Peninsula In Passage

Nansemond River Baptist Church “I-664 changed the character of the area with an influx of Suffolk people to Harbour View and then people from outside the area began coming in with the growth of the military - it was a bedroom community,” says Dr. Timothy L. Piland, Lead Pastor of Nansemond River Baptist Church. “The whole character changed from a traditional to a contemporary setting – our congregation was no longer Southern traditionalists.” Five years ago the church was reborn, according to Piland, a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force Reserves. The constitution was re-written to include elder leadership; the church moved to a contemporary worship setting and dress, removed the pulpit and replaced the minister of music position with a worship team. “We moved Sunday night services out of the church and into private homes and invited neighbors in for Bible Studies,” he says. The adjustments may reflect the church’s beginnings as a mission church in July 1961. First Baptist Church and Wilroy Baptist Church, with the support of the Blackwater Baptist Association, established the Riverside Baptist Mission to serve the Bennett’s Creek area. The mission began with a vacation Bible school and a series of evening revival meetings. The first service was held under a tent on rented ground and 35 people enrolled in Sunday School. The mission found a building to rent and renovate on Bennett’s Pasture Road and grew to 80 members. The Wright family sold a five-acre oat field at the corner of US 17 and Bennett’s Creek Lane to the mission to build a new building they would share with the fledgling Trinity Baptist Church from Churchland. In 1968 Trinity Baptist and the mission merged to form Nansemond River Baptist Church. The church grew significantly in membership, property and ministries, including an active partnership with the Suffolk Public Schools. The church now has 1200 members in its multicultural congregation and sponsors a mission church, the Harvest Fellowship that opened in Smithfield in 2001 with 62 members of Nansemond River Baptist.

Dr. Timothy L. Piland, Lead Pastor

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