I grew up in a town of about 1,200 people. In our town at that time we had a Catholic Church, A Lutheran Church, An Episcopal Church, A Church of God, an Evangelical Brethren Church, and our church, the Congregational Church. In our church we had a special letter that was framed and hung on the wall in the entryway. It said that our church was the Methodist Church for our community and it was signed by the Bishop of the Montana Methodist Church. And the letter also said that our church was the Presbyterian Church for our community and it was signed by an executive presbyter. That sign was important to me because I knew that my father’s family was Presbyterian and my mother’s family was Methodist so the Congregational Church was the place where they could all meet in our town.

Like us, our daughter lives in what is called a census designated area. It has a name like a town, but it is not organized or incorporated. Dalzell, South Carolina has a population of 3,417. But it abuts Sumpter, SC, which has a population of 42,757. There are a lot more people here than in the town where I was raised, so it shouldn’t surprise me that there are more churches.

Since we are in the south, there are a lot of Baptist churches. The first street we turn onto when exiting our daughter’s subdivision is Peach Orchard Drive. Shaw Air Force Base is on that street, before we get to the gate of the base, we pass Hopewell Baptist Church, Long Branch Baptist Church, Springbank Baptist Church, and Shaw Heights Baptist Church.

Back home, north of Seattle, we joke that the planning and zoning commission requires that there be no spaces where you can’t see a Starbucks. Go out the front door of a Starbucks and look to your left and you can see another Starbucks. Look to the right and you can see another Starbucks. Of course this is an exaggeration. But there are a lot of Starbucks coffee houses in Seattle and the surrounding area.

Baptist Churches around here are a bit like Starbucks in the Pacific Northwest. You can’t quite see Hopewell Baptist Church from Long Branch Baptist Church, but you don’t have to drive too far. In the greater Sumpter area you could choose from Alice Drive Baptist Church, Sumpter First Baptist Church, First Baptist Missionary Church, Sumpter Baptist Temple, Crosspoint Baptist Church, Crosswell Baptist Church, Bethel Baptist Church, Northside, Memorial Baptist Church, Eastside Baptist Church, Westside Baptist Church, Jehovah Missionary Baptist Church, Wedgefield Baptist Church, Trinity Missionary Baptist Church, Wise Drive Baptist Church, or Graham Baptist Church. I’m sure I’ve missed a bunch of them.

One explanation for all of the Baptist churches is that Baptists are good at arguing with each other. Henry Martin Robert was an engineering officer in the Army who wrote Robert’s Rules of Order. His quest for rules for running meetings came from his frustration with trying to preside at a meeting at a Baptist church. One of my friends, who is an American Baptist pastor jokes that it only takes a comma to make a doctrinal argument in the Baptist Church. He also told me that congregations have split over the temperature of the water in the baptistry. I’m pretty sure that the final is either an exaggeration or a joke, but I’m not sure.

Of course, in the Pacific Northwest there are other coffee shops. We have Seattle’s Best Coffee, Whidby Coffee, Cruising Coffee, Woods Coffee, and a dozen independent coffee shops. Statistically Seattle is second to San Francisco when it comes to the number of coffee shops per person. And Washington is the second most coffee obsessed state, falling behind Alaska in per capita coffee shops. But there are a lot of places to get coffee.

Here in South Carolina there are a lot of places to get religion. If you don’t prefer Baptist churches, between Hopewell Baptist and Long Branch Baptist are Redemption Ministries Church, Northwest Christian Ministries Church and Family Restoration Church. And there are churches with denominational names I recognize like Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic and Episcopal. There are a couple of Lutheran Churches. There are no Congregational Churches in South Carolina. Because of the denomination’s fierce anti-slavery position, those congregations were declared illegal prior to the Civil War. Our denomination, the United Church of Christ has only four congregations in the state. Two of them are in Charleston. The closest one to Sumpter is in Columbia.

Like the Baptists, the African Methodist Episcopal Church has a lot of congregations in the area. If you wanted to worship in an AME church your could choose from St Luke AME Church
Saint Paul AME Church, Bethel AME Church, Mt Olive AME Church, Quinn Chapel AME Church, High Hills AME Church, Wayman Chapel AME Church, Allen Chapel AME Church, Reid Chapel AME Church, Pine Hill AME Church, Clinton Chapel AME Church, orUnion Station AME Church.

There is a new Scooters Coffee Drive Through on Peach Orchard Drive and there is a Starbucks near the Lowes Home Improvement Shop, but coffee shops aren’t as big a deal here in South Carolina as they are in Washington. Then again, there aren’t many restaurants in Washington where you can order sweet tea and get the wonderful elixir that they serve around here. Fast food restaurants are quick to say, “We have REAL sweet tea,” if you inquire. If you ask for a coffee shop, you are likely to be directed to a Dunkin’ Donuts shop, which most likely will not have an espresso machine.

I’m confident that there are more alligators (over 100,000) in South Carolina than coffee shops. We’ve yet to encounter an alligator in our explorations of the area, but we’ve seen some swampy places that look like good alligator habitat. There are no alligators in Washington. The water is too cold, which makes me think that alligators might be Baptists.

It is a joy to have the privilege of traveling to a place that is different from our home. We are enjoying exploring and learning about southern culture and the people of South Carolina. We are, however, outsiders, and there is much that we still do not understand.