News | Events
We’re excited to announce that our new website is coming September 1. Here’s an early rendering…
Along with a fresh design, we’re simplifying the menu structure for our new site.
For our community, it'll have easily accessible guest information.
For our church family, it’ll have all the content you use—and details for Family Camp Weekend at The Wilds (Nov. 8-9). Check back at morningside.org next week!
When Ruth the Moabitess followed her mother-in-law Naomi to the land of Israel, she left everything.
But neither of them could have ever imagined the story that would unfold when she did.
Join us July 28 (5 PM, Auditorium) as The Academy of Arts Summer Drama Team presents this timeless story of redemption!
This is a FREE event open to the public.
Founded in 1971, the Academy of Arts exists to train and inspire the next generation of servant leaders to properly use the powerful tool of communication for others’ good and God’s glory. The Academy lives out this vision through their multi-faceted organization which includes The Logos Theatre, a Christian Conservatory, 2 traveling ministries to 13 states, a professional film company, Venture Films, and supplying classes and training for all ages “MAKING THE BIBLE COME ALIVE.”
Morningside is excited to welcome you to our Back to School Splash on Wednesday, August 7 from 7:00-8:30 pm. Kids can enjoy inflatables, popsicles, carnival games, and prizes. Bring a towel! You might get wet!
We will also be opening up our Awana registration for K3-5th graders. Awana meets every Wednesday night during the school year from 6:45-8:00 pm. Our first night of club is September 4.
We look forward to seeing you at the the Back to School Splash!
Join us on Wednesday, July 3, at 7 PM for our much-anticipated, annual ice cream social! This tradition is a highlight of our summer, bringing together our church family for an evening of fun and fellowship. This year, we're excited to share the event with our sister church, Hope Baptist Church.
We'll gather outside in our front parking lot to enjoy delicious ice cream and sweet fellowship together. Additionally, there will be patriotic music filling the air creating a festive atmosphere.
A special highlight of the evening will be a devotional led by Pastor Ben Gordon. His insightful words will provide us with spiritual reflection and refreshment. We will conclude the event with prayer for our country. We look forward to seeing you there and sharing this special time together.
6:00pm Church Open
*Bring your own dinner, games (cornhole, spikeball, etc.)
6:50pm Ice Cream serving lines start
7:15pm Program
patriotic music
guided prayers
devotional
As announced in May, the Board of Trustees at Bob Jones University has appointed our pastor to serve as their 6th president. Pastor Crockett’s last day as our senior pastor was May 24.
Image credit: Bob Jones University
Our hearts are heavy knowing that Pastor Crockett will no longer be able to serve us the same way, but we are thrilled for his opportunity and happy he and his family can remain active, serving members.
Our deacons began meeting right away to determine what this transition means for us. Pastor Crockett and deacon chair Rod McCarty addressed our congregation on May 8. Pastor Crockett addressed us again during our worship service on May 12. On May 19 we honored Pastor Crockett and his family for their nearly 9 years of ministry. On June 2 our deacon chair presented the full transition process our deacons plan to follow.
On June 9, our members voted to have our pastor emeritus Tony Miller serve as our interim pastor. Our deacons will search for our new senior pastor and oversee our preaching calendar. Pastor Tom Stuhl will manage day-to-day operations, and Pastor Jeriel Ontoy will lead in planning our worship services.
Our constitution outlines how pastoral transitions take place. The deacons and pastoral staff will keep our members informed during the process, and our website team has shared more information here.
We appreciate your prayers for our deacons and staff as they prepare our church family for this transition. Dr. Crockett, his wife Karie, and his four children would certainly appreciate your prayers too.
This article was edited June 14 to reflect the results of the June 9th business meeting.
From life and eternity to matter and space…
What the Bible says affects how we think about everything in life.
Sunday evenings this summer we invite you to join us for a sermon series on that very truth.
Join us June 9 at 5 PM for the launch of Biblical Worldview: Thinking & Living. Our guest speaker is Dr. Renton Rathbun, Director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at Bob Jones University.
June 9 - Recently, the words “biblical worldview” have become a household word. But few will admit we’ve been misunderstanding the meaning of those words. In this talk, we discuss a useful definition of “biblical worldview” and investigate how it affects our lives
June 30 - Biblical worldview tends to be discussed only in terms of one’s thinking. However, if biblical worldview does not lead to holy living, we are in danger being whitewashed homes crumbling from the inside out. How do we make the connection from biblical thinking to biblical action in the home?
July 7 - Many are dismayed by the coming generation of young people because they see within this generation a new tolerance for sin and a weakening of biblical standards. In this talk, we discover the root of the Gen. Z thought process that has groomed many in this generation into doubting God, redefining Christianity, and ultimately walking away from the faith. In knowing the root of this thinking, we are better prepared to mentor the next generation toward a biblical worldview.
July 21 - Today we are inundated with LGBTQ+ indoctrination via social media, entertainment, and personal friendships. Now there are movements, even within the church, that have accepted varying degrees of LGBTQ+ affirmation. We will discuss how families can take steps to address these issues biblically.
Image Credit: Bob Jones University
Renton Rathbun has been a college professor for over twenty-five years. His teaching experience has included both secular and Christian colleges and universities. He and his wife April have three children. Daniel is 23 and was married last year to Jill. They live in the Greenville area. Renton and April’s other two children are Olivia who is 9 years old and Jude who is 8. April is currently homeschooling them both. Renton holds a variety of degrees from English, speech, philosophy, and theology as well as a PhD in apologetics.
Invest this summer in your biblical worldview. Everything you do and every relationship you have stands to benefit.
Memorial Day (May 27) honors the memory of all those who have died while serving in the US armed forces. It’s the official “start of summer” for many Americans.
On May 26, instead of our usual life groups and PM meeting, we will have a churchwide Memorial Day cookout.
Join us in the lobby at noon for a simple meal of burgers, chips, drinks, and dessert. It won’t be anything fancy, just an opportunity to build godly relationships over a decent meal. Senior adults can start at 11:30, and little ones 12 and under can choose hot dogs instead. We’ll encourage our life groups to eat together, and there will be indoor seating in 106 and 107 as well as in the gym.
Weather permitting, bring a lawn chair—and maybe a change of clothes—and plan to stick around. Our great neighbors across All Star Way at Pelham Road Elementary School have offered their green space and playground.
If you’ve been to our annual church picnic in the fall, you know that our teens and their leaders do a lot of work every year to help us all have great fellowship. If you’re in town, we’d love to have your help pitching in as well as providing the suggested donation ($5/person, $10/family). We’ll bring the food, but we’d love to have a few dozen volunteers helping with setup, kitchen, and especially cleanup. Sign up below, and let us know if you have any questions.
We plan to recognize this year's graduates on April 28 (10 AM, AUD). We want you to know how proud we are of you.
Finishing an educational milestone is a great time to think about what God has done and to look forward to what He will do in the future.
For our kindergarten and high school graduates, please email name and picture to mypicture@morningside.org by Sunday April 21.
We're also celebrating our graduates the Sunday night before.
After the April 21 evening service, join us in the gym for a graduation party and send-off. Our Rooted college-age group will be providing a pizza dinner (suggested donation $5/person or $10/family).
We truly are proud of you, graduates, and we look forward to recognizing you!
On the morning and evening of April 21, we host Steve Pettit Ministries.
Steve Pettit’s life “took a significant turn during his freshman year of college when he experienced a profound transformation through the Gospel of Jesus Christ” (stevepettit.com).
Dr. Pettit served for 29 years as president of the Steve Pettit Evangelistic Association and 9 years as president of Bob Jones University before reentering evangelism in 2023.
Dr. Pettit will preach, and his team will provide special music.
Join us for a pizza fellowship after the PM service (suggested donation $5/person, $10/family).
March 31 is Easter Sunday. We invite you to our Good Friday and Easter services.
This year we invite you to join us on the evening of Good Friday as part of Easter weekend. This service begins at 7:00pm and will include Communion as we reflect on our Lord’s sacrifice.
Our Easter service is special, but it’s simple. The choir and orchestra provide great music about the Resurrection, we praise God together in song, and our pastor preaches about how Jesus’ resurrection applies to everyday life.
Services are interpreted in ASL, and we will also hold services in Spanish (11:00) and Mandarin Chinese (10:00).
We’ll have photo stations available in our lobby for Easter pictures throughout the morning.
A few minutes after our 10:00 service, kids through Grade 5 will meet for an Egg Hunt.
Pick up your child from the nursery or Kids Wing, then walk across the street to Pelham Road Elementary School. We’ll provide an Easter bag for each child, and there'll be a special egg hunt just for toddlers and preschool kids!
All guests are welcome to join us in the lobby for coffee and doughnuts right after the morning service.
We are excited to celebrate again this year. Will you join us?
This spring our sermons are covering the final week of our Savior’s life: we are joining Jesus.
Join us on Good Friday as part of Easter weekend. Our choir and orchestra will help lead us in worship, and we will reflect on our Lord’s sacrifice by celebrating Communion.
Join us in our Auditorium at 7 PM on Friday, March 29.
Our senior adults calendar also includes a great opportunity to experience the Easter story at Bob Jones University’s Living Gallery production.
March 17 is Family Night.
We’ll begin together in the Auditorium (5 PM) and then break into men’s and women’s sessions for a while. Our speakers are Pastor Joe Henson (men and boys) and Mrs. Jeanette Miller (women and girls).
Around 5:30 we will get back together in the chapel for a picnic-style feast.
Suggested donation is $5/person, $10/family for burger sliders, potato salad, baked beans, and dessert.
After the meal, stick around for games or sports—and build godly relationships.
Sign up at the men’s ministry table in the lobby or below.
It’s a jungle out there! There’s adventure around every bend at The Great Jungle Journey, where kids are equipped to answer questions about who God is and what his Word teaches about salvation. Excitement galore awaits as you learn how to reconnect the Bible to real life through the Seven C’s of History. Children will be encouraged to seek their Creator and Savior!
Our first C takes us back to the beginning of time and the creation of the universe when it was all good. Did the universe start with a big bang, or did God create it?
Next, Adam sinned, which affected his descendants, who were so wicked that God sent a global flood as judgment for their sin.
The fourth C checks out the events that began at the tower of Babel. Can this be where all the people groups originated from?
At these stops, we realize once again that man is sinful and needs a Savior. Hallelujah, God provides one in his Son!
The last C shows the thrilling conclusion to history when all goes back to very good again and—best news ever—God wins against sin and Satan.
Each year we hold a missions conference to help us fulfill our mission of loving our world. Last year our theme was Enduring Hardness as Good Soldiers.
Our 2024 missions conference takes place on Sunday, Jan. 28, Wednesday, Jan. 31, and Sunday, Feb. 4. Our theme is On Mission: Declaring His Glory Among the Nations. You can give toward our conference offering or our speaker offering, and registration for our ODBM golf tournament is now open.
10 AM: Our new missions pastor Joe Henson will preach in the English service (AUD).
5 PM: Our life groups will meet around the Upstate. Dr. Royce Short will preach in our PM meeting (Chapel). Dr. Short was a Morningside member 2011-18 and has planted Kaysville Bible Chuch in Utah.
7 PM: Our teens will serve in our English prayer meeting under the leadership of ministry assistant Jalen Ontoy (Chapel).
Chris Anderson will be our guest speaker in our English service (10 AM, AUD). That evening, he will lead us in a Night of Worship entitled “Missiology That Sticks” (5 PM, AUD). Special highlights include our choir and orchestra leading us in fresh congregational arrangements, hymn histories, and extended Scripture readings and gathered prayers.
Chris is the President and Chief Editor for Church Works Media and the Senior Vice President of Global Opportunities at Biblical Ministries Worldwide. We sing several of his modern hymns regularly, including “His Robes for Mine.”
Chris pastored in Ohio and Georgia for over 20 years and now relies on missions support. If you would like to give toward our love offering, designate “Missions Conference Speaker Offering” online or at our offering boxes.
Our conference offering will help sponsor a trip for CampsAbroad, a ministry of The Wilds. Our church family has benefited from the ministry of The Wilds for many years. We’re excited for the opportunity to help spread that ministry around the world.
Designate “Missions Conference Offering” online or in our offering boxes.
Every Wednesday at 7 PM, members gather in our chapel.
We share what we call “Good News About the Good News”:
ways God is helping us build relationships and present the gospel
updates from our missionaries around the world
And we do what we were made to do:
We pray.
Our Spanish and Chinese congregations also gather for prayer. Our teens gather in the teen room. Our kids gather for nursery care and discipleship. During the school year for K3 and up, they have Awana. Members receive the password (also available at our office) for our online prayer update.
Join us for prayer meeting this Wednesday at 7 PM.
Other than our home page, here are the top 12 most-visited pages of 2023. Each of them has averaged at least several visits per day all year long.
Our Livestream Video page is always popular, but this year it was flooded with traffic when we hosted Ron Hamilton’s graveside service.
This year our online bulletin (updated weekly) became fully functional.
See #1. We made a separate page to make the graveside service easier to find.
This year financial administrator John Horn and missions pastor Joe Henson joined our leadership team.
Our members get a weekly link and password to the online prayer update.
We changed giving platforms this year, so many of us visited the giving page more than usual. We’re excited about the ways the new platform will help us function.
What we believe is the core of who we are.
Nearly all our guests tell us they watch online services and sermons before they attend in person. Catching up on recent sermons is also great when you’ve been sick or traveling.
Our kids ministry is a beehive of activity—online as well as in person. Awana calendars, Gospel Project updates, volunteer applications, and much more.
Lots of our biggest updates appear first at morningside.org/news.
Joining Morningside is a 4-step process. Our membership interest class meets every 3rd Sunday at 11:15 AM.
Our life groups began in 2022 to help us fulfill our mission of loving each other.
This spring our theme is Joining Jesus: The Final Week.
As we lead up to Easter on March 31, our sermons will cover our Lord’s Passion Week, where Jesus laid down His life for us. The final week of Jesus’ life was full of drama, and it is full of relevance for all of us.
We have had several series covering the life of Christ in the last few years.
Reaching Out (2018) covered Christ's interaction with sinners, outcasts, and the untouchables in the first chapters of Mark's gospel.
Following Jesus (2019) continued in Mark with an emphasis on discipleship.
Beneath the Cross (2020) continued with Mark’s accounts of the final months leading up to the Cross.
As Christians, we don’t just believe that Jesus was a historical figure, a great teacher, or a good moral example. We believe that His death was our death—and that now His life is ours too.
We pray that the Lord uses His Word to help us take up our own cross:
When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. (Mark 8:34)
The Sunday evening before Thanksgiving is our Pie & Praise night (Nov. 19, 5 PM).
We’ll begin with our service in the auditorium. We’ll celebrate with hymns of grateful praise and a missions presentation from John Lehman.
Afterwards our deacons will sponsor a pie fellowship in the Gym. Suggested donation is $1/person, $5/family: pies and drinks are provided.
If you’re able to come on November 19, bring a friend--we’ll have plenty of pie to share.
Happy Thanksgiving! Get our full holiday schedule here.
We’re excited to offer a new online giving platform.
(Yes, we just switched to this one last year… Here's why we're changing again.)
You can access it today at our giving page.
Accounts on the new giving platform will take a few minutes to set up, but then they will integrate with our church management software.
That’s already where we…
assign member care
check kids into our children's ministry
connect with our classes, life groups, and ministries
In the coming months, we’ll also be rolling out new ways to…
register for our events
volunteer for ministry
connect with fellow volunteers (music, media, kids, hospitality, and much more)
do just about everything we do on our website
We’ll be saying more about some of these features soon. But you can access the new giving platform now at morningside.org/give.
Let us know if you have any questions. Our giving fuels our mission!
Haga clic aquí para obtener información sobre nuestras celebraciones españolas.
“Imagine,” “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” and “White Christmas”…
Three songs with a lot in common.
They all recognize that there’s more to life than money, power, and pleasure.
At Christmas, even the most cynical of us can sometimes remember that.
The blessing of Christmas isn’t presents—or family—or even kindness.
The real blessing is that God has sent us…
a Savior.
We have several special Christmas events, and on December 24th we'll worship together at 10 AM and have a special Christmas Eve candlelight service at 5 PM. We look forward to seeing you.
On December 10 at 10 AM, our choir and orchestra present a Christmas program entitled “The Savior Is Born.” If you’re on Facebook, you can let us know you’re coming—or invite others—at our event.
The program will mix familiar Christmas carols like “Angels We Have Heard on High” and “What Child Is This” with new favorites like “Jesus Saves” and “Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery.”
Yes, there is an ache in every heart—and the Savior is born to solve it.
On December 17 at 5 PM, our kids and teens present “Christmas on the Air.” Afterwards we'll celebrate with a Christmas cookie fellowship. After that morning’s service several of them will also present Christmas specials.
Lily Grimm sings a solo on December 19, 2021, as our kids choir presents “Wow! It’s Christmas.”
On December 24, we will celebrate Christmas with carols and a Christmas sermon (10 AM). Child care will be available from birth through grade five.
On Sunday, December 24 at 5 PM we host a special family-friendly Christmas Eve candlelight service in our beautiful chapel featuring
Christmas carols
Scripture readings
a gospel challenge from our ministry assistant Jalen Ontoy
a range of candle types appropriate for different ages
Several nursery rooms with livestream feeds are also available as needed. If your family obligations allow, we hope you can join us.
