Spotlight on Member DJ Brummett: Heeding the Call
By Ashley Daniels
At 20 years old, DJ Brummett could be chilling out at a frat house with his bruhs on a college campus somewhere, but he is instead dedicated to serving Christ daily at Solid Rock at Market Common.
Born in the small town of Danville, Virginia, Brummett and his family moved to Myrtle Beach shortly after his first birthday to be closer to his grandparents.
“I grew up around the faith,” he says. “My grandpa was a preacher and with my mom and dad both being police officers and then later my stepdad being a police officer as well, the schedules with that can be super overwhelming and time consuming. So I spent the majority of my time with my grandparents, my Mimi and Papa. They practically raised me alongside my parents.”
It was that special grandparental bond that also strengthened Brummett’s connection to his faith. Growing up, he would attend the church where his grandfather preached at PirateLand Camping Resort on some Sundays
In 2017, as a freshman at Socastee High School, Brummett learned on the morning of his first day of band camp that his Papa passed away the night before from a heart attack.
“Losing my grandpa, who was just such an instrumental figure in my life – especially in terms of my faith – was really like losing a best friend,” he says. “I kind of questioned God in a way, asking God, ‘Why would this happen to me?’ And it took me a couple months, maybe six months to a year, to realize that His ways are greater than our ways and that there was a reason for that to happen. I just didn’t know it yet.”
Flash-forward to the year 2020, when Brummett’s friend, Kyle invited him to Solid Rock one Sunday in August.
“As soon as I walked in the door, I just fell in love with the place, the people,” says Brummett. “You could feel the Holy Spirit in that place, which I loved and I had never felt before.”
He officially became a member of Solid Rock at Market Common in October 2020, along with his family – and now his guy friends from high school go to church together with him, too.
“It’s like this one big entity,” he says, “so it’s been awesome the way that God’s worked through Solid Rock to change my life.”
Brummett had been studying at Charleston Southern University, but changed his major this past spring to aeronautics, which entailed flying time with an instructor and adding more time to his overall college career. He would have to stay in Charleston over the summer and an extra year on top of going every summer. But he really missed home and I just felt such a draw back to Myrtle Beach.
“I was praying about it on my way back from Charleston one day, and the Lord just spoke to me and said that I needed to be home this summer,” says Brummett. “Pastor JP had offered me the internship at the church and I would be able to work with the NOWKids summer camp, which I’ve worked with the past couple years. It just seems so right, along with the Lord telling me I needed to be home.”
He didn’t question or argue with God, moving permanently to Myrtle Beach, withdrawing from Charleston Southern, and transferring to All Nations Bible College & Seminary to earn a ministry degree through their self-paced courses. Brummett is also taking online courses through Liberty University to earn a degree in business administration, with a focus on leadership. He aims to be completed with his schooling within the next two years.
Now, he serves as an intern with Pastor JP and Tricia, administrative pastor for the church, which requires what he describes as doing random things around the church whenever needed, from organizing storage closets, to making runs to the store, to moving and setting up tables and chairs, to ushering, and more.
“They call me the ‘I Can Guy’ because they’ll ask me to something and I’ll say, ‘Yeah, I can do that,” laughs Brummett. “But it’s really about seeing how the church works and the church dynamics in a way.”
His latest “I can do that” was Pastor JP’s request a couple months ago to lead the sermon, which he recently accomplished on Sunday, September 10, this year.
“It was awesome,” he says. “It was a great experience overall.”
Brummett also helps out with the youth group at Solid Rock at Market Common and began teaching Bible class to ninth graders this school year at Solid Rock’s Faith First Academy.
“It’s really cool because I’ll be teaching and one of the kids will bring up a question, and I’m like, ‘You know, that’s a really great question,” he says. “I’ll sit there for a second and think in my head and pray, ‘Lord, just give me the answer to this question. I don’t know the answer to this question.’ The majority of the time, as I’m speaking and teaching and we’re in the Word together, the Holy Spirit will just speak to me and give me the answer, and it makes sense, and we can find it in the Word.
“It’s just cool, changing these kids’ lives for the better,” he continues. “… It’s shaping their minds, their hearts, their souls, their spirit, all of it. And this crazy world that we live in, it’s just so important that they’re well-grounded and have a firm foundation in Christ.
So what does Brummett see himself doing in the next couple of years?
“I feel like if you would’ve asked me that six or 12 months ago, I would have had a different answer,” he confides. “If you would’ve asked me a year and a half ago, I would have said that I wanted to be a federal law enforcement going to the DEA or FBI. If you were to ask me six months ago, I would’ve told you that I wanted to go fly and be a commercial airline pilot. But now, where I’m at with the Lord and my relationship with Him, I feel like I’m being called into the ministry, especially after experiencing it this past summer with the internship. I feel like I’ve always felt the call and then just pushed it away.”
Brummett is also scheduled to go to Africa on the mission trip in October with other members of Solid Rock at Market Common and to Granada in February 2024 to deliver Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes to children.
“I really have a passion for mission work overseas and spreading the gospel to the end of the earth,” he says.
When Brummett isn’t busy studying the Word, teaching the Word, and doing what he can to help the church, he says he’s usually at the gym or hanging out with friends or family.
“It’s pretty much just hanging out with the people I love,” he says.
