Mark and Lisa are covenant children of the same little PCA church in Abbeville, SC (Lebanon PCA). Although Lisa was a little older than Mark, they grew up knowing each other. It wasn’t until high school that they became interested in one another. Lisa was the youth director of their church for about four years, and Mark would help her out at youth groups or as a counselor on youth retreats. As time passed, their friendship grew into a more serious relationship and then marriage. Their family grew as God blessed them with three beautiful children: Tanner (27) married to Madison, Jonathan (25) married to Mary, and Katherine (20), who all love the Lord and are a considerable part of their family’s ministry.
Mark and Lisa spent their first 14 years of ministry called to church revitalization roles. Then in 2015, God put them on a self-reflecting soul-search for what was next. Through a passing statement, a friend told Mark he should consider church planting. After dismissing the thought nonchalantly, Mark and Lisa began to put it to prayer. Over the next sixteen months, God gave them one confirmation after another that church planting was where He wanted them. The final confirmation to test whether they might be called and equipped to plant a church came when Mark and Lisa went to Mission to North America’s (MNA) Assessment Center in April 2016. There they spent a week undergoing a rigorous evaluation of their personalities and gifts for church planting and were given the green light to go do it. But where?
Always at the back of their minds was Myrtle Beach, SC. It is where they spent a lot of time as children on vacation with their families. Due to God’s providence and blessing, it is where they had taken their children when they went on vacation over the last 24 years. They believe God had been molding them and preparing them for the significant challenges of starting a new church in the Carolina Forest Community and creating a new home for their family. Myrtle Beach was a good fit for them.
Mark and Lisa spent over two years in this ministry. However, God had other plans for them. While God used their time in church planting to stretch their faith and reliance on Him and to teach them to think out of the box, He was orchestrating a new mission and preparing a new church family for them to minister. In 2019 God providentially called them to be the pastor and family of a beautiful and loving church, Andrews PCA in Andrews, SC. They feel blessed to be at Andrews and look forward to all God has in store for the church.
Andrews PCA 