Great Soul-Winning Churches - Elmer Towns

Sunday School was held in a room out back, which was nothing more than tin wrapped around
studs in a concrete floor. The ladies stuffed rags in the holes in the nursery wall to keep it warm
and had to watch the children carefully lest they rip decaying beaver board off the walls.
When Monroe went into the Little Theater, some traditional church men in town made
fun of him, accusing him of having “whooping religion” or reviving the Salvation Army. Even
though the young congregation had questionable facilities, they had a prediction of success. Dr.
Greg Dixon drove down from Indianapolis to preach the organizational sermon, Cecil Hodges
presided at the business meeting, and six other pastors were there in May, 1970, when the church
was chartered. This was the first Baptist Bible Fellowship church in the area. Monroe relies
heavily upon the counsel of both Greg Dixon and Cecil Hodges when he has a problem. He
simply picks up the phone and seeks their advice on how to build a church, for those who have
done it can help him most.
Monroe sold door-to-door products part-time for the first four months to keep his family
alive. He testifies, “We ran up all the credit possible on our credit cards; the church just wouldn’t
go forward.” Attendance began with 18 and for two months averaged only 23. Monroe confesses
that he was discouraged. When Monroe had been in Florence several months, he discovered that
there was a former independent Baptist church, the Baptist Tabernacle. Rumors regarding the
split-up of that church had hurt fundamentalism in the area. True or not, the rumors hurt young
Monroe. The former church had split and both sections went into the Southern Baptist
Convention. No one seemed to want anything to do with an independent church.
In January he attended a Georgia-South Carolina Baptist Bible Fellowship ministerial,
where the pastors asked him to appear and tell about his work. After they heard of his vision,
they pledged $100 a week to help with the new church, most of the money coming from Pastor
Cecil Hodges, Bible Baptist Church, Savannah. The pastor came back to Florence elated.
According to him, “I visited with more enthusiasm than ever before.”
Next March, he had one of his greatest victories; the congregation prayed for 55 in
Sunday School. He gave away a “Judas coin” to everyone who came. Monroe testifies, “People
kept coming, more than I had ever seen, and we hit 55 that day. It was a real answer to prayer.”
In May, they went for a goal of 100, giving away goldfish and sponsoring a local quartet; they
had 102 in Sunday School. On the church’s first anniversary in November, attendance reached
200 for the first time. The church, with its youthful pastor, was on the march. Still the church had
no capital assets, but were renting the old theater building for $58.50 a month. By this time they
were paying the pastor full-time. Monroe signed a note at the bank for $1100 and bought three
old buses. Attendance pushed its way to 140 in Sunday School, a phenomenal growth, judged by
the history of the church.
After Monroe had been in the church two years, he attended the pastors’ school at First
Baptist Church, Hammond, Indiana, where Dr. Jack Hyles taught him to be bold in his
leadership, to let the people know where he was going, what he expected and why he had such
expectations. When the author challenged the congregation to have 7,000 in Sunday School and
be one of the largest in the world, there was spontaneous “Amen!”—as if every person in the
room expected to build the largest Sunday School in the world right in Florence, South Carolina.