On Woodruff Road on the southeast side of Greenville, South Carolina, a Baptist congregation has been gathering under the name Rocky Creek for nearly two centuries. Rocky Creek Baptist Church was constituted on February 1, 1834, when eighteen charter members from nearby Brushy Creek Church formed a new fellowship after a revival had broken out during a meeting of the Saluda Baptist Association two years earlier. The church took its name from a small stream that ran near the original property, and the congregation has stayed put on this part of Woodruff Road ever since, growing into a multi-generational, multi-ethnic body that partners and cooperates with the Southern Baptist Convention and also uses the alternate label "Great Commission Baptists."
The church's stated mission is "making disciples who take personal responsibility for Kingdom activity." Lead Pastor Travis Agnew, who has served since 2017, frames that mission with a vision for a multiplying, multi-generational, and multi-ethnic congregation that prioritizes both local and global disciple-making. On any given Sunday, that vision is lived out across three English-language worship services, a parallel Spanish-language service, age-graded Gospel Groups from preschool through senior adults, and an afternoon ministry at the church for college students.
A Church at 1801 Woodruff Road
Rocky Creek sits at 1801 Woodruff Road in Greenville, South Carolina, just minutes from I-85 in the southeastern part of the city. The address is the same one the church has occupied for generations, and the building houses the main sanctuary, the Fellowship Hall where the Spanish congregation meets, the Welcome Center just to the right of the sanctuary, the Multipurpose Room used for Next Steps gatherings and other meetings, and the preschool and children's floors that keep the family ministry humming.
The church is governed under what it calls a biblical structure: the authority of Jesus (Colossians 1:18), the leadership of the pastors (Acts 20:28), the service of the deacons (1 Timothy 3:13), and the ministry of the members (Ephesians 4:12). Members are kept informed through quarterly Waypoint gatherings that celebrate what the Lord has done and QuickLook videos that fill in between. Information on giving is shared through the Stewardship Director, and giving can be done online, by texting an amount to 84321, by placing a gift in the drop boxes at the sanctuary exits, or by mailing cash or a check to the church address.
Sunday Mornings Under Travis Agnew
Worship services are held on Sundays at 9:00AM, 10:30AM, and 5:00PM in the main sanctuary, with a Spanish-language service at 10:30AM in the Fellowship Hall. Travis Agnew preaches through books of the Bible, primarily expository messages that let the text drive the content of the sermon, with occasional topical series running alongside. Each service runs about an hour and fifteen minutes: three songs at the beginning, a sermon of roughly forty minutes, and a final song to close.
The church aims for unity across services, so the same biblical and singable worship is offered at each English hour. Donald Shockley has served as Worship Pastor since 2001 and leads the music ministry with an eye toward helping people engage in biblical worship and understand how Scripture applies to everyday life. People are invited to come as they are. On Sundays the dress ranges from suits to shorts, and no one is asked to dress up or down.
For guests, designated and marked parking is reserved near the Welcome Center entrance to the right of the sanctuary. Greeters at the entrance will point visitors in the right direction, hand out a first-time guest gift, and help get family members to the correct location. Visitors interested in a small group are pointed toward the Next Steps Gospel Group, which meets at the 9:00AM hour and walks newcomers through the week's Bible lesson while also helping them learn more about the church.
Una Iglesia en Dos Idiomas
Rocky Creek describes itself as one church that functions in two languages. The English and Spanish congregations share the same campus, the same elders, and the same mission, but they worship in their own languages. The Spanish service meets Sundays at 10:30AM in the Fellowship Hall; visitors enter through the covered church office entrance and look for a white flag and sign that point toward the correct room.
Spanish Pastor Joe Martinez joined the team in 2025 after fifteen years as a missionary in South America, where he helped plant Grace Christian Church in Cusco, Peru and organized training trips for local pastors and leaders among the Asháninka tribe in the Amazon jungle. A graduate of Lee University with a bachelor's in psychology and a master's in mental health counseling, Joe is pursuing an M.Div. at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary with a focus on biblical counseling and ACBC certification. He is married to Jayne and they have three children, Christian, Micah, and Eliana.
Spanish Gospel Groups meet at 9:00AM on Sundays, and additional groups gather in homes during the week. Wednesday Midweek includes Spanish Gospel Groups at 6:30PM, along with courses for those who want to keep growing. Lessdianne Rivera joined the staff in September 2026 as Spanish Ministry Assistant, supporting Pastor Joe with the administrative side of the ministry. Visitors can find sermons in Spanish through the same sermon library used by the English congregation.
Kids and Students at Rocky Creek
Rocky Creek runs an age-graded family ministry that begins at birth and continues through high school graduation. On Sundays, preschoolers from birth through K5 attend their own Gospel Groups at all three service hours, with approved leaders caring for their needs while parents rotate between one hour of worship and one hour of Gospel Group. Children in grades 1 through 5 attend their Gospel Group at 9:00AM or 10:30AM, then join their families for worship at the other hour. The church explicitly prioritizes families worshiping together during the elementary years.
Safety is built around a check-in system. Parents receive two stickers at check-in, a name tag for the child and a security tag for the parent or guardian. Only a parent or someone the parent has authorized with the matching security tag can pick up the child, and a trained team monitors the facility on Sundays and Wednesdays. Kady Briscoe serves as Preschool Director and oversees the weekly preschool programming. Janine Varnes is the Children's Director and is passionate about helping each child build a strong biblical foundation and a personal relationship with Jesus.
Students in grades 6 through 12 meet for Student Gospel Group at 9:00AM and 10:30AM on Sundays in the student ministry classrooms on the third floor. Each gathering starts with Bible teaching in a large-group setting and then breaks into smaller groups for discussion and discipleship. Student Pastor Alex Gore, who joined the team in 2024, leads the ministry along with a North Greenville University and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary pedigree and a heart for families reaching other families with the gospel. On Wednesday nights at 6:30PM, students gather for hangout time, worship, and culturally relevant teaching. Mission trips are a regular part of the student ministry, and college students often worship at the 5:00PM service and then gather for a group at 6:15PM in the Multipurpose Room.
Wednesday Midweek
Midweek is the church's Wednesday night rhythm, running from 6:30 to 7:30PM for preschoolers and children and gathering adults in Gospel Groups, Courses, and a Prayer Meeting at the same hour. Preschool Midweek focuses on missions, with mission stories, Bible truths, prayer for missionaries, and activities that even the youngest at Rocky Creek can take part in. Children in grades 1 through 5 learn about local, national, and international missions through games, hands-on activities, Scripture study, and singing.
For adults, Midweek is a discipleship hour. Gospel Groups meet around tables to study the Bible together. Courses cover topics that may not be addressed in Sunday sermons. A Prayer Meeting brings members together for prayer. The whole family is in the building at the same time, with preschoolers, children, and students all engaged in their own age-appropriate Midweek program while adults study and pray across the hall.
Gospel Groups, Cohorts, and Discipleship
Rocky Creek's small groups are called Gospel Groups, and they are described as the hub of connection and discipleship for the church. All age groups study Scripture using the Gospel Project curriculum, which walks through the Bible chronologically and connects each passage to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Gospel Groups meet on Sunday mornings around the worship service hours and during the week in homes and on campus.
Two yearly initiatives, the Men's Cohort and the Women's Cohort, give men and women of the church a path to go deeper. Cohorts are yearlong discipleship processes built around book studies that align with the church's seasonal teaching, supported by larger gatherings and smaller courses that meet weekly. They are open door by design; members can take as much or as little as fits their discipleship plan. Seasonal open-door events invite men or women to sample a cohort and bring a friend.
Senior adults at Rocky Creek meet on the first Tuesday of each month for a meal in the fellowship hall and again mid-month for a meal off campus. Each month, the senior adults support a mission project locally or globally, and a yearly senior adult trip to the beach and occasional local outings round out the calendar. A specific ministry to widows includes transportation to doctor appointments, help with household emergencies, regular check-ins, and an annual banquet to honor the widows in the church family.
Counseling and Mentoring
Rocky Creek offers free biblical counseling as a ministry of the congregation, never as a fee-for-service. Staff Counselors Becky Kirby and Allen Mayberry serve individuals, couples, and families throughout the week, walking people through the problems of life with the hope that Jesus offers through the gospel, biblical wisdom, the church, and spiritual habits. Allen is also a certified facilitator for the Prepare-Enrich assessment for couples. Becky came back to the staff in January 2020 after earlier ministry at Rocky Creek and is now completing a Ph.D. through Jacksonville Theological Seminary.
The Mentoring Ministry pairs members with someone a little further down the road. Individual Mentoring connects a member with a trusted guide for the kind of intentional yet informal relationship that helps a person take a next step of faith with confidence. Marital and Premarital Mentoring pairs engaged or married couples with a seasoned mentor couple for biblical wisdom, meaningful conversations, seminars, and the practical habits that strengthen a marriage over time.
What Rocky Creek Believes
The church's Statement of Faith covers the doctrines that anchor the congregation. The Bible is God's Word, written by human authors under the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit, fully inspired, inerrant, perfect, life-giving, and life-changing, and the supreme source of truth for Christian beliefs and living. Two ordinances are given to the local church, baptism and the Lord's Supper. Baptism is the immersion of a believer in water as a symbol of union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. The Lord's Supper is observed repeatedly throughout the Christian life, with the bread broken to symbolize the breaking of Christ's body and the cup poured out to symbolize the pouring out of His blood.
God is the Creator and Ruler of the universe and eternally exists in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are co-equal and one God. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, born of a virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit, who lived a sinless human life and offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for sin by dying on the cross, was buried, rose again on the third day, and ascended into Heaven. Salvation is a gift from God; no one can make up for sin by self-improvement or good works, and only by trusting in Jesus Christ as God's offer of forgiveness can a person be saved. The Holy Spirit is present in the world to make people aware of their need for Jesus Christ and lives in every believer from the moment of salvation.
The statement also affirms the sanctity of human life from conception through natural death, the belief that man is created in the image of God and is guilty of Adam's original sin, and a biblical view of the family in which marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman and children are to be loved, taught, and disciplined in the Lord. On last things, the church teaches that no one knows the time, but Christ will return personally and visibly to the earth to judge all men in righteousness, that the righteous will be eternally with God and the unrighteous eternally separated from God, and that God will make all things new.
Missions and the Recommission Network
Missions run through the heart of the church. The RC Missions Offering is distributed with an Acts 1:8 shape: 50 percent goes globally and is sent directly to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, 25 percent goes nationally with twenty percent directed to the Annie Mission Easter Offering and five percent to the Janie Chapman Offering, and 25 percent stays local to scholarship Rocky Creek members in missional endeavors. Annual trips take teams to places like Panama, New York City, Utah, Angola, Slovenia, and Clarkston, Georgia, where they partner with missionaries, church planters, and local ministries in gospel-centered conversations, prayer-walking, evangelism, discipleship, and community outreach.
The Recommission Network is a family of aligned churches that Rocky Creek has helped plant and strengthen. The Network walks with other congregations through three tiers of partnership: Assessment, where Rocky Creek's team helps a local church see where it is and where it needs to be; Assistance, where Rocky Creek fills needed positions, supplies pulpit coverage, and provides training during a time of need; and Affiliation, where the relationship becomes long-term and the resources, systems, and events of Rocky Creek are replicated at the partner church. Current Recommission churches include Gateway City in Greer, SC, Tigerville Baptist Church, and Woodside Baptist Church in Greenville. Bryce Staggs, who also serves as pastor of Woodside, leads the Network alongside Lead Pastor Travis Agnew. Andrew Gouge serves on the staff of Woodside through the Recommission Network and leads the student ministry and outreach and discipleship there.
Locally, the ministries team, led by David Williams, connects the church to the Greenville community through partnerships and care for those who are hurting. The Missions page on the church's resources catalog includes dozens of articles, courses, and video lessons on world religions, contextualization, church planting, and the theology of mission, much of it written by John Austin Roberson, who serves as a Pastoral Resident with a focus on missions mobilization.
Leadership and Pastoral Care
Travis Agnew has served as Lead Pastor since 2017. He graduated from North Greenville University with a degree in Christian Studies and a minor in Music, then earned an M.Div. (2007) and D.Min. (2009) from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where his doctoral focus was family discipleship. He and his wife Amanda, his high school sweetheart, are the parents of Obadiah, Eli, and Gloria. Travis writes books, hosts a podcast, and creates discipleship resources that appear on his personal site, and his role at Rocky Creek is to preach the Word, lead the staff, and cast vision.
The pastoral team includes Donald Shockley as Worship Pastor, Alex Gore as Student Pastor, Joe Martinez as Spanish Pastor, and David Williams as Ministries Pastor. Pastoral Residents Andrew Gouge and John Austin Roberson serve alongside the pastors, and Josh Phillips is a Church Planter in Residence preparing to plant a church in Greer with Rocky Creek as the sending church. The Next Steps process is the on-ramp to the church: anyone can sign up for a Plan Your Visit experience, attend a Next Steps Membership Event to learn the mission, beliefs, and covenant, share a testimony with a staff member, and sign the membership covenant. Baptism is offered regularly and is described on the church's own materials as the immersion of a believer in water symbolizing faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior.
Planning a Visit
Visitors are warmly invited to come as they are. Sunday services run at 9:00AM, 10:30AM, and 5:00PM in English, and a Spanish service meets at 10:30AM in the Fellowship Hall. The dress is whatever feels comfortable. Guests can park in the marked guest spaces near the Welcome Center entrance to the right of the sanctuary, enter those doors, and head to the Welcome Desk where greeters will answer questions and provide a first-time guest gift. For children, check-in begins at the family ministry area, where preschoolers and children receive a name tag and a parent security tag, and only the matching security tag will be allowed to pick up a child.
Those with doubts or baggage are welcomed too; the church invites skeptical or curious visitors to bring their questions, and the staff will walk alongside them at their own pace. Guests can start at the Plan Your Visit page, fill out a brief form so the team can prepare a welcome, and pick a service hour to attend. From there, the next steps are joining a Gospel Group, exploring membership, considering baptism, and beginning to serve. The Church Center app is the everyday tool for members to register for events, communicate with Gospel Groups, manage giving, and keep up with the church calendar.