Church Information
Welcome to First Baptist Church. We are glad you stopped by our website. We want to tell you a bit more about who we are and what we do. We hope this information will help you decide if First Baptist is the right place for you
Our membership is a diverse collection of people Some have lived here all their lives. Some folks’ work has brought them here. Some have come here to retire. Some are lifelong Baptists, others are transfers from a host of different Christian denominations, some are new converts to Christianity and some are new to church life in general. We are white collar and blue collar, multi-degreed and barely degreed. We relish this diversity, which is reflected in such policies as open membership, gender equality (including ordination of women deacons and ministers) and strong ecumenical relationships within and outside our immediate community.
We find unity in our diversity through worship, missions and congregational care. There are two Sunday morning worship services. The 11:00 o’clock service is formal, often called liturgical, with several scripture readings, litanies, prayers, silence, anthems, hymns and a sermon. Our goal for this hour of worship is to do nothing except focus on making time and space for people to meet God. There are no “announcements” and only rarely any kind of promotion of church programs. We call it ”traditional” worship. We mean the historical Christian tradition of setting aside sacred space and time for the worship of God in a highly structured ritual. We believe such ritual feeds the human hunger for familiarity in the search for God. This service is warm and lively. We run the gamut of human emotions, from laughter to tears. We are people friendly. All these moving parts, however, are lubricated by the formal order of our service.
The 8:30 service, which we call “alternative,” is just that. It is different from the traditional service, not an adaptation or another version. There is an order of worship but it is rather fluid, depending on the dynamics of the service of the day or the kind of service we might be having on a given Sunday. We might have a story teller or a multi-media presentation or a short film or reader’s theater, always with the opportunity for immediate feedback from the congregation. We might have a hymn or a rock song or a country song or a Taize chorus or sung Psalm or a Bluegrass number or a gospel tune. Sometimes the entire service is given to music of one kind or another or to sacred dance. Someone recently suggested that this service is like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: you never know what you are going to get. We believe this kind of variety feeds the human hunger for experiencing God in different ways. People need food, too, and people crave companionship, so we end each 8:30 service with breakfast together. All these random pieces are held together by our determination to get people to confront the presence of God.
Wednesday night services are informal gatherings for prayer, Bible study, topical studies and promotion of the church’s mission work. You can read about the variety and scope of our mission endeavors in the missions section of this website. Suffice it to say that we are committed to missions. Wednesday evenings are also the hub of our congregational care. Through the combined efforts of the ministerial staff, the deacons, shared ministry partners, the Congregational Care Committee, Sunday School classes, WMU circles and individuals, we look after each other. We rally around one another when trouble comes and we rejoice with one another in times of celebration. We bring food, provide transportation, offer support and pray diligently for members and non-members alike. We strive for a web of compassion and care for the entire congregation
We are open to instruction and inspiration from the full range of Christian experience and expression, but we are unapologetically Baptist. Our relationship to our larger Baptist family has shifted over the past couple of decades. We are now effectively a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Church, though we have taken no official action to leave the Southern Baptist Convention and they have taken no action to remove us. We also give financial support to the Baptist World Alliance. Our state affiliation is primarily with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina, though we are still involved with the mission work of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina and we give some financial support to them. Locally, we have been voted out of the Baptist association over the issue of baptism and open membership. We are ardent believers in and supporters of the uniquely Baptist notion of religious liberty, as well as other Baptist ideals not exclusive to us. These ideals include the authority of scripture, congregational church autonomy and the priesthood of all believers.
This is something of who we are. We invite you to join with us.
Bill Johnson (Former Senior Pastor)