Pleasant Grove Baptist on Lake Wheeler Road has church, preschool, cemetery

At 10005 Lake Wheeler Road, Fuquay-Varina, sits Pleasant Grove Baptist Church.

Like the two previous Baptist churches profiled at this blog, Pleasant Grove has a multi-building/facility campus. And across Lake Wheeler Road, there is a modest cemetery the church maintains. PGBC also is home to Mothers Morning Out Preschool, which serves youngsters in six age levels, beginning with infants through kindergarten. 

There appeared to be a game in progress on the church’s ball diamond while I was there for my shoot, so I limited my photo of that facility (photo elsewhere in this post) to one from afar. 

The church website has a separate page for its cemetery, at which it respectfully conveys that the graveyard “tells the stories of families and generations.”

Incidentally, it is 5.7 miles from the church campus to downtown Fuquay-Varina.   

To see a full gallery of pictures from my shoot here, follow the link in this sentence. 

 

Two more views of the church (above and below) and of the fellowship hall (second, third and fourth photos below). 

 

The Family Life Center (above), with the church to the left, houses the gymnasium. A closeup of its front doors appears below. 

Above: A side view of the fellowship hall, which leads into the church offices in the building at the far end.

I don't know this for a fact, but the three white crosses above on church property near Lake Wheeler Road (background) might be connected to the Crosses of Mercy project, under the auspices of Cast Thy Bread Inc., launched in 1984 by the Rev. Bernard Coffindaffer of West Virginia. Many copies of these crosses have emerged on church properties along thoroughfares, mostly in the Southeast, as a testament to faith and Christian salvation. Curiously, the etched stone in front of the crosses (first photo below) does not explain the crosses; it explains the dedication of the paved parking lot just behind where I was standing when I took this picture.  

  

Above and first four photos below: Different shots of the PGBC Cemetery.

The ball diamond (above) and the playground in the first five photos below.

Church identification signs along Lake Wheeler Road near the west access point (above) and along Hilltop Needmore Road at the south access point (below).

A view from the hill: there are a church, school, meeting hall, athletic fields

My stop at Hilltop Church, 10212 Fayetteville Road, was educational for me as well as an opportunity to indulge my interest in photographs. I initially stopped there early last week and checked in at the office to see if it was OK for me to roam the campus to do a photo profile. 

I met executive pastor Mark Cash in the office, and he suggested I return on a Saturday when no school was in session. I wasn’t aware the church had a school on the grounds; the full campus is on a hill (hence the name) and thus drivers on U.S. 401 below don't see much beyond the church itself. Indeed, he said that Hilltop Christian School offers grades K through 12.

He also said that the church is affiliated with the Free Will Baptists, which I later learned traces its roots to the 18th century in North Carolina. And as I glanced through the church’s online directory of staff upon returning home after my shoot on Saturday, I saw that many of its staff — including Cash — obtained their higher education academic degrees at Southeastern Free Will Baptist College in Wake Forest, N.C.

On its website, the college (which is on the grounds of the original Wake Forest University) states that its primary mission is to train people for church-related ministries. 

Like Mid-Way Baptist, which I profiled here in the previous post, Hilltop Church has several buildings and facilities on its campus. There is the main church (see photo leading off the post), a building housing the fellowship hall and gymnasium (first photo below) and the school (second photo below). In addition, there is a playground, baseball field/diamond, a soccer field and an outdoor basketball court. Photos of those appears further down in the post. 

Hilltop Church is just under 6 miles north of downtown Fuquay-Varina. 

To view a gallery containing all the pictures I took on this shoot, follow the link in this sentence. 

Another view of the church (above) and the soccer and baseball fields, an outdoor basketball court and playground in pictures below. 

Above: The road running between the church on the right and fellowship hall/gymnasium on the left. 

The south entrance to the church (above), and just to the left of that is the tree you see in the photo below.

The soccer field (above), ball diamond (first photo below) and outdoor basketball court (second photo below).

Above and below: Sandboxes spaced about 20 yards from each other. 

 

Above and first two photos below: Playground facilities. 

The playground swing set (above) with the fellowship hall/gymnasium in the background, and an amphitheater type seating area (below) near the playground for adults to sit and supervise children. The swings are in front of this seating area, while the remainder of the playground equipment is behind it. 

 

School buses for various transportation needs (above) and just one of many lightposts on campus bearing a pennant stating "Rooted in Love" (below). 

Mid-Way Baptist campus in Raleigh

Today's post continues, at least for the short term, a series of church profiles in the south Raleigh area of North Carolina. 

In my eight years here, I’d driven past Mid-Way Baptist, 6910 Fayetteville Road (also known as U.S. 401), countless times, often making or revisiting mental notes to stop in to photograph this church. Little did I know or expect the expanse behind the main church structure facing the highway. 

In a way, it now strikes me as odd that the church building itself is so close to the highway, given the considerable acreage behind it (which includes a massive volume of parking spaces as well as a nice-sized athletic field for baseball, softball and soccer). 

But perhaps the congregation started there with only a modest parcel of land and wasn’t able to acquire the rest of the acreage behind it until much later. I’d hoped to find a history of the church at its website that would offer an explanation, but I could find none.

I did find a list of the church’s staff members online, and there are a lot of them. They include six who have the word “pastor” as part of their title and others who oversee the church’s many ministries, including those directed at women, youth, publications, technology, and social media.

And the campus has at least three buildings aside from the church, and each is identified with a letter of the alphabet — Building A, B, C and D. I didn’t stop and study the usage detail assigned to each building, but if you're visiting it for the first time, you shouldn't have difficulty finding where you need to go as long as you read the signage. 

I found some good opportunities for creative photography on the campus Monday, and I’ll include my favorite shots in this post. You can tell from the photo of the church leading off the post, which I took from the median of the highway, how close the structure is to the road, a very busy thoroughfare. There actually is a service or drop-off road right in front of the main doors (which isn't visible in the photo), so I guess there is some space, but still ...

As the photos show, I again was challenged with what to do — if anything — with the intervening utility cables intersecting with my line of sight for these frontal shots of the worship center. I did try to remove the cables while editing in post-processing ... and succeeded for the most part, but there were some stubborn areas that I couldn’t conceal, so I abandoned the touch-up altogether. The version you see here is unedited.

For a look at the complete gallery of photos from this shoot, follow the link in this sentence.

Views of the main worship center building from the left side (above) and a side building (below) along with a closeup of the fountain (second below) in front of the side building. 

The view of the two buildings above from where I was standing when I took the shot below, which looks toward the rear of the campus. You can see the extensive parking capacity from this shot. 

Above and first two photos below: Back sides of the worship center and side building. 

 

Above and first two photos below: These are a few of the creative/artsy shots I composed. The building in the above photo I believe is Building B. 

Two views of Building D, which I believe is the office building. The front (above) and the rear (below).

Above and below: Even the light poles were of interest, if not for their design then for their message warmth.

Buildings C (above) and two sides of B (below and second photo below). 

Above and  below: Perspective and closeup shots of the athletic fields.