Sunday worship at 11:00 a.m.
Address (physical and mailing):
Bethlehem Baptist Church
3902 Highway U.S. 158
Roanoke Rapids, NC 27870
bbcroanokerapidsnc[at]gmail.com
BBC phone:
(252) 308-4082
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ONLINE GIVING
By credit card or bank account information. Easy, secure and paperless.
-or-
PayPal (coming soon)
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In addition to God the Holy Spirit, come also and visit and bless us with your presence!
Dr. Francis Kyle, pastor and scholar-in-residence. And author and founder,
Uncommon Christian Ministries. See below for his biography.
A historic and friendly rural church serving
Halifax, Northampton and Warren counties (NC). And Brunswick, Greensville and Mecklenburg counties (VA). Includes the
Lake Gaston, Roanoke Rapids Lake and Roanoke Valley region.
Church sanctuary is handicap accessible with a ramp on the west entrance.
For inquiring minds regarding English Bible translations, BBC has
NKJV Pew Bibles. Pastor Kyle preaches from the
ESV, however.
HISTORY: 1890-2020
Founded in 1890 by the noted North Carolina pioneer church planting pastor
A. G. Wilcox (or Willcox, 1845-1921).
While helping his wife raise their 7 children, BBC is 1 of 21 rural churches in 6 northeastern North Carolina counties that Wilcox served during his 42-year pastoral and church planting ministry, 1879-1921. The 6 counties are
Halifax, Martin, Nash, Northampton, Wake and Warren.
The Brinkleyville, Halifax County, NC, native also served as clerk and treasurer of the
Tar River Baptist Association (est. 1831) for 41 years, 1878 and 1881-1921.
--> NOTE: Though no longer owned by the Wilcox family, the
Wilcox plantation home (1853-1980) south of Roanoke Rapids, NC, is on the National Register of Historic Places (1982- ). It is known as the Gray-Brownlow-Willcox House or LaValle.
For the 100th anniversary of the death of A.G. Wilcox, BBC is planning a special commemorative event for April 2021. This will be in conjunction with BBC's 131st anniversary (homecoming), to also be commemorated the same month. Stay tuned.
Bethlehem Baptist Church began in 1890 as a
brush arbor church. Members then built a wooden structure in 1895 along what is now
N.C. Route 903, about a mile east of Everetts School Road. The eight founding members included the last names of Hockaday, King, Morris, Pepper and Shaw. In 1950, BBC relocated some two miles north, along
U.S. Route 158.
The longest, more recent pastorate, from 1993 to 2005, was that of
John Rowland. Pastor Rowland left BBC to pastor
Outer Banks Baptist Church in Kill Devil Hills, NC, where he remains pastor to this day.
On Father's Day, June 21, 2020, BBC joined for public worship Little Country Baptist Church. Located three miles away on Thelma Road in Roanoke Rapids, James Lewis "Simp" Jenkins founded Little Country in 1989. BBC played a major role in Jenkins' conversion to Christ, baptism, early spiritual growth and call to the gospel ministry in the 1950's-60's.
At 94 years old (born 1926), the combination of the coronavirus pandemic and Jenkins' frail health prevented him from guest preaching at BBC. His guest preaching, and two other events in 2020 to honor BBC's 130th anniversary, were all cancelled. So BBC went to Pastor Jenkins!
Read about the special joint worship service between BBC and LCBC--and a biographical sketch on the ex-whiskey bootlegger Jenkins--at
RRspin.com and
The Daily Herald. Also online is the
brief video of the Father's Day "feel good" story at the close of the 11:00 p.m. newscast on WRAL-TV (Raleigh, NC).
If anyone has any photographs, documents or oral history related to Bethlehem Baptist Church, please contact the church.
CEMETERY
For the names of most of those buried in BBC's cemetery, visit the cemetery's online page at
findagrave.com. Formed in February 2006, non-BBC volunteers created and maintain this helpful and free online database (
findagrave.com Cemetery No. 2166352).
The cemetery predates BBC's 1950's arrival to 3902 Highway U.S. 158, the church's second and current location. The earliest graves date to the early 1900's and are those of Confederate States of America (CSA) soldiers.
ABOUT PASTOR FRANCIS KYLE
We welcome and introduce our new pastor and first-ever scholar-in-residence and non-native Southerner, Dr. Francis Kyle. He began July 3, 2019.
A formal pastoral installation service occurred November 10, 2019. Click
here for the online public photos of the special event. And
here for the online local news article.
Come join BBC in giving Dr. Kyle a warm
North Carolina welcome. With first impressions at stake, the American southeast and mid-Atlantic region are new to him.
Well-traveled and with over 25 years of experience in a variety of city, suburban and rural American, Canadian and Israeli ministry and work settings, Francis comes by way of Louisville KY (2013-19). And before Louisville, Marysville WA (2012-13), Jerusalem Israel (2009-11), Port Angeles WA (1992-2009, 2011-12), West Hartford CT (ages 5-20), Toledo OH and Miami FL.
He came to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ at age 21 in an employee dorm room while working as a seasonal waiter at historic
Lake Crescent Lodge in
Olympic National Park, twenty miles from Port Angeles, Clallam County, WA.
Immediately after conversion, Francis sensed a call to the gospel ministry. Youth and young adult pastor, college campus minister, interim pastor and foreign missions are some of the past vocational ministries he has engaged in.
His higher education residences have included Hartford CT, Three Hills AB Canada (B.A.), Toronto ON Canada (M.Div., Th.M.) and Portland OR (D.Min.).
A passionate lifelong learner, and since 2014, Dr. Kyle also has earned several healthcare related (
IAHCSMM) and university-based online professional certificates (Maryland, Michigan, Villanova, Yale, UC-Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center).
Areas of study have included process improvement methodology (
Lean Six Sigma), healthcare leadership, surgical instrumentation and sterilization, positive psychology (personal and for the workplace), emotional intelligence, community engagement and the hospitality/tourism industry.
Some of his temporary, non-vocational ministry employments have included seasonal waiter (9 summers,
Olympic National Park), substitute public school teacher (K-12), head and assistant basketball coach (middle school boys/girls, high school boys and community college men), paratransit bus driver and hospital
sterile processing technician (for surgical instrumentation).
Guided by the Bible's Proverbs 30:7-9, Philippians 4:11 and 4:19, 1 Timothy 6:6-10, and Hebrews 13:5, he remains committed to his lifetime of loan- and debt-free living. And striving for material and financial contentment.
Born in Connecticut, partially raised in New York City and buried in Virginia, the once popular Princeton University and Yale Seminary-trained Second Great Awakening evangelist
James Brainerd Taylor (1801-1829) defined an "uncommon" Christian as one who is striving to be "an eminently holy, self-denying, cross bearing, Bible, everyday" Christian.
J. B. Taylor was a maternal cousin, four times removed, of the famed First Great Awakening missionary who also died young,
David Brainerd (1718-1747). Like Brainerd and England's Henry Martyn (1781-1812) and Scotland's Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1813-1843), so too did Taylor become famous after his death. Nineteenth and early twentieth-century Protestants in North America and Europe were inspired by the
"Memoir of James Brainerd Taylor" (1833) and
"A New Tribute to the Memory of James Brainerd Taylor" (1838).
With diverse interests and an extensive resume of local community engagement and volunteerism, Kyle is a member of the following:
Evangelical Theological Society,
Evangelical Missiological Society,
Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals (FIRE),
American Society of Church History,
Nineteenth Century Studies Association,
National Trust for Historic Preservation,
Milan (IN) 1954 Hoosiers [Basketball] Museum (lifetime member),
American Motorcyclist Association and
Iron Butt Association. In North Carolina (2019- ), the growing list includes
North Carolina Museum of History Associates,
Friends of Historic Halifax, etc.
