Pleasant Dale Baptist to dedicate new family life center Sunday

Pleasant Dale Baptist Church, 133 South Potter Road, will dedicate its new family life center during Sunday’s 10:30 a.m. worship service.

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From painting to hanging insulation, the members of Pleasant Dale Baptist Church did much of the work on their $1.6 million family life center to reduce construction costs.

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Dr. Dale Roach, director of missions for Moriah Baptist Association, is the guest speaker.

Roach lauded the 300-plus member Pleasant Dale family for its dedication in completing the 15,188-square-foot facility. The family life center includes a kitchen, work-out rooms, a multi-purpose room that will serve as an interim sanctuary, a gym, a fellowship hall and a youth center. Ground was broken on the project in June 2005.

In a time when local churches have been forced to trim budgets, Roach said the new addition shows that dedicated Christians with vision and faith can still undertake a major building project during tough times.     

“Many of our churches have challenges before them now,” Roach said. “But some of them have a commitment to the fellowship that overrides adverse economic factors. A lot of volunteers have put sweat, blood and time into this project for it to succeed. This has been a good journey for the Pleasant Dale family and I think this new building is going to help them reach even more people.”

According to a brief church history compiled by Pleasant Dale Baptist Church member Shirley Howie, the church was founded in 1946 by the late Rev. Vander Robertson. At the time, Robertson served in the pulpits of both Pleasant Dale Baptist and White Springs Baptist churches.  

“He (Robertson) felt led of the Lord to build a new church for the glory of God,” Howie wrote.

The church – which had no name at that time– joined the Moriah Baptist Association on Dec. 29, 1946.

Howie said all the church members were given a chance to name the new church and after much study and prayer, “Pleasant Dale” was chosen just before the doors were opened on Mother’s Day 1947. 

“The church has come a long way since then,” Howie wrote.

The Rev. Jack Nunn, senior minister at Pleasant Dale since 1998, said one of the most important initiatives taken there was adopting a vision statement to reach the surrounding Lingle’s Crossroads community and beyond.

“Everybody needs a map,” Nunn said. “Without one, you are no better than a sailboat without a sail.”

Nunn said the church building committee thought it was best to try to do as much as the work inhouse as possible to save money.

Like many church families, he said the shutdown of Springs Global along with other job losses, has made an impact. But its members stepped up to fill the gap.

“We did it ourselves and contracted out what we couldn’t do,” he said. “We had local suppliers who stepped up to help us with building and electrical materials and heating and air conditioning equipment.

The result is a $1.6 million building that was built for about $900,000. Nunn said that Pleasant Dale’s capitol building fund has already raised a little more than $400,000.

“When you consider all these layoffs and shutdowns, there is no other way to explain it other than it’s been a God thing,” Nunn said. “That’s all I can tell you.”

Still, Nunn said the bottom line is not to focus on buildings, but reaching people and changing lives.

“You can’t lose sight of that,” Nunn said. “You have to know where you are going to get there.”