Koinonia of Columbia, Inc

Koinonia of Columbia, Inc Koinonia of Columbia is a movement of people who seek to be a racially reconciling, healing Presence in the Eau Claire community, anchored in Christ.

“Koinonia of Columbia” Vision Statement

Koinonia, in partnership with Eau Claire Baptist Church, envisions a networking of compassionate people connected through our foundational beliefs that all people are created in the image of God and that we are called to live and work toward the common good for all. Inspired by Old Testament prophecy and the promise of continuing New Testament fulfillment,

this community of believers longs for God’s kingdom to come on earth in the community of Eau Claire, as it is in heaven through prayer and partnerships.
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Well-being for our children through safe and healthy communities:
In the words of Zechariah, “This is what the Lord Almighty says, ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts, do not think evil of each other…I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem … Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem each with cane in his hand because of his age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.’”(7:9-10, 8:4)

Equal access for all to all resources:
In the words of Ezekiel, “Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live… It will become fresh and everything will live where the river goes…On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.” (47:9, 12)

Economic empowerment:
In the words of Amos, “The time is surely coming, says the Lord, when the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps, and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them upon their land, and they shall never again be plucked up out of the land that I have given them, says the Lord your God.”
(9:13-15)

“Koinonia of Columbia” Mission Statement

Koinonia is a movement of people who seek to be a racially reconciling, healing Presence in the Eau Claire community. Anchored in our steadfast dependence on God and one another and through the faithful stewardship of Eau Claire Baptist Church, we aspire to:
• foster safe environments for children to learn, grow and reach their potential.
• encourage all individuals to know and celebrate their God-given skills and talents, operating according to the asset-based model.
• promote local economic activity based on community needs.
• develop quality, affordable housing with paths toward home ownership.
• facilitate experiences of community (“koinonia”) at a level in which it is indistinguishable as to who is giving and who is receiving.

Grand finale today for a Koinonia Grand Summer!! 😎💦🛝🥳Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Today was JUST so special for our...
07/30/2026

Grand finale today for a Koinonia Grand Summer!! 😎💦🛝🥳
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Today was JUST so special for our big family… GOD’s family! A Beloved Community indeed where we all receive abundant blessings from our loving GOD! 🙏🏽🙏🏼❤️🙏🏽🙏🏼

A special thank you to Da Fisherman, Mr. Raekwon Cave for asking our scholars to star 🌟 in your new video recording 🎤 today! WOW! We can’t wait til it’s released! They had a blast!
Thank you to Mr. Brandon Glover and OutDaBarnz Entertainment for making the recording possible!

As always, the huge waterslide was a hit! Thank you, too, Ms. Julia Parris and friends for the new addition of a smaller waterside this year for our younger scholars!! The scholars absolutely loved it!

Thank you to Spry’s Durty Kitchen for feeding us again with SUCH a delicious taco 🌮 bar!
A huuuge thank you to Emmanuel Baptist Fellowship for the most creative and fun backpacks 🎒 filled with supplies ✏️ for our After School scholars!!
Mrs. Whitnee Spry, your idea to open Dolly’s House of Clothing Ministry was the BEST idea!!! Thank you to Ms. Grasanne Samuel for helping scholars enjoy their shopping experience! They are even more equipped now for the new school year!
And as always, thank you, Eau Claire Baptist Church for so graciously sharing space with us for almost 10 years now so that these heavenly days can happen! And last but not least, to Ms. D’Asia and our new staff member, Ms. Syriah & all volunteers, we are Koinonia “flying in formation” because of YOU! Thank you, all! 🦅

Our Elementary Koinonia Scholars were on mission yesterday in our community…It was a beautiful! Scholars watered the veg...
06/25/2026

Our Elementary Koinonia Scholars were on mission yesterday in our community…
It was a beautiful! Scholars watered the vegetable and rose gardens. Then, they made cards for our Board chair and his mom, as well as neighbors. Scholars handed out cold water and cards in front of the main library and the bus station, remembering that the Bible tells us when we give a cup of water to one in need, we are giving to Jesus himself!
It was so very special!
The day wrapped up with more fun at the Logan splash pad and park! 💦 ☀️ 🛝

Had to share this great "Grow Your Garden with Sal" podcast from yesterday!Thank you Sallie Sharpe!! As we prepared for...
06/21/2026

Had to share this great "Grow Your Garden with Sal" podcast from yesterday!

Thank you Sallie Sharpe!! As we prepared for Isaiah Project, Jaylon Morris suggested that vegetables in the Koinonia garden be purchased from Sal's store! So Sallie has been a great partner in the Isaiah Project, donating veggies too!

Thank you, Jaylon Morris and J Hill from South Main Baptist in Houston for calling in to Sal's podcast yesterday. What both shared is so inspiring! Fast forward to minute 40 to hear their conversation.
Together and by God's grace, we can love and feed our neighbors! 🙌🏾🙌🏼❤️🙌🏾🙌🏼

ALL who participated last week in the BELOVED COMMUNITY between Sou...

Celebrating Juneteenth at Koinonia today!! 🙌🏾🙌🏼❤️🙌🏾🙌🏼Mr. Henry Cobb and Mr. Dave prepared the most delicious meal of chi...
06/20/2026

Celebrating Juneteenth at Koinonia today!!
🙌🏾🙌🏼❤️🙌🏾🙌🏼
Mr. Henry Cobb and Mr. Dave prepared the most delicious meal of chicken wings, collards, baked beans, cornbread, watermelon and cake. It was so good to welcome Mr. Henry!
Ms. Grasanne Samuel gave the most heartfelt impromptu speech reminding our youth of WHO they are and the power they have to BE THE CHANGE.
Da Fisherman shared his music and testimony with our middle and high school scholars.
God’s Light SHINES so brightly in you, Raekwon!! 🌟🌟🌟Thank you so much, Mr. Wesley Porch for running sound today and getting the sanctuary ready for Da Fisherman’s blessings!
The love, courage, honesty and faith of Mr. Raekwon Cave and Ms. D’Asia Weston is changing lives, by God’s grace, every day.
Koinonia of Columbia celebrates these young leaders this Juneteenth weekend and every day!

As I read Rev. Dr. Ossie McKinney’s Juneteenth Reflection, “Freedom Still Needs Tending”, my heart and soul were so move...
06/19/2026

As I read Rev. Dr. Ossie McKinney’s Juneteenth Reflection, “Freedom Still Needs Tending”, my heart and soul were so moved. I thought of the “tending spaces” of freedom being cultivated in the garden through the Isaiah Project, as we fight food apartheid with Beloved Community. The work is just beginning…

I thought about the “tending spaces” of freedom we also cultivate in worship.
Below, Rev. Dr. McKinney beautifully writes about Harriet Tubman’s home. It sounds like a true welcoming sanctuary:

“When I walked into the remaining home on Harriet Tubman’s property in Auburn, New York, I did not expect to feel at home. But I did….
As I stood there, I found myself imagining what freedom must have felt like inside those walls. Not freedom as an idea. Not freedom written into law. But freedom as rest. Freedom as dignity. Freedom as finally entering a space where you did not have to shrink yourself to survive.

The house seemed to whisper: ‘Come in and make yourself at home, for you are free. Free to be fully yourself here. You have dignity here. You have worth here.’”

On our 5th and final day of The Isaiah Project, it was so fitting to worship together the GOD who dreamed this moment into reality. As we gathered in we heard that whisper, “Come in and make yourself at home, for you are free. We worshipped in unity …in freedom…in spirit and in truth.

Kami Strum opened the service with a bold witness in song, reminding us in the words of CeCe Winans that we can “Believe For It!”
Rev. Dr. Melanie Lynn Dobson proclaimed GOD’S Word from Isaiah that GOD is “The Good Gardener.”
Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Nance-Coker presided over Communion, welcoming all to the LORD’S table.
Garden Apprentices and Rev. Kelly Strum led a garden dedication. It was time together that we will never forget.
**A very SPECIAL THANK YOU also to Dr. Kirt Moody & Garden Apprentice, TJ Turnipseed for the beeeaaaauuutiful painting presented in worship this day, celebrating The Isaiah Project!
Following worship, Eau Claire Baptist Church hosted a delicious potluck meal for all. Then a tour was offered to see all the work projects!

06/19/2026

❤️💚💛 On Juneteenth, we remember that freedom is more than a declaration—it must be nurtured, protected and shared. Reflecting on a visit to Harriet Tubman's home and the Seward House, this piece explores how liberation takes root through communities that open doors, tend hope and make dignity possible. ❤️💚💛

Read a reflection from CBF's Director of Research and Administration for Outreach and Growth, Ossie McKinney, below! https://cbf.net/freedom-still-needs-tending-a-juneteenth-reflection/

ALL who participated last week in the BELOVED COMMUNITY between South Main Baptist (Houston), Eau Claire Baptist Church ...
06/17/2026

ALL who participated last week in the BELOVED COMMUNITY between South Main Baptist (Houston), Eau Claire Baptist Church and Koinonia of Columbia felt the TRUTH of the words below from Diana Butler Bass.. “LOVE IS GOD’S SYMPHONY.”🙌🏾❤️🙌🏼 May God’s LOVE continue to reshape our LIFE together!

Day 4 of The Isaiah Project was FULL…
From our culmination of garden work projects and education on gardening as liberation to our panel discussion between Mr. Zay Barton, Mr. Jaylon Morris and Rev. Dr. Melanie Lynn Dobson on Koinonia as a liberative practice of gardening to our evening at the Fireflies baseball game!

I’d like to highlight an excerpt from the words Richard Rohr shared today from Church Historian, Diana Butler Bass on “Christianity: A Love Song”—

“In the first centuries of the church, Jesus’s command to LOVE God with our whole selves and to LOVE our neighbor as ourselves was central to Christian identity and practice.

More than anything else, Christianity is a LOVE song. People shy away from saying that out loud, though…. Perhaps Christians fear that they themselves barely understand the radical implications of a way of life based on the LOVE of God…. Certainly, in the eyes of many contemporary critics, Christianity does not seem very loving….

Yet LOVE is what Jesus preached—and what he embodied. In the early church, devout Christians tried to embody God’s LOVE and to experience God in such a way that LOVE RESHAPED THEIR LIVES…..

Early Christians insisted that LOVE—not rationality or politics or even virtue—was the primary bond between God and human beings. LOVE was God’s symphony, the perfect beauty that human beings experienced through practices of faith—by imitating Christ and following his way.” - Diana Butler Bass

Our Texas friends traveled home to Houston yesterday but their spirit is still with us and will be eternally! We are ALL...
06/16/2026

Our Texas friends traveled home to Houston yesterday but their spirit is still with us and will be eternally! We are ALL still celebrating and believing that GOD’S DREAM of Beloved Community really can come true - in us and through us!
This was one of the most powerful experiences we have ever had at Koinonia of Columbia to LIVE the words of Jesus for GOD’S kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.” Thanks be to our GOD and ALL THOSE WHO LIVED AND ARE LIVING IT OUT, through God’s tender grace and care.
The days were so long and full that I am quite delayed in posting!
On Day 3 of The Isaiah Project, all of us went to Charleston for the day! First, we went to The International African American Museum..then Waterfront Park ..then the Isle of Palms!
🙌🏾❤️🙌🏼

Address

4427 Main Street
Columbia, SC
29203

Telephone

+18037675550

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