It’s not surprising Daniel Miles is a church planter. The son of a Baptist minister, he grew up in a home where the family gathered at the breakfast table at 6 a.m. to read God’s Word and pray for missionaries around the world.
Now, years later, married with three children of his own, Daniel is still studying God’s Word and praying for the mission field, this one in the Clarendon County area of South Carolina. He’s looking for ways to plant seeds of faith in the hope of building an Anglican community in that part of the state.
This past February, Daniel, his wife Renee, and family were sent out by St. Helena’s, Beaufort as church planters. The Miles family is grateful for the generosity of their home church. They see themselves as an extension of the vision cast by the Rev Shay Gaillard to “raise up servant leaders in Beaufort and beyond.”
Finding the Location
“Right now, we are surveying the area to determine where the Lord is already at work in the hope of gathering people into a Gospel community,” says Daniel.
“If you travel north on 95 from Lake Marion to the town of Dillon, a stretch of about 100 miles, there’s very little Anglican presence east of the interstate. That’s an area we care about. It’s often considered the most challenging part of our state, both economically and educationally.”
“Despite the challenges, we see the Lord at work. And our call is to ‘boldly and broadly sow seeds of the gospel and trust him for the growth.’”
Meeting the People
Daniel was invited by a friend to join the Rotary Club. “It’s been a wonderful means for meeting people in the area,” he says. He met a historian through Rotary who has taken the family on tours of local historical sites.
“My wife has made great connections in our neighborhood through her love for plants,” he says. This birthed an active neighborhood plant swap.
“Our kids’ activities have provided a great way to connect with people, too. The boys are involved in baseball. It seems that the entire county comes out to the baseball field several times a week.”
The Miles’ daughter sang at the recent county-wide gathering for the National Day of Prayer. “Music is the universal language,” says Daniel. “It amazes me how music breaks down barriers. We are finding that simply by doing the things we love, connections are made.
“It’s a ministry of presence the Lord has called us to right now,” he says. “I think of Matthew Chapter 9, where Jesus saw the crowds and had compassion on them because they were ‘like sheep without a shepherd.’ I feel like what I’m called to in this stage of church planting is to see people as God does, to have the eyes of Christ for those in my community, and to listen to their stories.”
Ninety Seconds, Plus
The Miles are getting used to the slower pace at which life happens in this rural community.
“I think Manning typifies a small Southern town,” he says. “People call Beaufort the ‘slow country,’ and I had governed myself to navigate through a 90-second conversation. Usually, you meet somebody on the street, and you might give them about 90 seconds of your time. ‘How are the kids doing?’ ‘How’s the baseball team?’ It’s not like you run out of material, but you auto-govern yourself to about 90 seconds. But in Manning, you get through 90 seconds of material, and they’ve got another five minutes.
“This morning, I called one of my neighbors, and I didn’t know this, but his mom nearly died the day after Easter. He had come to our sunrise service. We had this wonderful conversation about ways to pray for his mom. He was preparing to go to work, but he gave me this gracious chunk of time to explain that to me. It’s a beautiful thing about living in a small Southern town like this. You have tasks to perform, but you have time for each other.”
Approximately 70 people attended their Easter Sunrise Service at Camp Bob Cooper.
“It wasn’t what I would call a launch,” says Daniel, “but it was a way to invite people to worship the Risen Lord. Many of whom I’d never met before. Our hope is to start a weekly gathering from those who came to the service.”
In exploring ways of inviting people to join them, Daniel has discovered a “one-size-fits-all” invitation doesn’t work.
Thresholds of Invitation
“One of the things we’re learning is that every person’s situation is different,” he said. “We’re trying to understand what thresholds people can handle. Some people may be ready to begin a study of John’s Gospel. Others may first need to be invited over for a meal before they’re ready to join a Gospel community. Hospitality is a wonderful venue for sharing the Gospel.
“We love having people over to our house. And when they come for pizza, we’re able to slip in language from the Prayer Book that helps communicate our faith in a fresh way. That’s what we’re endeavoring to do right now.”
In Praise of the Church-Planting Residency Program
Daniel is also participating in the Diocesan Church Planting Residency Program.
“Being in the residency program is an immense gift,” he says. The Rev. Canon Todd Simonis, who serves part-time on staff at St. Helena’s, Beaufort and part-time as our Diocesan Canon for Church Planting, oversees the program.
“One of the greatest gifts of the residency program is the weekly coaching calls with Todd,” says Daniel. “Todd asks probing questions, and he graciously listens to me each week! He has the gift of encouragement, but he doesn’t just encourage, he also challenges me. He has pointed me to great articles on church planting, books and podcasts. And we’re able to discuss our observations together.”
Prayer and Providence
Daniel stresses that prayer undergirds all their work. “Recently Todd helped form a prayer team from Saint Helena’s that’s covering us in prayer each day of the month,” says Daniel. “Some days what we’ve been called to feels hard. It can feel lonely being away from our church home in Beaufort. We feel keenly that we’re being surrounded and upheld by the prayers of God’s people.”
The Lord is at work in Daniel and Renee, in their family, and in the community to which they’ve been sent. But just as a farmer cannot push a seed out of the ground, church planters must rely on God’s grace and God’s providence.
“The key word in our life is the word ‘providence,’” says Daniel. “I love the word providence, the way in which God is orchestrating all the details of our lives to result in his glory and our good.”
Let’s join with Daniel and Renee in praying for God’s glory and their good. And for God’s blessing and providence, that we will all, in time, see the seeds planted in Clarendon County break ground and grow.
This article was written by Joy Hunter and originally published in the Summer 2025 edition of the Jubilate Deo. View the Jubilate Deo.
