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Imprinted in our Presbyterian DNA is a need to be connected with others. So it was natural when pastors of smaller member churches began meeting monthly for fellowship and mutual support. That was 15 years ago. Today the Laurens County Cluster of Smaller Member Congregations models how the partnering or clustering of smaller membership congregations can provide fellowship, support, opportunities, and resources that are not always available for individual congregations that size.On the local level, the cluster offers programs for all ages. There are fellowship gatherings, prayer expeditions to different churches, and leadership training events. Each summer the cluster sponsors a youth camp. Along with Bible study and recreation, participants serve in projects like cemetery clean up, repair and re-roofing of homes of the elderly, and visitation in nursing homes. Now the cluster is developing an older adult ministry.
The cluster has always embraced college students. Through a unique relationship with Presbyterian College, students join church members in local and global service projects. Furthermore, the cluster works with Christmas International House, through which church members extend hospitality to international college students during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
Christ has charged all of us to respond to the Great Commission, regardless of the number of people on the church roll. Working together, the cluster has answered the call to go “into all the world” through yearly mission trips to Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Ours is a God who has promised to be “where two or three are gathered together.” He has also demonstrated in stories like the feeding of the five thousand how he can feed many through the offering of one. Great is his faithfulness in the lives of individuals and congregations in the Greater Laurens County Cluster of Smaller Member Churches.
Contributors: Herb Codington, Hampton Hunter, Sadie Hunter Goldsmith, Lawrence Peebles, Ann Felten, Lucie Barron Eggleston