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Then and Now: A Perspective History of English Road Baptist Church

Christian churches have been historically mission minded ever since the Great Commission of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 28.  The establishment of Christian congregations according to the needs of a community was a long standard approach in evangelism until the early nineteen-seventies. 

English Road Baptist Church was established through a community revival event in 1913 that was sponsored and led by Green Street Baptist Church.  Seeing the need to reach an area of High Point in the West End region of the city, Green Street Church made this tent revival possible.  So many people responded to the call of the Gospel to repent, believe and be baptized that a new church, West End Baptist Church, was established on Redding Street.  The congregation grew steadily and in the late 1940’s purchased land and subsequently built a new facility on the present site at 1111 English Road, the education building and sanctuary buildings were completed in 1950 and 1955, respectively. 

English Road Baptist Church has been led by fine ministers through the years and has been a church of great impact in the West End of High Point.  With the global changes brought about by “theological and social awareness” in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the church was confronted with the many challenges of a changing society.  Whereas, the 50’s and 60’s brought great growth in attendance, the 70’s and 80’s brought the local challenges of a drastically changing neighborhood effected by economic and social shifts.  As the local properties were bought and resold with the moving out of the older residents, nearby factories either decreasing employment or closing, these community changes also brought change and challenge to West End Churches.  A once blue-collar and predominately single culture community experienced racial and international demographic transitions.  The church reached out in the late 70’s and 80’s with a bus ministry and a “Big A” club that embraced the changing trends… meeting the residents where they “are” in life.   Yet, by the late eighties the shifts were so dramatic and the advent of a drug culture and a street presence of violence and a shocking connected amount of multiple vices caused fear to dominate the residents, the streets, and even the churches. 

Several years passed as the West End residents and churches languored in perplexity as to what to do to answer the call of God to, still, reach out and make a difference and give an alternative to people struggling in the quagmire of their ill-directed lives.  In the late 1990’s the three ministers of nearby churches of Rankin Memorial United Methodist Church, First Reformed United Church of Christ (now Christ Community Church) and English Road Baptist Church met and began to discuss their common concerns and struggles. From this meeting and with each church electing representatives to be on a consistent panel of discussion and planning for action a new hope was born for the West End. The three churches established West End Ministries, a non-profit entity focusing on community and social concerns (operating NOW, a soup kitchen, community center, shelter for single homeless women, kid’s café, a boys and girls club and a variety of educational and developmental programs).  Community meetings were sponsored by the churches.  People rallied for all that was right and began to confront and address the wrongs.  Working with the City of High Point and, in particular, the High Point Police Department, the churches set forth to reclaim the West End for all that is good and decent for a community. With the further development of a crime initiative, the West End community has now a position of national fame as a community that is transforming in a very inventive way (CBS News, Wall Street Journal, NBC, Harvard University, and U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and others have taken notice of our accomplishments).  People, again, walk the streets, not for vice and crime, but in a true sense of community.