Seacoast Church
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Seacoast Church is a large American interdenominational church located in the suburb of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, near Charleston, South Carolina. It was founded in February, 1988 by Greg Surratt and a team from another large church in the area, Northwood Assembly in North Charleston. Surratt still serves as Senior Pastor. Seacoast was one of the churches who pioneered the multi-site church technique.
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[edit] Early History
According to their website, "Seacoast Church began in February of 1988 with sixty-five people meeting in an apartment clubhouse. In April of the same year the first 'public' meetings were held in a rented theater with a vision for reaching out to the unchurched people of the Charleston area. The dream was to build a church" The church grew quickly with its contemporary worship style and support from Northwood Assembly, a similar church in North Charleston. Today, the church has over 8,500 worshipers who attend weekly.
[edit] Multi-Site Church
The church went through several building programs and helped create the idea of having satellite services on off site campuses. This idea of a multi-site church has won Seacoast praise as being the 15th most influential church in America from The Church Report.[1]
The idea came out of necessity, however. In 2002 the church had over 3,000 people attending weekly service leading the church to request permits to expand their facilities with local officials. The Town of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina denied all requests however. The church then began to use a video feed to show sermons to an off-site location. This was so successful that Seacoast began to open other "satellite" facilities throughout the Charleston, South Carolina metropolitan area and throughout the state and now even in Savannah, Georgia.
In 2006 the church's original campus in Mount Pleasant, SC opened a new 100,000-square-foot (10,000 m²) facility and will provide different style services for people who have different preferences in music and worship. The sermons, outside its original facility, are a live worship experience with a video teaching recorded at the original campus using the multi-site church philosophy that Seacoast is recognized for.
Seacoast currently has 11 campuses in 3 states, including an Internet campus. Check them out on the web at www.seacoast.org or www.seacoastchurch.com.
[edit] List of Campuses
- Asheville Campus - located in Asheville, North Carolina
- Columbia Campus - located in Columbia, South Carolina
- Greensboro Campus - located in Greensboro, North Carolina
- Greenville Campus - located in Greenville, South Carolina
- Irmo Campus - located in Irmo, South Carolina
- James Island Campus - located in James Island, South Carolina
- Mount Pleasant Campus - located in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
- North Charleston Campus - located in Charleston, South Carolina
- Savannah Campus - located in Savannah, Georgia
- Summerville Campus - located in Summerville, South Carolina
- West Ashley Campus - located in Charleston, South Carolina
- Internet Campus
[edit] Beliefs
Seacoast is an interdenominational or non-denominational Christian church and states its "sole basis for [its] belief is the Bible." They believe the Bible is infalible. Further, they believe in the trinity, that God exists eternally in three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
They believe that Jesus Christ, "lived a sinless life on earth and voluntarily paid for our sin by dying on the cross as our substitute." They believe "He rose from the dead and is the only mediator between us and God." [2]
[edit] News Articles
- "Growing Appeal" Charleston Post & Courier
- Featured church in Vision Magazine: [3]
- Seacoast Church's Media Page [4]
