From a Restaurant Banquet Room to Highway 9 East
In the fall of 1989, eighty believers in Longs, South Carolina, began gathering in a restaurant banquet room to study Scripture, pray, and worship together. Their conviction was simple: that the gospel of Jesus Christ was worth sharing in their small corner of Horry County. From that modest beginning, Living Water Baptist Church has grown into a multigenerational congregation that now meets on Highway 9 East, with a full slate of ministries for children, students, adults, and senior adults, plus a food pantry, a spring soccer league, and church plants that have spun off into the surrounding community.
For thirty-five of those years, the church was shepherded by Pastor Emeritus Lebron Crisp, who retired at the end of 2024. The church remembers his tenure as a long season of steady discipleship, with classrooms and worship spaces added as the congregation grew. In January 2025, Living Water Baptist Church called Dr. John Goudelock as its new Senior Pastor. The transition marked a new chapter for a body that still sees its work as one and the same: spreading the gospel and making disciples in Longs and beyond.
Sunday Mornings: Two Services for Every Generation
Living Water Baptist Church holds two identical Sunday morning services at 8:40 and 10:15 AM. Each hour includes worship led by the Living Water Celebration Choir and Praise Team, a sermon from God's Word, age-appropriate Life Groups, and a full Living Water Kids program for children from nursery through 5th grade. Families with 6th through 12th graders are encouraged to attend the worship service together; middle and high school students also have their own Life Groups at both hours.
The dress code is casual, the coffee and tea are flowing in the Café Corner, and the people are described as welcoming. Guest parking is reserved in a dedicated area near the front entrance, and a Connections Desk in the lobby is staffed by greeters who will help first-time visitors find the right classroom or Life Group for them. A guest Connection Card is available for anyone wanting to share contact information or ask questions before visiting.
Wednesday Nights: AWANA, Students, and Worship
Wednesday evenings at Living Water are built around families. AWANA, the church's long-running children's discipleship and Scripture-memory program, meets for nursery through 5th grade. At 6:30 PM, the Living Water Student Ministry gathers for its own midweek service, with games, contemporary worship, and teaching aimed at students in grades 6 through 12. Doors open at 5:30 PM for hangout time before the service begins.
An adult worship service also meets at 6:30 PM on Wednesdays, giving parents an opportunity to gather for prayer and a sermon from God's Word while their children are in AWANA and students are in their own meeting. The Wednesday schedule is intentionally designed so that an entire family can be on campus at the same time, in three parallel rooms, all studying the same Bible.
Children from Nursery Through Fifth Grade
Living Water Kids, the church's ministry for infants through 5th graders, is led by Will Crute, who serves as both Children's and Media Pastor. The program is organized around a three-part framework the church calls Know, Grow, and Go: children are taught that they can know Jesus personally, are invited to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ through prayer and Scripture, and are encouraged to go tell others about Him. Each Sunday morning, kids are checked in at the Check-In Desk, where they receive security stickers matched to their parents, and every classroom is monitored by a camera.
Safety is built into the program: every nursery, children's, and youth volunteer passes a background check before serving. On Wednesdays, the AWANA program adds games, handbook time, and large-group worship that reinforce the same Scripture memory and gospel teaching that begins on Sunday mornings. Children whose families are new to the church can be registered through the church's forms, and a permission form and health records form are also available.
Students in Grades 6 Through 12
Joey Turner, the Director of Student Ministries, oversees a student ministry that meets students where they are throughout the week. On Sunday mornings, students are encouraged to worship with their families at either the 8:40 or 10:15 service. Life Groups for middle and high school students also meet at both hours, using Lifeway's Students Bible Studies For Life curriculum. On Sunday nights at 6:30 PM, the ministry gathers for a Bible study described as highly interactive, with separate studies geared toward the age and gender of the students who attend.
The Student Ministry describes its mission as providing a safe, Christ-centered atmosphere where students can grow in faith and prepare to fulfill the Great Commission in their daily lives. Leaders, parents, and students can all find permission forms, a health-records form, and a volunteer application.
Women, Men, and Senior Adults
Living Water Baptist Church organizes three adult ministries that meet at different rhythms across the week.
The Women's Ministry, led by Tara Gibson, gathers for a Monthly Ladies Night on the third Tuesday of each month from September through May, beginning at 6:00 PM. The Men's Ministry, led by Walt Wielechowski, meets for a Monthly Prayer Breakfast on the second Saturday of each month, also from September through May, at 9:00 AM in the Café Corner. The Senior Adult Ministry focuses on Bible study, prayer, encouragement, and fellowship, with special events, trips, and times of connection that help older believers stay active in their spiritual walk and continue serving Jesus with gladness.
Each ministry also has its own Life Group on Sunday mornings, so the rhythm of weekly Bible study is layered on top of the monthly gathering times.
Music, Upward Soccer, and Life Groups
Music is led by Josh Walls, the church's Worship Pastor, and centers on the Living Water Celebration Choir, which leads worship during Sunday morning, Wednesday evening, and Super Monday services. The choir holds Open Enrollment seasons three times a year. Anyone interested in joining may attend four rehearsals before singing in a service, and all members of the Music Ministry Team affirm the Music Ministry Covenant before serving.
Each spring, the church partners with families through Upward Soccer, a recreational league for children from kindergarten through 5th grade. Coaches, referees, and concessions volunteers are drawn from the congregation, and Life Groups provide snacks for the players after each practice. The program is described as a way to serve the community with the gospel while teaching children to play soccer in a safe and fun environment.
Life Groups are the central small-group engine of the church. At 8:40 AM (A Hour) and again at 10:15 AM (B Hour), groups meet by age and stage of life - nursery, preschool, elementary, students, college and young adults, young married adults, young couples, adults, senior adults, and a ladies' Bible study and fellowship group. A campus map of the rooms is available, and visitors can stop by the Connections Desk to find the group that fits them best.
A Growing Family of Churches
Living Water Baptist Church is a single congregation that also serves as the parent body of a new Chinese-speaking congregation, the Chinese Baptist Church of the Grand Strand, which meets on Sunday mornings in the Student Center on the church's campus. The plant is led by Pastor Tao Sun, who serves on staff as Pastor of Chinese Church. The new congregation exists to serve the Chinese-speaking community of Horry County and to plant additional churches as God opens doors.
The church also partners with River's Edge Church, a church plant in Longs, South Carolina, that holds services at 10:30 AM on Sundays at Daisy Elementary School. River's Edge describes its mission with the words "Belong. Believe. Become." and focuses on reaching the Loris area. Together, these plants form the next generation of gospel presence in the same region where Living Water itself began thirty-six years ago.
Going Beyond Longs: Local and Global Missions
The church's missions ministry is organized around three concentric circles: local, North American, and international. Each September during Missions Month, the church collects a special offering to support these partners.
On the local level, the church operates the LWBC Food Pantry, open Tuesdays from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM in the Fellowship Hall, where canned goods and other staples are given out to anyone in need. The pantry is also a doorway for gospel conversations. The church partners with South Carolina Baptist Disaster Relief, which trains and deploys volunteers in feeding, flood recovery, chainsaw work, and childcare during disasters.
In North America, the church supports Mile One Mission, a church-planting effort in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, where less than 1% of the population attends an evangelical church. Internationally, the church supports Operation Christmas Child, the Samaritan's Purse ministry that delivers gift-filled shoeboxes to children worldwide, and Jacob Plummer, who serves with Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru) in Prague, Czech Republic, reaching students in one of Europe's most secular nations.
What We Believe
Living Water Baptist Church holds to a doctrinal statement rooted in the historic Baptist faith, summarized in eighteen articles.
The Bible is taught as God-breathed and trustworthy in all that it affirms, with Christ as its center. The church confesses one true God who exists eternally in three Persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - each fully God, without division of essence. God the Father reigns with providential care over creation; God the Son, Jesus Christ, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary death on the cross, was raised bodily, ascended to the right hand of God, and will return personally and visibly to judge the earth. God the Holy Spirit inspired the Scriptures, convicts of sin, regenerates the believer, baptizes each believer into the body of Christ, and empowers the church for worship, evangelism, and service.
Salvation is offered by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. The church practices two ordinances: baptism by immersion of believers in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the Lord's Supper, a memorial of Christ's death until He returns. A New Testament church is described as an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, governed by pastors and deacons and exercising the gifts and rights given by Scripture. The office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.
The statement also affirms the historic Baptist distinctives of religious liberty, the separation of church and state, the priesthood of all believers, cooperation among churches for the spread of the gospel, the dignity of every human being from conception to natural death, the sacredness of marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and the responsibility of every Christian to seek peace and to oppose racism, greed, and sexual immorality.
Giving and Next Steps
Tithes and offerings support the church's ministries and missions. Members and visitors may give through the church's secure giving platform, by mailing a check to the office, by placing a gift in one of the offering boxes at the front or rear of the Worship Center, or by texting LWBAPTIST to 73256. Office hours run Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM.
Anyone interested in taking a next step can begin by filling out the Connection Card. The church outlines five common next steps: following Jesus, being baptized, attending the New Members Class (offered the first and second Sunday of each month immediately after the 10:15 service in the Café Corner), joining a Life Group, and serving on a ministry team. Pastoral staff are also available to talk through any of these steps, and a prayer request can be submitted for anyone who wants the church's staff and members to pray on their behalf. The latest sermon is available on YouTube, and giving can be done through the church's giving platform.
From its origin in a restaurant banquet room to its current campus on Highway 9 East, Living Water Baptist Church remains anchored in the same conviction that brought those eighty believers together in 1989: that every generation can learn, grow, and serve together for the glory of God.