Church Calendar | Sermons | Sign-up to Help | Blog | Contact

{View as Webpage}

Faith formation beyond a youth group?

“I grew up Baptist”! It’s a sentence I’ve heard over and over across the years. It’s typically followed by, “but then I had questions that the adults around me weren’t comfortable wrestling with” or “but as I became an adult, the formation seemed to stop, or I couldn’t find my place in the larger church family.” My first ministry job was in an Episcopal church in Alabama, where they hired me because they said the “Baptists do a great job of faith formation through childhood and adolescence.” In my first 3 months on the job, I met dozens of people who verified this opinion for me with their admission that, at one point in their lives, they were, in fact, Baptists. We don’t always do ourselves any favors, even in the progressive church, by creating a new narrative that emphasizes faith formation post-high school, but I cannot express enough how valuable spiritual formation is as a lifelong discipline.

I’m often reminded that the biblical texts, and the characters themselves, don’t change, but we do. So, kind of like a spiritual blooming onion, we are opened to discover new layers every time we revisit these stories in community and individually, with a more nuanced depth that we weren’t ready to hear the first (or even the last) time we looked at them. Spiritual formation is a lifelong process of learning, unlearning, and relearning, and it is incredibly valuable for the life of the individual and the church at large. This is where the need for spiritual growth and faith practices outside of worship comes in.

When I joined the staff, there was a lot of conversation around the great things we do with our children in Sunday school and the variety of challenging conversations we have around life and faith with our youth, but we don’t fully engage with adults in their spiritual practices because, for one reason or another, we don’t always have the energy behind the type of conversations we need to have about life and faith as we age. The problem is, Sunday school, Bible study, or connection groups don’t look like we’ve always known them to as we grow up, and the Church (big C) hasn’t always done the best job of being flexible with what it could actually look like. Honestly, adult faith formation is a back and forth with you and God and the world and the community as a whole, so why not have that conversation in a comfortable setting with a good cup of coffee (or tea)? The Sunday after Easter, we are starting a brand-new connection group directly aimed at providing a space for the many of you who may not know where to plug in on a Sunday morning (and beyond). We’ve spent time redesigning a space specifically with you in mind: a place to engage in conversation around concepts and issues within theology.

This is not a lecture or a lesson; it’s an ongoing conversation guided by specific leaders. The space is meant to feel more like a living room or a coffee shop to encourage you to plug in and participate. We’ll be meeting at the same time as children and youth classes because it is valuable for them to watch the adults around them modeling what it looks like to progress through the life of faith as well. This is not intended to be the final result, as our hope is that it will blossom into multiple different groups, each with its own unique personality and practices centered around the common ground of wanting to connect deeper into the life of faith through this congregation, but it is the first step to reminding us all that following the way of Jesus is a collection of a multitude of steps over the course of our lives, not a single step at one point in your life. So join us in the youth building at 9:45 on April 11 (especially if you’re between the ages of 25–55, but we won’t discriminate) and be reminded that adult Baptists do, in fact, welcome deep questions about the complexity of the Bible in a post-modern world. - Caleb

The experience of Easter resurrection inspired the movement that became the Christian church, as the disciples of Jesus were emboldened to move forward in their faith. In this season of Easter, how do we continue to move onward? Pilgrims walking El Camino de Santiago often hear the call: Ultreia (onward) and Suseia (upward)! As Easter people, how do we move onward in our personal paths and upward in our spiritual journeys—as individuals? As the Church? Over the Easter and Pentecost seasons, we will examine ten practices that can encourage our movement in spiritual growth, in activism, in the deepening of ourselves and our community. We will post these practices in the worship bulletin and in our other communications. The suggestions for practices of faith will give you an opportunity to extend Sunday worship into your everyday life. Let’s practice faith together!



April 5, Easter—Resurrection wasn’t just important for Jesus—it is the work of God in all of us. Life. New life. Newness. Forgiveness. Let’s begin our movement onward here.

Practice: Do something new this week, something you have never done. Take a hike… Go to the Whitewater Center and raft or climb their climbing wall… Play pickleball… Download Duolingo and start learning a new language… Join the choir… How does a completely new thing change you? Write about what you learned. - Russ

Join us this Thursday, April 2nd, for our Maundy Thursday Service - communion and music, in the Santurary at 6pm.

*5:30pm - Dinner in the Community Center (Reservations are now closed however feel free to bring your dinner and join us.)

Please dress appropriately (!), but plan to join us on Friday, April 3, as we enjoy "real ingredients, real farmers, really good food" at the Naked Farmer in South End. You can meet us in the parking lot at 11:15 a.m., or meet us at 2725 South Boulevard, Suite A. (Please let us know, either way, if you plan to join us by signing up in Helt Hall or emailing the church office info@parkroadbaptist.org.)

On behalf of the 85 guests who received food and a warm place to sleep on cold winter nights, thank you to everyone who helped to make this ministry possible again this year! Our guests were mostly women and families, including about 25 children. Special thanks to Jim Niell, who was the overall coordinator, and to Beth Mintich, who assured that delicious meals were always provided. Beth Heaton arrived at Myers Park Methodist early every Sunday morning after the guests departed to bring the laundry back to Park Road, and many of you took those baskets of dirty laundry home with you to clean. Rosemarie Burton headed up the faithful crew that did set-up before the guests arrived, making all the beds and creating a space that was welcoming and comfortable. Others of you drove the bus, provided breakfast or lunch bags, stayed overnight, and helped to clean up in the morning. A season of Room in the Inn requires about 140 volunteers, each person contributing to make the experience inviting and relaxing for our guests. Thank you to all of you who joined in to make this happen!

We are so lucky to have such a wonderful staff at the Child Development Center! Last week, we treated our team to the Chick-fil-A reusable cups. We were bummed that no one got a Golden Cup! However, it was great to watch them open their bags to see if they were a lucky winner. At the end of the day, WE are the lucky ones for being part of PRBCDC’s Golden Team!

*Youth - are students who will complete grades 6th– 12th during the 2025-2026 school year.

Unidiversity: July 6-10

We're headed back to Maryville, TN for everyones favorite

week. Contact Caleb for

more information.

Regular Scheduled Programing is as follows:

• Sunday Mornings, 10a - Preview
• Sunday Evenings, 5:30-7p - SNT

*Children - are students who will complete grades K– 5th during the 2025-2026 school year.

Camp Prism: Exploring God’s Big World

Camp Prism is for all kids who have completed 3rd–5th grade. This year, we will be exploring creation and how we’re all bound together in God’s great big world. To learn more, email caleb@parkroadbaptist.org

Regular Scheduled Programing is as follows:

• Sunday Mornings 9:45-10:45am Children's Sunday School (K-5th)
• Sunday Mornings 10am-12pm Nursery
• First Wednesdays 5:30pm Dinner/6pm Children's Midweek - The first Wednesday of each month.

Coming Up at Park Road

• Sunday Worship

Facebook Live and In-Person - 11am

(Sancutary)

• Sundays

Pickleball - 7:15pm

(Community Center - Gym)

• First Wednesdays

Dinner and Vespers

5:30pm Dinner / 6pm Vespers

(Community Center - Gym)

• First and Third Tuesdays

Bible Study and Fellowship - 10am

(Community Center - Room 503)

• Tuesday and Thursdays

Flexercise - 9am

(Community Center - Gym)