864-502-8280 | Worship every Sunday @ 4 p.m.
864-502-8280 | Worship every Sunday @ 4 p.m.
Learn more about our church, history and team.
We are a come-as-you-are church for believers and nonbelievers alike looking for connection. Learn more about our mission and vision.
Peace Church Guiding Principles:
· Proclaim God’s extravagant welcome
· Embody the radical love of Jesus
· Honor the interconnectedness of our lives with creation
· Enable all people to grow towards wholeness
Peace Church envisions a world where every person knows they are beloved by God and where communities reflect that love through justice, compassion, and welcome. We seek to be a spiritual home that nourishes faith, inspires service, and celebrates diversity. Guided by the life and teachings of Jesus, we work to embody peace in all that we do — building bridges across differences, standing with those who are marginalized, and caring for the earth that sustains us.
Our vision is to be a beacon of hope, a voice for inclusion, and a community where grace is practiced daily and love is lived fully.
At Peace Church, we believe that God’s love is bigger than our differences and deeper than our doubts. We try to live out that truth by offering an extravagant welcome to every person who walks through our doors or visits us online.
You do not have to have all the answers, believe the same way as everyone else, or have your life perfectly figured out. Here, questions are welcome, curiosity is encouraged, and grace abounds. We are a congregation rooted in the progressive Christian tradition, open to new ideas and guided by the teachings of Jesus. Love God. Love your neighbor. Care for this world we share. Our worship blends tradition and creativity. Our community values compassion and justice.
Our doors are open wide to all who seek belonging. Wherever you are on life’s journey, whether young or old, certain or searching, joyful or weary, you have a place at Peace. We are not perfect, but we are genuine, kind, and committed to walking together in faith, hope, and love.
Welcome home.
Peace Church began to meet in the fall of 2007 with an organizing team including some people with New England congregationalist backgrounds and several lesbian couples who wanted a safe place for their future children. The Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ (SEC) agreed to support a “new church start” in Clemson SC and the launch team went to work.
They worked out differing ideas about what it meant to them to be Christian and came to a set of guiding principles:
The initial commitment to not own their own building was made on environmental grounds and continues today. Bylaws were written in 2010 and the Peace Congregational Church was accepted into standing as a full UCC church in April 2011. The founding Pastor Susie Smith served faithfully from 2007 to fall 2014.
From late 2014 through 2015, we were “lay-led” giving us time to right size our budget. Our congregation called Pastor Bruce Schoup to begin half time on Jan. 1, 2016 for a two-year designated term. His leadership brought Second Sundays, Beyond the Walls, a monthly morning spiritual experience outdoors. Another project was titled Pilgrimage of Remembrance: Truth Telling & Facing Clemson Area Injustices co-sponsored by Peace Church, PRISM (student ministry) and the Clemson Area African American Museum (CAAAM). Two UCC/SEC grants enabled our work on an important project to build a mobile Tiny House to become a safe house for LGBTQ+ persons. Peace Church donated the completed Tiny House to the Transgender Awareness Alliance in Columbia.
In May 2017 Peace Church became a community partner of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) located at Patrick Square. Not only did this relocation radically reduce our rent, it brought us into a unit of Clemson University!
Rev. Dr. Gayle Baldwin, a retired university professor and Episcopal priest, provided lively and creative leadership until health issues led to her resignation at the end of 2018. Another local person, Rev Tricia Lytle who served as the lead chaplain at AnMed Medical Center in Anderson, joined Peace Church for another part-time call until 2022. During her tenure, we adopted a new tag line – Progressive Christian Community. We also came to understand that local missions were a central part of our identity.
When COVID19 hit we worked out how to worship on Zoom. Our current hybrid Zoom option developed from there. We entered a time of transition again in fall 2022. The Holy Spirit brought us Rev. Laura Robinson, a Candler Theology grad who had left a full time pastorate in 2021. Laura’s skills and yearnings matched the Peace Church goals for another two-year designated term call that began in August 2022 and ended in November 2024. We continue to remember numerous Church in the Wild adventures, intriguing book studies and “office hours” in bars and coffee shops in the region. We held a sad farewell not realizing the next blessing stood in our midst.
Living the UCC phrase “Don’t put a period where God has put a comma. God is still speaking,” our former Moderator, Danielle Elliott, who has been taking classes via Pathways as she imagined her long term post-retirement dreams, whispered to a friend on the Coordinating Council that she would be interested in filling in as Pastor if the UCC Southeast Conference Leadership deemed her qualified. This startling reality gave us six weeks before the end of 2024 to fully consider the possibility. Each piece of the puzzle fell into place including filing documentation, receiving approval by Rev Kim Wood and the MID committee, and receiving the half time call for a two year designated term from Peace Church!
As the Advanced Placement United States History teacher at DW Danielle High School, Pastor Danielle Eliott brings energy, knowledge and humor to the pulpit. She creates sermons that explore how current events draw on Biblical wisdom and leads book studies with enthusiasm. Under her guidance, our congregation recently relocated to a larger, more visible space in partnership with First Baptist Church of Pendleton. The opportunity to grow has never been greater.
Sign up to receive our weekly newsletter.
