In the last thirty years, Faith Baptist Church has grown from a community outreach in Poe Mill Village, Greenville, South Carolina, to one of Greenville’s largest Baptist churches. God has allowed Faith to become a leading Fundamental church in America, and its humble beginnings are a testimony to God’s faithfulness.
In March 1896, the F. W. Poe Manufacturing Company opened as the second major textile mill in Greenville. As was typical of the period, the company built housing for its employees as well. By 1930, Poe Mill Village was one of Greenville County’s largest communities and home to over two thousand people in Greenville’s West End. In the mid-1960s, the teenagers of Boulevard Baptist Church in Greenville realized the need to spread the Gospel in Poe Mill Village. The teens began “Club 3:16” in a little house at 23 B Street. Named for John 3:16, the club required children to memorize that verse to become a member. Held weekly, Club 3:16 had considerable influence in Poe Mill Village. So many children and teens joined the club that it began meeting two nights a week. When parents began attending with their children, Boulevard Baptist soon recognized the need to plant a church.
Club 3:16 became the Poe Mill Mission and called Rev. Al Thornton as the pastor. Thornton was born in Joplin, Texas, in 1913, and accepted Christ at an evangelistic meeting when he was twenty. Six feet, eleven inches tall, Thornton was a successful basketball player in high school and in a semi-professional league. Yet, through listening to radio preachers, he felt God calling him to preach. Rejecting a potentially lucrative basketball career, he enrolled in Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Over the next several years, Thornton pastored churches in Indiana, Oklahoma, and Missouri before moving to Greenville, where he and his family joined Boulevard Baptist Church.
When Boulevard Baptist Church constructed a new building on Wade Hampton Boulevard, it borrowed enough money to build in Poe Mill as well. The church purchased a narrow strip of land stretched along Hammett Street from Poe Manufacturing Co. The land once had been a cemetery for mill workers’ children before being abandoned. When construction on the site was finished, the little metal building was only twenty-five-hundred square feet in size and looked more like a metal shop than a church.
In 1967, the Poe Mill Mission took the name Faith Baptist Church (although it was not independent and incorporated until 1975). Members of Boulevard Baptist and students from Bob Jones University joined the church, sharing in its ministry to Poe Mill Village. Several families from the community also attended. Al Thornton pastored at Faith for just over four years. In May 1971, Thornton resigned and moved to Florida, where he eventually assumed another pastorate. Faith began looking for another full-time pastor.
Max Kaster was born in 1941. Having spent several years in the Navy, God called him to preach in the mid 1960s. After completing military service, Kaster moved to Greenville with his wife Linda to attend Bob Jones University. They joined Boulevard Baptist Church, and Kaster drove for the bus ministry and assisted the pastor. Through a friend’s recommendation, Kaster was invited to preach at Faith, and, in December 1971, Faith called him as pastor.
Kaster led the church for the next four years, and it grew steadily. The church continued Club 3:16, began a visitation program in Poe Mill Village, and started carpooling students from Bob Jones University, who were a majority of the members at this time. Having graduated from Bob Jones University earlier in the year, Kaster resigned from Faith in August 1975. He and his wife moved to Sweetser, Indiana where they planted another Faith Baptist Church. For a short time following Kaster’s resignation, Robert Wolf became the pastor. Few records remain from his eighteen-month tenure; and, in June 1977, Wolf also resigned. Soon, Faith was not only without a pastor but also struggling financially. Membership had declined significantly, and the few families that remained struggled to support even the basic needs of the church.
In late summer 1977, John Vaughn was invited to preach at Faith Baptist Church. Vaughn was born in Kentucky in 1948. His father was a Methodist preacher, and his family grew up attending church. At Cumberland College, he met Brenda Lyttle, and, at the end of their sophomore year, they were married. Within a few years, the Vaughns had two children and very little money. Pastor Vaughn joined the Air Force as an aircraft mechanic, hoping to relieve their financial need. Though his new income was welcome, he was soon sent to Korea alone, where he spent thirteen months at Kunsan AFB. Within six months of his return, he received orders for Thailand, where he spent another seven months. While in Thailand, he accepted Christ at a Bible study in a missionary’s home. Soon afterward, he felt God calling him to preach. In 1975, having been discharged from the Air Force, he moved his family to Greenville and enrolled at Bob Jones University.
In early October, he was present for a church business meeting at Faith, at which the congregation discussed whether or not to disband. With no pastor, and unable to pay its bills, Faith was ready to close and give its property back to Boulevard Baptist Church. When Vaughn volunteered to help stabilize the church, the deacons asked him to candidate, and, on October 15, 1977, he was called as pastor. Including the Vaughns, membership at Faith was forty-five people. By spring 1978, attendance was again above one hundred people, and Faith’s small auditorium was crowded. When the church installed speakers outside the building to reach overflow crowds, many people sat outside and listened to the messages from the hoods of their cars.
On April 23, 1978, Pastor Vaughn preached a message from I Peter 4:12-13 entitled, “The Crucible of Christian Suffering.” He taught that God uses suffering to make us more closely model Christ in our lives. Four weeks later, May 20, 1978, a gasoline spill caused a major fire at the Vaughn’s home. Their two-year-old daughter, Becky, miraculously survived third-degree burns over 95% of her body. Brenda also received third-degree burns on 65% of her body. Both underwent multiple surgeries and spent months in separate hospitals. Though hospital bills mounted, God provided everything the family needed.
Faith Baptist Church experienced tremendous growth immediately following the fire in the Vaughns’ home. The publicity accompanying the pastor’s tragedy aroused community interest, and the Vaughns’ testimony encouraged many. The congregation grew from forty-five people in 1977 to an average of nine hundred four years later. Faith’s small building overflowed! The small main building underwent constant remodeling with fewer interior walls remaining as the congregation grew. Parking crews were organized to park cars door-to-door to maximize parking space. Faith held five one-hour services every Sunday, two in the morning and three in the evening; Pastor Vaughn preached every service! In November of 1981, Faith moved into a twelve-thousand-square-foot former grocery store at 2706 Old Buncombe Road. Lester Roloff preached the opening service with over sixteen hundred people in attendance.
As the Spanish population of Greenville grew, Faith organized a Bible study called Los Cimientos de la Fe in order to reach the Hispanic community. This eventually became Iglesia Bautista de la Fe. Iglesia Bautista soon became independent of Faith as Greenville’s first Spanish-speaking Fundamental church.
Faith also founded Hidden Treasure Christian School. The fire at the Vaughns’ home had cost Becky all of her fingers, the sight in her right eye, and the ability to walk without assistance. Becky was five years old in 1981 and ready to start school, but no facilities existed to meet her needs within a Christian environment. Becky’s situation demonstrated the need for a Bible-based Christian school for children with special needs.
Hidden Treasure Christian School began operation in September 1981 with only two students—Becky Vaughn and Naomi Detandt. Joy Greene taught the girls, and several members of the church volunteered as well. Classes were held in Faith’s Hammett Street building after it was renovated. Faith also offered traditional classes for kindergarten through first-grade, but, after one year, it became evident that Hidden Treasure needed to focus solely on students with special needs. By the second school year, attendance doubled, and, within ten years, there were forty students. Hidden Treasure Christian School gave Faith Baptist Church a national influence. Families from at least nine states moved to Greenville, South Carolina in order to enroll handicapped children at Hidden Treasure.
By 1987, the church was still growing and once again needed room to expand. That year, the church began looking for land and considered thirty-nine properties between Travelers’ Rest and the Greenville/Spartanburg Airport in Greer. Ultimately, they found two adjacent eighteen-acre properties on West Lee Road. By 1992, Faith began clearing land and preparing for construction of the auditorium. By spring 1994, construction was complete. Faith Baptist Church officially moved to 500 West Lee Road in April of that year.
Faith began in the hearts of the teenagers of Boulevard Baptist Church; and, from a little house at 23 B Street, the small Bible club grew to become one of Greenville’s largest Baptist churches. And yet, its property on West Lee Road exists within a half mile of the founding church's original location. Faith Baptist Church has prospered for over thirty years without drifting from the principles on which it was founded. Its stability and principled leadership are testimonies to God’s grace.