Steeple Sunday #25: Our Church

The church steeple(less) featured today is our church, Tabernacle Baptist Church.

The first two pictures (taken on 8/21/10) are of the original church. My husband and I were raised in the church and were married there on February 14, 1970. Due to the declining membership and the location of the church it was sold in the late 1990's. Thirty plus acres were bought in North west Raleigh on which to build a new church. Unfortunately, the area of downtown Raleigh where our church was located was a very bad part of town. Any time there were functions at the church we had to have members guarding the doors for the safety of the members. Things have been 'cleaned' up somewhat today but it is still not in the most desirable area. This is the front of the church. As you might notice we don't have a steeple like most of the Baptist Churches.

This is the side entrance...Today part of it is still a Church called Unity Church and part of it is

called the Longview Center which is an events venue.

This collage is of several of the stained glass windows that were in the original church shown above. If you look closely at the windows on the original church you will see where some of the windows in the collage once were located.

The new church shown at the end of the post was designed around all of the stained glass windows from the original church. When looking at the picutures of the new church at the end you will see many of these windows . The round window on the bottom right corner of the collage was dedicated in 1877. If you enlarge the collage you might be alble to read the dates the others were dicated. The removal, restoration and installation of all of these very old and valuable windows was a major undertaking.

Tabernacle Baptist Church was founded in 1874. These windows dedicated in the late 1877.

Most of the dates are on the windows in the above collage. Hopefully you can click on it to enlarge it or possibly enlarge the below picutres. They are absolutely stunning on a bright, sunny North Carolina day

The first service in our new church was held on July 22, 2001.

We are very thankful the beautiful original stained glassed windows from the original church

found a new home in the new church on Leesville Road. This building we used today is supposed to be our Chapel. There are plans to build a Sanctuary

I thought today would be our last Steeple Chase post because I am trying not to go outside of a 10 mile radius of home; however, I'm happy to report we have found more churches. The Steeple Chase will continue for a bit longer.