor and

build a church? Well, here's how how it started

was I'm teaching to these, I'm teaching to the senior adults,

I'm teaching to the church. Roughly we had about 10 folks

and that was slated to go on six weeks.

And I find myself driving around the neighborhood of Pome Mill

just talking to people on their porches.

And I'm, I'm feeling all of this, this sense of calling duty

and really joy while I'm over there hanging out in Pome Mill,

even though I I'm on staff back here at Grace and really believe

and love the mission here as well.

But this is all stirring up in me.

And after about six weeks, I remember I was on my porch.

I was reading the scriptures, one of the letters of Paul where

he talks about how much he loves the congregation he's writing to

is the Thessalonians. That and I'm reading the how

much he loved them. And this doesn't happen to me

all the time or anything, but in this particular moment, I felt

that I received a word from the Lord or a sense of direction

from the Spirit to do three things.

And it kind of came to be plain as day.

And it was worship Jesus, revitalize the church, reached

the neighborhood and it was just downloaded into my my soul in

that moment. And that's really when I decided

that that's what I needed to do. And so everyone at Grace was so

kind and helpful to help me transition off staff.

I took a regular job and I just started going to church at

Griggs with that in mind, worship Jesus, revitalize the

church, reach the neighborhood and didn't even know what all

those things meant exactly. And had not studied concepts

like church revitalization, which especially in recent

years, a ton of content has come out about.

This was actually a little before some there are

denominations who had sort of a, a resurgence of hey, let's

revitalize churches, bring them back to life and they they have

all this curriculum. This was a little before even

that, and so the folks at Griggs were kind enough to vote me in

as their senior pastor, and the pastor, however you want to say

it. And so.

The first How many votes did you get?

Well, I can't remember, but it was all of them. 2225.

I can't. It was probably less than 20.

And so this was in 2015 and basically the goal was to make

it all about Jesus. And so here's what we did is

that we dedicated ourselves to Jesus.

You know, the second member of the Trinity, like you are the

the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

You are the one that God the Father has chosen to exalt like

name above all names that we're all going to bow down to.

The Spirit has chosen to illuminate your words and remind

us of what you taught us and to lead us really with the Spirit

is at work in us. What we become like is more and

more like Jesus. And of course, we're 100% on

board with the Trinity and Trinitarian, you know, we're,

we're right there with every other, you know, Christian.

But we just said, you know, we we really feel led to make much

of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and who we see in those pages

for this season and really for every season.

And I will say there are churches where that is obvious.

And that's kind of a no brainer. But when you're coming to church

revitalization, so many things have been forgotten that need to

be remembered. And it's really easy to make the

church about something other than Jesus.

You can make it about culture. You can make it about morality.

You can make it about the way the church used to be.

You could make it about the way you wish the church would be.

And So what we had to do was refocus literally everything on

is this like Jesus? Does it sound like Jesus?

Does it talk like Jesus? Does it walk like Jesus?

Does it act like Jesus? Does it glorify Jesus?

And so, yeah, we're teaching out of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

every week. We're reading publicly like our

we had our Scripture reading time out of Matthew, Mark, Luke

and John or some other texts that was specifically about

following Jesus. We're singing songs that mention

Jesus. We're taking Communion way more

often than we used to. I think it was quarterly back

then, and we changed that to a much more frequent.

We are deciding on what we're going to do based on if it was

centered around Jesus. And this brings a lot of

vitality to me. This brings vitality to some

friends of mine that came to help and serve alongside me.

This brings vitality to those who were already at Greg's,

those 10 folks. And also to the kids who are

coming in, kids ministry from Paul Mill and the van, it all

just get centered around him. And then we start with this idea

of we're going to revitalize the church.

And so revitalizing the church is actually not starting over.

Believe it or not, it is. That's called replanting the

church. And that's a great way to go for

some churches. Revitalizing the churches, what

we did, which we're not casting out any, you know, most of the

traditions or the heritage or the story of the church, but

rather it's the simple idea of breathing new life into it and

basically bringing new energy to this body.

You're basically strengthening your core.

You're being unified around this person of Christ and his work,

and then you're beginning to slowly go to work on the parts

of the church that were already in existence.

That's right. And so, like, you didn't

rebrand, didn't change the name. No, Tell us a little.

Just a quick aside about the name because I think it speaks

so well to the community. Yeah, so the name is a good

example of church revitalization is there is a temptation to come

in and and say, I don't know what this means, Greg's Memorial

Baptist Church. So let's change it to a name

that's, I don't know, some might consider more modern or, or

something that some might consider more flashy.

But instead, what we did was just, you know, fully embrace

the name and tell that story over and over again.

Tell it a new tell it to new people.

And the story is our church. It's called Griggs because of a

man named David Griggs who was at our church for a long time,

decades. He was the volunteer music

leader at our church. And what he did for work is he

owned a grocery store right in the middle of Poe Mill in the

neighborhood. It was a small convenience store

and everybody loved him. I mean, especially during the

times where the the the economy of those neighborhoods on the

West Side were in a downturn. He would give food away.

He would let people pay later and he would always, you know,

tell them about Jesus and loved his neighbor as himself.

And so our church was actually, while he was alive, our church

was called Victory Baptist Church.

But when he passed away in the early 90's, the community was

moved and he was missed. And the church voted to rename

all our ministry after him. Griggs Memorial Baptist Church

and for us in 2024, it's a great name because we want to carry on

that spirit of loving our neighbor as ourself and

providing for the needs of our neighborhood like he did.

Additionally, first of all, his daughter still goes to our

church and there are still members of the neighborhood who

remember going to Greg's Grocery receive like getting what they

needed, especially around Christmas time or things things

were tight. He would give it all the way he

would serve. And I have talked to dozens of

folks in the neighborhood that remember going to that store and

not one of them has anything but a glowing review of his story

and they all attribute it to his faith.

And so for us to embrace that legacy and try to not reach,

redo it, change it, rebrand, but to just continue it, maybe

refocus it on what he was clearly focused on, which is

following Jesus, but to embrace it and run with it again or a

new that's church revitalization.

Yes, some folks from the neighborhood started coming and

we got to like we got from 10 to 20 and 30 and, and so far we've

baptized about 40 people total as far as baptism and we've had,

we've had services where with by God's grace with hundreds and

events in the neighbourhood where I felt like everybody was

there. Yeah, let's talk about some of

those because I, I think that that is just a really cool part

of how you guys have had these block parties and you have

weekly neighborhood meetups and like just fully present and

available. And then we'll, we'll talk about

Camp Griggs, but tell us just a little bit about what is what

does it look like to host these events and.

Well, one thing about Griggs that is unique is where a

neighborhood church and a big value for us is what we call

neighborhood missions. And, and what we mean by that is

pretty narrow is that we want everyone who wants to come to

come. So we have people in our church

from Simpsonville, we have people in our church from

Powdersville, Everybody's welcome to come.

But when our church pours out, we only ever pour out to one

place, and that's our neighborhood of Pome Mill.

We serve Pome Mill, we only serve Pome Mill, and we serve

Pome Mill all the time. And we only ever want to serve

Pome Mill. So like, if our church was to

grow, we would not in any way be tempted to buy a building out

in, I don't know, tailors and move out of the neighborhood.

We would just the strategy would be to plant another church or

revitalize another church in another mill village on the West

side. That is, we're not in danger of

that right now of overgrowing, but we are.

We're in pole mill for the long haul.

That's it. That's all I'm feeling led to

do. And so how that ends up playing

out is a few a few things. One is that basically if

something's going on in Poe Mill, we're coming.

So all the nonprofits that surround Poe Mill, we get to

partner with and partner with on a regular basis.

And there are a few, there's a few.

And so we do everything we can to serve them.

So first, we're connecting to all the nonprofits in Pome Mill

or around Pome Mill and. What are what are some of those?

So Pome Mill Achievement Center, so Terrier Community Development

Center, Mountain Goat. There are some connections with

Miracle Hill that we have that do actually direct.

They impact all of Greenville or the Upstate, but also play out

in Pome Mill. Additionally, there's other

churches, so Park Place Church of God is actually in Pome Mill

and we do at least a few things with them every single year.

Then there's a church right in the neighborhood over San Souci

Church and we do things with them that impact the

neighborhood, as well as a food ministry just called Mana

Ministry that is stocked in by Loaves and Fishes.

And so we have done a lot with that food ministry.

So 1 is connecting to all that's already going on in the Kingdom

of Pome Mill. Because believe it or not, God

was walking the streets of Pome Mill every day long before.

How? Before you got that.

Yeah, believe it or not, yeah, I didn't.

I didn't start the the fire. It's always been burning.

And so we're connecting to God's Kingdom because he is in no way

been shortchanged in Pomel. He's got it.

But then the second thing is we're leveraging the

relationships we have through our PO Mill members of which we

are been blessed with quite a few.

And so we're how that plays out is our neighborhood network

program, which is every Sunday at 4 in the fall, in the spring.

And it is a pretty classic kids program.

We have not reinvented the wheel.

It is a game and songs and teaching and small group and

dinner. And the dinner has for the last

couple years been hosted by different community groups at

Grace downtown. And that's been a really big

help just time wise because these are, you know, even though

we're bringing in 25 kids, let's say, but that's still a lot of

dinner to figure out on a weekly basis.

But for a community group once a quarter or something, it's

pretty manageable. So we have various community

groups from downtown helping with that.

But so that's Neighborhood network and we're we're

ministering to roughly 25 children and youth on a regular

basis on Sunday nights. Furthermore, we have connected

with what is called the Pomil Neighborhood Association and I

get to play a big part in that. Most of the time we just do

several events a year with them. These are events like last year

we did a housing fair where we had all the nonprofits.

We even had Front Porch there, but nonprofits that do

affordable housing and then the government side, affordable

housing from the South Carolina side come in and we inform the

whole neighborhood. You know, if you need help with

the housing, come to this event. We do that through Flyers and

Facebook ads and we have a fit. We have a Facebook group for the

neighborhood, things like that. And so we also did a job fair

where we had kind of the same thing.

It was in the all these events are in a gym owned by Park Place

Church of God, which is a fellow church in the neighborhood.

They have a big old gym. And so we just use that and the

Neighborhood Association with help from Griggs and Park Place

and others, we host a job fair where people who are hiring both

people outside the neighborhood. So like BMW came and some

others, but if you don't have a car, there was some Cherrydale

businesses that came and then there was the job application

help like SC Works was there and some other organizations that

just help you get placed. So this year we did a tree

planting event with the Neighborhood Association where

people from the community but also people outside came and

volunteered just to plant trees. Then we have our own events that

Greg's churches just taken on and so we do block parties in

particularly the spring, the fall, and then at Christmas we

do the Pomo Christmas parade and then we take all of.

You have your own Christmas parade.

Yep, we do the Pomo Christmas parade.

Are you? Are you Santa?

I never get to be Santa, but I'm glad for the guy who does.

And I usually, actually, I believe they call it the Grand

Marshall. It's not as grand as it sounds,

but I I lead the parade in a golf cart.

Yeah. And it's it's pretty fun

actually. I'm going to put it on the

calendar for this year for sure. Dude, you got to come.

There's lots of hot chocolate, lots of candy.

And so we do the pot mill Christmas parade and then

whoever's in our kids ministry, we always, we take them to

Walmart couple weeks before Christmas.

There's a couple people who help us fund it.

We give with with some guidance and with some direction.

We give about 40 kids because everybody brings their cousin or

their friend at the last minute and it's a great thing.

We're glad they're there. We give about 40 kids $100.00

gift card and our volunteers walk them around Walmart so that

they can do their Christmas shopping.

They do get if they want to pick something out for themselves,

but you'd be teary eyed at how many times they spend the whole

thing on sisters and aunts and uncles and food for the family

for Christmas. And so that's a big party for us

as well. And so spring block party, the

fall block party and then Christmas, those are our own

events. And we do find that there's a

lot of neighbourhood engagement there, where we're building more

and more on the relationships we have and getting new ones too.

And so is that where the opportunity with Camp Griggs

started five years ago. You have some momentum, you have

a number of youth, part of the church obviously within arm's

reach of the church. So that's where it was a very

strategic and very just easy awesome opportunity for students

from Grace Church to be able to just go to the West side of

town, often where they have never even been before and plug

in and and serve what we call Mission Upstate.

But really is Camp Griggs just kind of tell us what Camp Griggs

looks like. And then we're, you know, some

of the kids from Grace, how they have been able to to serve and

really get a wonderful education on what it looks like to serve

the Kingdom. A.

Little over five years ago, you know, Grace Church was kind

enough to partner with us at Griggs and, you know, sort of

formalize the relationship. And one of the things came up

like, well, what do you need? And I just sort of tell them

about our ministries, just just all the stuff I told you.

And one of the things that kept coming up was our opportunity

with kids in particular and youth more on the kids side,

children of the neighbourhood. And one of the things that kept

coming up was in the summers they face some unique challenges

from not being in school. And one of those challenges is

that they don't have much to go and do.

There's a lot of kids who are just at the house and could use

some something constructive just to do.

And through a conversation with some staff here that first

summer, it was what we're going to do, some sort of in town

mission trip. Is there anything we can do to

partner with you and these kids? And the idea just came up.

Well, there's this gym that I have access to in the middle of

the neighborhood, part of an old church.

If I get all the kids to show up to that, we could just play

basketball. And so we had basketball camp

for one week. Students from Grace forged, Kids

from Grace came to this gym and played basketball with children

from the neighborhood for about 3 hours.

And it ended up, you know, being a little more than basketball.

They would, you know, pair off and some kids were playing

volleyball or, or some other game.

So it ended up being just kind of an open gym and after about 3

hours they would sit him down with that right there.

Takes about 25 minutes to sit him down.

That was about half the end. So they got him sat down and one

of the students or the interns or someone would get up and

teach and we would pray and go home.

And that was the first week. The second year it was noted

that that went pretty, that went OK.

There was a lot of teenagers saying, hey, I could do that

more often. I can do that.

You know, I actually, you know, really felt like I felt the

presence of God. I'm serving.

I'm in my city. I didn't even know this was in

my city here on the West side, these kids.

And, you know, it just ended up being something that people are

sharing stories about life changing.

So the next year we did it for two weeks and just added a

couple of new elements. So we did a more formalized

lesson, we did a snack, we did still some open gym and then

some crafts here and there. We did it for two weeks and it

was interesting because it went really well.

Though one thing that I think Grace students benefited from is

it was not easy. Yeah, so when I say it went

well, I mean, the mission was complete, that kids heard about

Jesus and that other students, older students got to be the

ones delivering the message in the way they lived and and what

they shared verbally. But yeah, I mean, it was, you

know, kids trying to run away, like, not literally, but like,

yeah, they're trying to trying to leave, trying to leave, get

out of the out of the organized event, you know, and do their

own thing. You know, there, there was times

where the language was rough or the experience just in some way

was rough, could you know? And but at the end of the day,

what was odd is though there was all this, there was some tension

to be sure, and some difficulties that, you know, the

kids are like, you're picking me up tomorrow, right?

And then the students are leaving on Friday with tears in

their eyes after not having a phone or any of their normal

life for a week and they're hanging out with kids who kind

of are acting like, why am I even here?

Those kids are showing up in the students from Forge are missing

them afterwards, even though it was, it was hot and it was

tough. So the third summer we did it

three weeks and Grace came up with a great idea like, you

know, why don't you have some of your regular leaders join us?

Because back then, those first 2 summers, it was really just me

and then a few, few of our volunteers would come when they

could, but they were working, you know, And so we hired some

interns with the help of Grace. And then the last two summers,

all the Ford students have come. We've had three weeks in a row.

We have a full program that's mapped out to the minute and

it's incredibly successful. Like it's a much they're still,

you know, you're still doing ministry, it's still hard work.

There's still definitely you're putting, you're putting your

back into it. It's tough, but we have a

reason. We're doing everything.

It's all adding up to kids receiving the gospel message.

And we have actually now, the last two summers not only

brought on someone in like an intern range, but even some

summer staff, particularly teachers from our congregations

who are available in the summers and are working with these kids

as a serving opportunity. All year, members of our church

were engaged. Yeah.

All year round. Yeah, that's awesome.

Just wrapping up, Mitch, I got 2 questions for you.

One's personal and one I want you to really speak just in

summary to everybody who's listening.

First question for you personal. How has the last, let's just

call it, a decade of ministry at PO Mill?

How's it changed you? I really feel like.

I'm. In tune.

With what Jesus meant when he walked into cities and

proclaimed that the Kingdom of God was here.

It is coming. In a certain sense, and it's

here in that there is good news for the poor.

That they are actually not. Left out they might be on the

edge of society for a SEC like right now and that is

uncomfortable. We we can we've been called by

Jesus in a very sort of, you know, priority one type way to

rectify that as Christians, but they are.

Not they might. Be on the edge of society.

They might feel a little left out, but they are not left out.

Of God's. Purposes in the world and God's

coming. Kingdom what I'm.

Referring to is the new heavens and the new Earth.

I know some homeless people right now, probably asleep

behind a gas station on Old Buncombe Rd. that will be at

home with the Father forever and ever.

And. Blood washed linens.

Roof over their head. I don't really know exactly what

this means, but at whatever Revelation is talking about when

it says there is a great marriage feast with the lamb

eating all they can. And.

Jesus came and lived. This perfect and.

Sinless life, you know. Took on.

Their suffering and their the suffering that has been caused

by others, and the suffering they've produced through their

own sin. And rose again from death.

To ensure that they are included forever and that poverty will

not have the final word. As much as we allow.

Poverty to be our final word over them.

I have learned why you have to be poor to become Christian at

all. And maybe it's not financially

poor, but Jesus called it being poor in spirit.

And that poverty is this great catalyst to realizing that you

have no ability to ensure a better future.

You have no ability to overcome the generation and the sins that

it brought to you as you were born and that the things you

grew up with there's there's just so much powerlessness in

poverty that you are very open and very quickly to the idea of

being saved and being. Not just.

Saved as a part of your identity.

Like I'm a pretty good guy, but I definitely need a little

redemption. But no, I need, I need someone

to totally reverse this. I can't help you do it, but

there's a guy who's willing to do it for me and went the

ultimate length to make it happen.

I think I've seen the true suffering of poverty.

Most of the time is found in the people who have everything.

Their souls are so impoverished and they keep piling up thinking

one of these objects, one of these homes, one of these

accounts is going to do it. I'm finally going to have an

identity, a validation for my existence.

And they never get it. Until they turn to Christ.

And yet I've seen how powerful Christ's idea his his message of

identity is. Because I know people who have

been given. Basically no.

Identity by their peers or people around them or the rest

of their city who can't stop smiling because they know they

are a son or a daughter of of God and.

They actually don't want. In a certain sense, they don't

even want all the wealth you can give them.

In a certain sense, I mean, they definitely want.

There's times where they need, we all need physical help.

But oddly, what they want is to share their faith in Jesus with

you. So how I think I've been

transformed over the last nine years?

Is that I get to see the. I know the Kingdom of God is

here. I see how he is especially and

uniquely with the sick he is especially he is uniquely with.

Those who suffer. And those who are?

Who are broken? And those who have been abused

and and marginalized or outcasts, those who are just,

they know like I'm I'm a Sinner. That's who I am without without

help, without Jesus. And those people, they may not

be getting. They should be, perhaps, but

they may not be getting affordable housing.

They may not be getting bigger. Paychecks they may not.

Be getting more security or retirement accounts or whatever

but. They're in the Kingdom of God

and they. Are receiving the Holy Spirit

and walking with Jesus and so the Kingdom of God is here and

we do not have to go create it the.

Kingdom of God one. Thing I've been transformed.

The Kingdom of God is not something we advance.

It's not something we achieve. The Kingdom of God is something

we receive, the Kingdom. Of God is part of the.

Gospel. It's not a reward for living out

the gospel. It is the gospel that he brought

it here to us. We didn't make it there.

He brought it here and now we get to live in it.

You know one. Of the greatest.

Ways to be miserable is to. Somehow have a.

Version of Christianity. Where the best part?

About it is you're waiting to get to heaven.

It's like no that that is true. I'm I'm down to go.

That's. But.

Heaven has come to earth. There's been an end breaking and

that's what Jesus came to do and that's what the really the

church. I mean, there's some more

theology to it, but the church is the is that it is that

vehicle by which the. Upside down Kingdom is.

Making its way to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Well, and you answered my. Second question, which is really

how can people grow in their empathy?

How can they grow to be blessed? And part of it is just leaning

in to to to all the complexities that they're experiencing.

But then you have. An invitation for.

People an open invitation at Greg's for people to just come

and see, come and see, come and see.

Well, let me just tell you. I'll close.

You know, I know we wanted to kind of hit this.

What I would tell people who do not live on the West Side that

are, are living in Greenville. Perhaps they're living in one of

the the parts. Of Greenville that have.

Made us the number four place to live in the US according to the

US World Report. I guess it's called U.S. news

and World Report. You know, we were named the 4th

best place to live in all of America because we have big city

amenities without the common unpleasant trees of big cities.

That's a direct quote from that article.

One thing to realize is that is. Not true.

Where are these common unpleasantries?

I think is how they phrase it exactly.

Or they are with us right outside the city line in the

county. That's where they they are not

far. We did not we did not create a

patch of heaven in South Carolina with no brokenness.

We have moved them out to the county line and they are over on

White Horse Road living in a totally separate world than

someone living on Augusta Road. And I think it's good to realize

that that so many of them are our brothers and sisters in

Christ. Not unpleasant trees that would

take away from big city amenities.

Additionally, my goal for people on, for example, the east side

of Greenville. Would be to.

Learn the gospel in such a way to become poor in spirit and yet

filled with imputed righteousness and total gift.

Righteousness not of their own, but just something someone died

to give them 2000 years ago. We'd be filled with the gospel

in such a way that they would move through being willing.

To give. To the ministries on the West

side. Moved past being.

Willing to lead a ministry on the West side.

And I think the ultimate journey's end is that they are

willing to simply drive across town and sit and participate as

a fellow worshipper on the West side, listening and learning

from and just engaging in normal everyday Christian Church

worship with a church on the West side.

You got many to choose from. To that we can shout out would

be at Griggs Memorial Baptist Church, Woodside Baptist Church,

or Reconcile Community Church with my, my hero Will brought us

and good friend, any of those churches.

But there's others we can't go on to name.

But I think, I think an East Sider, an East side

Greenvillian, however you want to say it, they've really

understood the gospel when it's not, I'm going to give to it or

I'm going to go help it. But they're, but they start to

see that's just my church, that there's no, there's no

difference, that there's no, there's no need to have any

power in this. There, there, they're just

there's. No belief that I'm somehow

automatically a contributor because of the hand I've been

dealt or the place I've lived, that there's just brothers and

sisters in Christ. And when they can go and sit and

receive and just be in small group and be served, my dream

for them has been fulfilled because I think that's when they

have most clearly and fully understood the gospel for them.

That's my opinion on it. Yeah.

No, that's a good. That's a good challenge and

you've got a a story of being able to do that in some unique

ways. And now a voice to lead us and

have us think some deep thoughts.

And so worship Jesus, revitalize the church, love and serve the

neighborhood. Those are those are great

talking points, learning points. And ultimately may we be doers

and not just hearers of the word.

And so Mitch, this has been great.

Man. I awake and sit for hours.

I'd love to hear stories. You could you could tell great

stories of individuals that you've been able to love and

serve and care for and that have built into you.

And we're just going to have to take it by faith and ask people

to come and see for themselves. And we're grateful for our

friendship, grateful for our partnership.

We'll have plenty of show notes, but we encourage you just to go

online. Where can they find you online?

It's Greeks church.com. Greekschurch.com It's a.

Wonderful thing called the Internet.

We encourage you to type it in now and get a little bit more of

their story and see where guys is taking this church.

Loving the 320 households. That's right of PO Mill.

Yep. Great, great.

Mitch, thanks so much for your time.

Yeah, thanks for having me on.