On Sunday, January 8, 1956, people gathered on Six Forks Road for the first Sunday School and Worship Service of the congregation that would become Trinity Baptist Church.
Eighty-nine people attended.
The service was conducted by Rev. Lee Pridgen, who had helped guide the plans for a new Baptist church in this growing area north of Raleigh. The offering that first Sunday totaled $114.
The setting was modest. The Raleigh Baptist Association had purchased a little over four acres and a house that had once served as Oak Grove School. Under the leadership of E. H. Roberts, Jr., the men of the church had restored the original auditorium so that worship could begin there.
The first service was followed by special services each evening during the subsequent week. Guest ministers from nearby churches and the wider Baptist community participated, reflecting the support and relationships surrounding this new congregation.
The anniversary book’s worship history records the ministers who participated in those early services:
- Rev. Judson Hill of Rolesville
- Rev. John Garner of Rolesville Baptist Church
- Dr. Henry E. Walden, Jr., of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina
- Rev. John L. Coley of North Street Baptist Church
- Dr. John W. Kinchloe, Jr., of Hayes Barton Baptist Church
- Rev. Robert L. Newton of Millbrook Baptist Church
A report in the News and Observer described the new church as the twenty-third Baptist church in greater Raleigh and part of the promotion and expansion program of the Raleigh Baptist Association.
That first Sunday did not include all that Trinity would later become. There was no permanent sanctuary, no large campus and no seventy-year history to remember. There were eighty-nine people gathered for Sunday School and worship, an offering of $114 and a church beginning to take root.
Those details matter because they remind us that the life of a congregation begins with people willing to gather in faith. Each generation receives what earlier generations began, and each generation is called to continue worshiping, serving and bearing witness in its own time.
Today, Trinity continues to gather for worship on Six Forks Road, grateful for the people whose faith and service helped begin this story in January 1956.
Read More in 70 Years at Trinity
This story was drawn from 70 Years at Trinity: February 5, 1956 – May 3, 2026, prepared in celebration of the seventieth anniversary of Trinity Baptist Church.
For more about Trinity’s first Sunday School and Worship Service and the special services that followed, see pages 9, 14 and 62 of the anniversary book.
