Good Neighbor Podcast: TN-WNC-SWVA

EP# 231: A Century of Service: How Bancroft Gospel Ministry Supports Churches and Camps

• Skip Mauney & Derrick Marrs • Episode 231

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What makes Derrick Marrs with Bancroft Gospel Ministry a good neighbor?

Meet Derrick Marrs, Executive Director of Bancroft Gospel Ministry, a century-old organization that's far more than just a children's Bible camp. Tucked away on 22 acres in Kingsport, Tennessee, this multifaceted ministry serves churches and believers through three distinct branches - each addressing different community needs.

Discover how Bancroft Bible Camp creates transformative experiences with its rock walls, zip lines, pools, and summer programming. Learn about their unique Bible Training program that equips laypeople with skills in biblical interpretation and sermon preparation, enabling them to provide pulpit supply for churches throughout the region. Some participants have even transitioned into full-time pastoral roles through this ministry avenue. Derrick also explains how their year-round facility rental service supports countless groups from children's ministries to mission teams.

What makes Bancroft particularly special is their intentional non-denominational approach. As Derrick explains, "We're not affiliated with a specific church or denomination, which allows us to serve all people." This open-handed philosophy has enabled them to support Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and many other congregations throughout the Tri-Cities and beyond.

Derrick's personal journey to Bancroft - from ten challenging years pastoring in South Florida through difficult transitions that tested his faith - reflects the ministry's resilient spirit. His powerful testimony of finding strength during hardship through the biblical truth that "everything God allows happens for our good and His glory" underpins the servant leadership that defines Bancroft's approach.

Connect with Bancroft Gospel Ministry through their website, social media, or simply stop by for an impromptu tour - they're there every day, ready to serve you, your church, or your organization however you need.

To learn more about Bancroft Gospel Ministry go to:

https://www.bancroftgospelministry.org/

Bancroft Gospel Ministry

423-288-4532



Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monty.

Speaker 2:

Hello everyone and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. So I'm excited today to have a special guest with us who runs a special business, and I'm sure you'll be just as excited as I am to learn all about them and their business, because today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, mr Derek Mars, who is the executive director of Bancroft Gospel Ministry. Derek, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, Skip. It's an honor to be with you.

Speaker 2:

Well, we're thrilled to have you. Like I said, I'm very interested in learning all about what you do. So if you don't mind, why don't you kick us off by telling us about Bancroft Gospel Ministry?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely. I got to be honest. That's a pretty loaded question. What all we do? We do a lot. So Bancroft Gospel Ministry technically is our I guess is our legal name. So we are Bancroft Gospel Ministry and I tell people we have about three arms to our ministry. We have Bancroft Bible Camp, which is a 22-acre camp here in Kingsport, tennessee, where we have cabins and rock walls and zip lines and pools and everything else that you can think of. Usually with that we'll do summer programs like our summer camps that we'll do so this summer. We've technically got five weeks of summer camp that we'll do so this summer. We've technically got five weeks of summer camp that we run and then throughout the year we'll have different events, retreats, some of the spring and some of the fall. Those are all our programming that we do.

Speaker 3:

The other arm is Bancroft Bible Training. That's where we teach homiletics and hermeneutics, so how to interpret the Bible, hermeneutics and then how to develop messages and prepare those, and that's homiletics. So we teach that to laymen and women. And then we use some of the men who come through that program to do pulpit supply ministry at local churches whether it's here in the Tri-Cities or it is in West Virginia, virginia, you know, just local region.

Speaker 3:

So we'll do that. And then the third arm is really our rentals. So we are a year round facility and so we rent out our facilities chapels, activities, food service cabins, those kind of things for various groups, whether it's children's ministries, youth ministries, men's and women's ministries, missions, teams, schools, all those types of things. So we stay pretty busy. Bancroft itself has been around for a hundred years. We celebrated a hundred years last year and so, yeah, we've been part of the community for quite some time.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's a lot. A lot isn't there. You do a lot, well, very interesting. Derek, how did you get into this business?

Speaker 3:

So me personally. I was a pastor for 10 years down in South Florida.

Speaker 1:

I'm actually originally from this area.

Speaker 3:

I grew up in Bristol and Blumville and then went to church here in. Kingsport when I was in middle school, high school.

Speaker 1:

But, anyways.

Speaker 3:

So I was a pastor for 10 years down in South Florida and I knew of Baincroft but I actually never went to camp here and actually never stepped foot on the property the entire time I lived in this area. But I knew the former director prior to myself, keith Walsworth, so I would get newsletters from them and that kind of stuff. So I kind of kept up with what was taking place. But when the Lord, when the Lord led us to leave that church in South Florida, we moved back up to this area and I worked in the medical field for about two years with my parents who owned their own business at that time all the while just praying lord, what do you, what do you have for me?

Speaker 3:

what's next? And through his providence he opened the door for my family and I to become full-time missionaries here at bancroft. So we raised our financial support to be here, and we've been here for six years now. Uh serving Lord.

Speaker 2:

Wow, wonderful Six years. Congratulations, thank you. So are there any myths or misconceptions about I mean, you do a lot of different stuff, bible camps or Christian summer camps or Bible training any misconceptions or myths that you can think of?

Speaker 3:

I think probably the biggest misconception for Bancroft as a ministry is that we are only a Bible camp for kids. I don't think the average person knows the extent of the things that we actually do and the things that we offer and how we can serve the local church and the body of Christ in our community. So I think, when they think of Bancroft, they think you know five, six seven-year-old kids going to summer camp for a week. You know, and that's it.

Speaker 3:

But we're so much more than that. So that's probably the biggest misconception is that, yeah, we only serve children, but really we serve all ages, at all times for any purpose.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, and just asking is there a particular denomination that you support, or is it?

Speaker 3:

that's a great question. So, bancroft, uh, we're a faith mission and so we're not affiliated with a specific church or a specific denomination, uh, which I love because it allows us then to be able to serve all people from all denominations and everything else.

Speaker 3:

So especially from a bullpen supply ministry aspect, I think that's. That's a huge blessing as well, because we don't just provide bullpen supply in a Baptist church. We've provided supply in Methodist churches and Free Will Baptist churches and Presbyterian churches. I tell people, if a Catholic church reached out to us to fill the pulpit, we'd do it too.

Speaker 2:

Well now pulpit supply. Does that mean, if somebody's got a preacher that's out on medical leave or on sabbatical or something you have, somebody come in and fill in?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, pretty much so. It's for, you know, if a pastor needs a vacation and they need somebody to preach on a Sunday or and the bulk of the ministry really is for churches who don't have a pastor, like their pastor has retired, passed away, left for whatever reason, and so now they're in this interim period where they're trying to seek out their new pastor, and so then they just need someone to preach on Sundays, and so we provide that service to a lot of those churches. There's one church in particular out in West Virginia we've been serving for probably goodness, probably about five years now.

Speaker 2:

Wow, with the same guy or pastor.

Speaker 3:

No, no, we have a rotation of men.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

So they go out there, and so we have a rotation. Every month, every Sunday, every month, we send somebody to go preach at that church.

Speaker 2:

Wow, wow.

Speaker 3:

And we do give the churches the opportunity to reach out to the men who come and do pulpit supply. You know, maybe to approach them to hey would you be our full-time internal pastor.

Speaker 1:

So that's an option for them.

Speaker 3:

But also we've had a couple men who have gone through that program who ended up becoming that church's senior pastor so they've been called to that church, so it's a really really cool ministry. It's a lot of fun absolutely awesome, awesome.

Speaker 2:

Well, derrick sounds like there it's a lot of fun. Absolutely Awesome, awesome.

Speaker 3:

Well, derek, it sounds like there's not a lot of time outside of work, but what do you do for fun if you have time? Yeah, that's fair, there's not a whole lot of time outside of work. Actually, the work that we do is fun which is great, but that's probably like a cop-out answer. No, honestly, what I do for fun is I love spending time with my family. I've got uh, my wife marie, uh, who today we celebrate 19 years of marriage, so wow congratulations.

Speaker 3:

I'm gonna take her out to dinner, so it's just gonna. It's gonna be good, um, and so yeah, my wife marie of 19 years, and then we've got two kids, reagan and Bryce. Uh, reagan's 14 and my son, bryce, is 11.

Speaker 2:

I just love hanging out with them, whatever that looks like. Awesome, awesome, good answer, very good answer, best answer. So, uh, um, let's, let's change gears for a second. Can you describe a hardship or a life challenge that you've overcome, either professionally or personally, and how it made you stronger in the end?

Speaker 3:

yeah, um, so probably the hardest thing I've had to overcome. It kind of marries both the professional and the personal. So, like I said, I was a pastor for 10 years down in south florida and um, uh, the majority of that time was pretty difficult, roughly eight and a half years of those 10 years that I was a pastor down there, we didn't have senior leadership, and so there was this constant power struggle that we were dealing with.

Speaker 3:

But that's a really long story. But the end of it, when the Lord finally told me it was time to leave Um, when I, uh, when the Lord finally told me, just it was time to leave Um, I resigned from that church, um, and I had one week to pack up everything and leave and, um, during that time, uh, we had some pretty significant struggles that went on.

Speaker 3:

Uh, not just the struggles in the church, uh, but like my wife went through a miscarriage, uh, in between me resigning and me leaving, um, there were some other issues with my daughter at that time that we were dealing with.

Speaker 1:

My wife went through a miscarriage in between me resigning and me leaving.

Speaker 3:

There were some other issues with my daughter at that time that we were dealing with and yeah, I mean it was heavy and it was hard to the point. I do enjoy exercising, or at least I try to and at that time I was doing a lot of punching, boxing and heavy bags and I just had to go to the garage. I was like, babe, I just need to exercise. I did that. I ended up punching the heavy bag out of the ceiling.

Speaker 1:

I ripped it all the way out.

Speaker 3:

She's like are you okay? I'm like I just need to go run, I just need to be trying to get this out of my head as I was running.

Speaker 3:

Honestly, honestly, I was just praying as I was running and, um, and it kind of reminded me of joe I'm not saying that I am job or my situation is anything remotely like uh, job in the old testament, but um, I was just reminded of you know, god and job, specifically when he says the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And though he slay me yet will I trust in him. And I was just reminded that you know, everything that God allows to happen in our lives, he actually allows them, it actually goes through his heart and through his hands to us. And everything that he allows he allows for our good, ultimately, and for his glory. And he does that simply because we serve a good God.

Speaker 3:

And it was in, it was in that week where God basically was like Derek, here's this truth. And and it just hit me like a ton of bricks and since then I've never forgotten that and I believe that that is just that is that is held true in so many different instances in my life that whether I'm going through, you know, mountaintops experiences, or I'm as low as you can possibly go in a valley. God has allowed all those things to take place in my life and he's allowed those things to take place for a very, for a very important purpose that ultimately is going to be for my good and for an opportunity for me to glorify him and for people to see him. Through those times and then just resting in the fact that he allows all those things and he does all those things for my good, simply because he is a good God. So that's just something that for me personally and professionally, I always have to just remember it really was probably one of the hardest, most difficult seasons of life.

Speaker 3:

Even pushed me into, you know, working through I don't like to use this term because it's a little cliche these days but like a deconstruction of my faith for a time. But then just came true, just to know God is good and he's faithful and he's true and he's the only one where you can find hope. And so for me, I had to keep going back to those truths over and, over and over again. There's probably like 12 of them right there, but I don't know.

Speaker 3:

I just have to keep going back to that, and that's what keeps me going.

Speaker 2:

Amen brother, amen brother. And that's a good thing for anybody to remember. God is good. Yeah, thing for anybody to remember, god is good. So if you could think of one thing that you'd like our listeners to remember about Bancroft Gospel Ministry, what would that be?

Speaker 3:

Well, we're here to serve them. So, bancroft Gospel Ministry, we exist to serve the local church, the body of Christ and our community, for the glory of God and the advancement of his kingdom. And so, yeah, I would just love your listeners to know that, hey, we're here for them, we're here to serve them in whatever capacity that looks like, whether that's as an individual and we can just come alongside of and encourage, whether it's a business organization who's just looking for a space to do team building or some kind of training session, maybe it's a local church ministry, like I said, whether it's children, youth, adults, it doesn't matter to us, they just need a space. Or a pastor who just needs some rest, like, we're just here to serve our community, whatever that looks like. So, yeah, that's what I wanted to know.

Speaker 2:

All right, very good, very good, very good thing. So for those of us who are interested, maybe have a potential of wanting to rent some equipment or send their kids to a camp this summer. How can they learn more?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so probably the two main places they can learn more about us is from our website. Uh, that's Bancroft, b-a-n-c-r-o-f-t, gospelministryorg, um. On there, you're going to find everything from um, you know our camp season and what our dates are and how you can register for that. Uh, you able to find our rentals, our pulpit supply of industry and even our new Endeavor internship that we're launching in the fall for, like, gap year students who are just looking for something. All of that's going to be on our website, so you can go there, or our Facebook page, which is Bancroft Bible Camp Kingsport.

Speaker 1:

So you can get on there.

Speaker 3:

We update that on a regular basis with a whole bunch of different information just little things that are going on around camp. There's other ways that you can connect that way, so those are probably the two main that you can follow us. We do have an Instagram as well, if anybody's on that, and that's Bancroft Bible Camp. You can look that up. We're on there pretty frequently as well All BibleCamp you can look that up.

Speaker 2:

We're on there pretty frequently as well. All right, very good. Well, derek, it's been fascinating. You guys do a lot and I want to, on behalf of the community, thank you for what you do, because you're doing a lot of good work and you know servant leadership is important. So thank you for that, and I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with me and our listeners and tell us all about uh Bancroft. So, uh, moving forward, wish you and your family and your ministry all the best.

Speaker 3:

I appreciate that, and if anybody ever wants to come by for a visit or for a tour of the property uh, we are here pretty much every day, so they're going to stop by they don't have to make an appointment. If they don't want to, they can just pull in because we're here.

Speaker 2:

All right, Very good to know. All right, Derek. I hope you have a great rest of the day. Maybe we can have you back sometime when you've got something new going on not that you need anything new.

Speaker 3:

It would be an honor, Skip, for sure we always have something new happening, so it would be an honor.

Speaker 2:

Skip for sure. We always have something new happening. So, yeah, I'm always up there. We go all right, we'll look forward to that. Thanks, so much.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, sir. Thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnp try-citiescom. That's gnp try-citiescom, or call 423-719-5873.