Our Story
Abiding Savior Lutheran Church is a congregation of the Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod. We accept the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as God’s inspired Word, infallible and inerrant, and the only rule and norm of practice and faith. We worship the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our Christian doctrine is stated clearly in the great Ecumenical Creeds of the church (the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed), and in the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (the Unaltered Augsburg Confession of 1530, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Large and Small Catechisms of Martin Luther, the Smalcald Articles, and the Formula of Concord).
The congregation began on August 30, 1981, when 17 Christian believers met at the home of Robert and Marilyn Knudsen. The first worship service with 47 attending was held several months later, on October 4, 1981, at the American Legion W. A. Hudgens Post 14 building. Six months later the growing congregation moved its worship to Watkins Teaching Center at (then) Anderson College. On February 13, 1983, Transfiguration Sunday, Abiding Savior processed to the present church building with 118 communicant and 154 baptized members.
Abiding Savior has sponsored two new LCMS congregations: Eternal Shepherd Lutheran Church in Seneca, SC, in 1984 and Greenwood Lutheran Church in Greenwood, SC, in 1996.
Three pastors have faithfully served Abiding Savior: Rev. Kenneth Schamens (1981-1991), Rev. Thomas Foelber (1993-1998), and Rev. Howard Jones (1999-present).
Abiding Savior Lutheran Church is a warm and welcoming body of Christians. Visitors are both a joy and blessing, and we will help you feel at home in our midst.
