Faith Temple Founding in 1956 Remembered

 
The original Faith Temple Church building is shown on Dec. 15, 1957, dedication day.

When over 200 people met in 1956 and formed Faith Temple Church of Taylors, SC, I was there.

My parents, younger sister, and I (nine years old) rode to the Ben Paris farm in upper Greenville County on Sunday morning, Dec. 16, 1956, and entered a small, weathered building located in a field of broom straw. Once a country store, that wooden structure became the first meeting place for a “Faith Temple for all people.”

Attendees wanted the Rev. James (“Jimmy”) H. Thompson to start a church. He had resigned as pastor of Gum Springs Pentecostal Holiness Church (PHC), and some members of that group asked him to start an interdenominational church. Having grown up in Double Springs Baptist Church, he had moved into the PHC denomination after a baptism-in-the-Holy-Spirit experience (with the evidence of "speaking in tongues"). He eventually became a leader in the Charismatic Movement. That effort is “a Christian spiritual renewal movement that brings Pentecostal-style beliefs and practices into mainstream, historical Christian denominations without requiring members to leave their churches,” sources say. Pastor Thompson published many Charismatic books in his company (now closed) called Faith Printing Company near Faith Temple, Taylors, SC. Logos International, now closed but located then in Plainfield, NJ, printed many Charismatic books through Pastor Thompson's Faith Printing Company. Pastor Thompson also founded WGGS-TV, a Christian TV station in Greenville, SC.

At the first Sunday meeting, folk donated $7,000 in gifts and pledges to build a church house. Meanwhile, Pastor Jimmy asked the 1956 Greenville County School superintendent if the new church could rent the old Lenore schoolhouse. The superintendent said there was community opposition to the church meeting at that site but that maybe the group would like to meet in the then-new Blue Ridge High School auditorium.

“Talk about being kicked upstairs,” said Pastor Thompson. He accepted that offer. The Bank of Greer granted a loan to help the group build “a new church for a new time.”

Elderly Ms. Mary Bearden lived in a two-story house on the corner of Hwy. 290 and Hwy. 253 in Sandy Flat. She donated some land behind her home, and Faith Temple leaders built on that Hwy. 253 property.    

A photo of the Sunday morning, Dec. 30, 1956, groundbreaking ceremony shows Pastor Thompson ditching dirt as the following trustees and deacons look on: S.G. Wilbanks, D.P. Hannon, Monroe Hardin, A.R. White, Ray Hill, James E. Crain, W. Troy Burrell, Carl C. Crain, M.B. Robinson, and Grady Atkins. 

The congregation met at Blue Ridge High for about a year while construction went on at Hwy. 253. 

“On Saturdays, men would bring saws, hammers, and nails,” Pastor Thompson said. “The church was built almost on a pay-as-you-go basis." 

Costs came to about $30,000 to get a roof over the church building for Dedication Service Sunday on Dec. 15, 1957, he said. The church spent $50,000 on pews and pulpit furniture for its first sanctuary. 

Pastor Thompson, Faith Temple’s minister for the first 30 years, wrote this about those who worked during Faith Temple’s early days: “The story of their sacrifice may never be recorded in the annals of human history, but God has a record, and their labors will not go unrewarded.”

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