A Place to Plant Your Feet on Mt. Vernon Road
On a single stretch of Mt. Vernon Road in Dunwoody, Georgia, a church has been gathering for more than six decades. Dunwoody Baptist Church began in 1964 and now fills a multi-building campus with two very different Sunday morning worship services, a daycare and preschool, an arts school, a sports complex, a fitness center, a columbarium, and a long list of ministries that reach from the nursery to the nations. Its mission statement sums up the spread of work: love God, love people, make disciples, make a difference.
The church describes itself as an autonomous Baptist congregation with a long history of cooperation with Georgia Baptists and the Southern Baptist Convention, though not under their supervision or control. That independence shows up in the variety of partnerships the church keeps and in the way members serve on their own terms.
Two Sundays, One Church
The most distinctive thing about a first visit to Dunwoody Baptist is the choice offered at the door. Two Sunday morning services carry the same message and the same pastor, but the feel is entirely different.
The Traditional Service meets at 8:30 a.m. in the Chapel. The Celebration Choir sings hymns, the orchestra plays, and the room is dressed for classical worship. The Modern Service gathers at 11:00 a.m. in the Worship Center with a full band, contemporary songs, lighting, and effects. On the third Sunday of each month, the Student Praise Choir leads the 11:00 worship.
Between and around those services, the rhythms of a Sunday take shape. Sunday School and Life Groups for adults, students, and children meet at 9:45 a.m. in classrooms across campus. Communion is served quarterly in both morning services. Baptism by immersion happens at scheduled services during the year.
Greeters stationed around the campus help first-time guests find their way. The 8:30 service is best parked from the North Main Entrance; the 11:00 from the South and East Main Entrances. What to wear is relaxed: business casual fits the early service, and jeans are appropriate at 11:00.
Children, Nursery through Fifth Grade
The children's ministry runs on the same three-hour rhythm as the rest of the church. The nursery cares for infants through 24 months at 8:30, 9:45, and 11:00 a.m. Preschoolers ages two through Pre-K use the same three hours. Elementary children in kindergarten through fifth grade have Sunday School at 9:45 a.m. and worship at 11:00 a.m.
Safety is built around Planning Center Check-Ins. Each child wears a name label that lists the parent's phone number and any medical information; each parent carries a matching security label for pickup.
Beyond Sunday morning, the children's ministry runs DBC Kids Wednesday Nights from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. for grades K through 5, with musical training, mission projects, and acting. The Kidschoir, also grades K through 5, performs musicals, leads children's services, and travels on mission trips during the year.
Two milestones stand out. The Parent/Child Dedication ceremony is a commitment service for parents who are members or active regular attendees, recognizing their responsibility to raise the child in a Christian home and a church. The New Beginnings class, held during the 9:45 hour for children in grades 2 to 5, walks through what baptism is, who partakes in communion, and how to follow Christ. A tour of the baptistery is part of the curriculum so that the day of baptism is familiar. Baptisms are livestreamed through the church's online platforms.
Middle School, High School, and Beyond
The student ministry creates space for grades 6 through 12 to love God, love people, make disciples, and make a difference. Sunday morning small groups meet at 9:45 in the Student Cafe. Wednesday nights gather both middle and high school students from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. in the same space.
Older students can audition for the student worship teams. The Student Praise Choir leads worship at 11:00 once a month and rehearses Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. The Student Band leads the Wednesday night student services.
A separate ministry reaches beyond high school. Dunwoody Young Adults serves people in their twenties through early thirties with a Sunday night gathering at 7:00 p.m. in the Student Cafe built around worship, teaching, and community. The stated values are authentic community, biblical truth, meaningful worship, serving others, and following Jesus together.
Adults 55 and the Naomi Ministry
The Adults 55+ ministry runs on fellowship and involvement. The group hosts monthly luncheons (often with mission partners presenting their work), annual excursions like a fall trip to North Georgia apple orchards, and a digital newsletter that goes out weekly or biweekly.
Three pastoral-care ministries belong to this corner of the church.
- Naomi Ministry, sponsored by the Men's Fraternity, provides labor to widows, widowers, and elderly members of the church: furniture moving, small fix-it projects, light bulb changes, cleanup, and consultation before larger projects.
- Healthcare and Referral offers no-cost advice, recommendations, and introductions for people recovering from illness or injury or facing aging-related decisions.
- Visitation Ministry keeps members who can no longer get out as easily connected to the rest of the church family and to other DBC ministries that can help them.
Men, Women, and Two Long Bible Studies
The men's ministry anchors itself in the F260 plan: small groups of three to five men reading the New Testament in 260 days, one chapter a day, five days a week, using the HEAR journaling method (highlight, explain, apply, respond). Groups meet at various times of the week to suit working schedules.
Two weekly Bible studies sit at the center of women's ministry. DiscipleU runs on Wednesdays at 6:00 p.m. and is open to women of all ages. Recent studies have included a seven-week walk through the Gospel of Mark. Community Bible Study meets Wednesdays from 10:00 to 11:50 a.m. in the third-floor Chapel building, with the year-long curriculum covering Job, James, and Revelation. Nursery is available for CBS participants.
Dunwoody MomCo, the church's chapter of the national MomCo (formerly MOPS) program, meets Friday mornings from September through May in Chapel Room 306. Now in its twenty-fifth year, the group offers fellowship, breakfast, speaker-led discussions, and childcare during meetings. Scholarships are available.
Worship and Arts
The Worship and Arts ministry reads like a roster of choirs, players, and crews.
- The Celebration Choir leads the 8:30 traditional service and rehearses Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m.
- The Praise Choir leads the 11:00 modern service and rehearses Wednesdays at 6:00 p.m.
- The Orchestra plays every Sunday morning at 8:30 and rehearses Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m.
- The Worship Band anchors the modern service and rehearses Sunday mornings at 9:15 in the Worship Center.
- Production teams run sound, lighting, graphics, video, portable systems, set design, and special events.
Singers and players are encouraged to deepen their craft at the Dunwoody School for the Arts, where private music lessons are offered on the same campus.
Missions from Dunwoody to the Ends of the Earth
Missions has been a foundational commitment of Dunwoody Baptist since 1964. Seventeen percent of all offerings go to mission support, distributed through the DBC Mission Council in three categories: Bless (small one-time gifts), Catalyze (three-to-five-year commitments to growing ministries), and Own (long-term commitments of five years or longer to unreached peoples or to mobilizing DBC members).
The church frames its mission work with the Acts 1:8 pattern: Jerusalem (Dunwoody), Judea (Greater Atlanta), Samaria (across the United States), and the ends of the earth. The partnerships fall on a clear continuum.
- ESOL School: Adults from more than twenty-five nationalities meet weekly to learn English and experience American culture, including Christian life.
- Conversation Club: Free, Monday-evening practice in the Worship Center lobby, with childcare available.
- Disaster Relief: Volunteers train year-round and deploy when emergencies hit DeKalb County and the surrounding region.
- Bread Coffeehouse: A college ministry near Emory University (with additional locations at Oxford College of Emory University and Tufts University) where students find community, study, eat, and explore faith in Jesus.
- Cross-Cultural Ministries (CCM): After-school tutoring, English classes, and other programs for apartment residents in the Chamblee/Doraville area, serving more than 160 students a day.
- Jars of Clay: A church and homelessness relief ministry in southwest Atlanta serving young people and a wider range of clients with shelter, food, education, and a thrift store.
- JMA Ministries: Educational and relief work in Myanmar (a missionary training school, the Learning Center in Yangon, the Elim Family Orphanage) plus a refugee-serving ministry in Clarkston, Georgia.
- Spring of Peace: After-school mentoring and outreach to the primarily Hispanic community of East Dunwoody, run by missionaries Shelia and Eduardo Zamora.
- Border Perspective: Service-learning trips along the U.S. and Mexico border equipping leaders and advocating for Biblical justice.
Care, Counseling, and Recovery
The Care and Counseling ministries meet people in seasons of difficulty with pastoral confidentiality and a network of partners. Members of the Deacon team serve as an extension of the pastoral staff, visiting hospitals and homes, praying, and helping connect people to additional resources.
Celebrate Recovery meets Sundays at 6:00 p.m. in Room A202 of the Adult Classrooms building for anyone with a hurt, habit, or hang-up. The hour begins with worship and a general meeting and moves into gender-specific share groups at 7:00 p.m.
GriefShare runs in 13-week cycles each fall (and other sessions through the year) for anyone grieving the loss of a loved one. Each session opens with a video and a guided discussion led by a facilitator who has personal experience with loss. Special one-day events cover the loss of a spouse and surviving the holidays.
The Atlanta Counseling Center, a Christian counseling organization in Sandy Springs, handles referrals for relational, psychological, and emotional issues. Their clinical staff uses modern counseling strategies, accepts some insurance, and operates on a sliding scale.
One Accord, a Multi-Ethnic Vision
One Accord is DBC's ministry for racial reconciliation and cross-cultural welcome. Its vision is to grow a multi-ethnic church where all races, peoples, tribes, and languages come together in worship. The ministry organizes education, engagement, and worship around that vision with a leadership team and a broader team of volunteers.
One Accord produces a monthly focus that pairs the current sermon series with cultural awareness, recent Hispanic Heritage Month features have included statistics and stories from the Lifeway research on new Hispanic church plants. Practical suggestions, sitting in a new pew on Sunday, sharing a meal from a different culture, learning to pronounce a name well, are woven through the material.
Dunwoody Baptist Preschool
Dunwoody Baptist Preschool has been a ministry of the church since 1969, more than fifty-seven years on the same campus. Today it serves about 140 children from six months old through Young 5's, with twenty-eight staff members and Cognia accreditation. The school day runs 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., with early-morning drop-off at 8:00 and Extended Day until 2:25 p.m.
Every classroom has two teachers, and every child visits Chapel, Music, Science, and Gym each week. A Russian tortoise named Tillie, a bunny named Max, and a bearded dragon named King Louie III live in the Science Lab, which also houses collections of bird nests, butterflies, and an Epson Interactive Whiteboard. A three-year Bible curriculum threads through the program, and every child in 2's through Young 5's receives a personalized Bible at the annual Chapel Bible Presentation.
Children in the 3's, 4's, and Young 5's classes can sign up for Enrichment classes, including Cooking, Art, Spanish, Love of Literacy, Phonics, Soccer Tots, Preschool Piano, Little Ballerinas, and Beginning Combo (ballet and tap). The preschool follows a September-to-May calendar and observes the same holidays as DeKalb County schools.
Dunwoody School for the Arts
Dunwoody School for the Arts (DSA) is the church's year-round arts academy for preschoolers through adults. Programs are organized by interest.
- Private Music: one-on-one lessons in piano, guitar, voice, percussion, brass, and woodwinds with a faculty of working musicians.
- Dance: ballet, tap, hip-hop, and creative movement for preschoolers and elementary students, with a recital each spring.
- Enrichment: preschool movement and art classes including Little Ballerinas, Little Busy Bodies, Beginning Combo, and Doodle Bugs Art Club.
- Visual Arts: Doodle Bugs Art Club, Cultural Canvas, art history, fiber arts, quilting, knitting, and Private Atelier adult lessons.
- Performing Arts: acting, voice, and movement.
- Worship in the Arts: courses that explore worship through an artistic lens.
DSA runs Holiday Break Camps for grades 1 to 6 and a Preschool Camp for ages 2 to 5 in partnership with DBC Childcare. The annual Spring Recital is held in the Worship Center on the church campus.
Sports and Fitness Centers Open to the Community
The Sports Center welcomes both the church and the wider community with programs for children and adults. Youth leagues include soccer, basketball, and girls' volleyball, with open registration in season and summer sports camps during school breaks. Adult open play includes men's basketball on Tuesdays from noon to 2:00 p.m. and pickleball on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. The gym, lobby, patio, soccer field, and the SC-200 meeting room are all available to rent for birthday parties, meetings, and other events.
The Fitness Center is open to the public with a competitive membership fee. Features include a six-lane junior Olympic indoor pool with a saline spa water system, men's and women's locker rooms, a dry sauna and whirlpool, a cushioned indoor track, a free weight room with rubber-plated dumbbells, LifeFitness strength equipment, and more than fifty land and water aerobics classes a week plus master swim. Free childcare is available for children ages six months through five years while parents work out.
The Fitness Center offers Tae Kwon Do under Master Joaquin Pinkard, a fifth-degree black belt who also represents the USA National Team, and Private Swim Lessons for ages three through adult.
The DBC Foundation
The DBC Foundation is a separate 501(c)(3) non-profit created in 1975 to manage donations and estate gifts. The first large gift came from the Cecil B. Day family. Over time, the Foundation has distributed more than $9.1 million for missions, counseling, adoptions, seminary scholarships, and capital improvements.
Current funds include the Missions Fund (established in 1983 from the Cecil B. Day estate), the Bell Counseling Fund (1991), the Adoption Fund (2022), the Columbarium Fund (2022), the Mack Hannah Student Ministry Fund (2022), the Capital Improvements Fund (2023), the Dental Fund (2023), the Operations Fund (2023), the Allen and Judi Jackson Graduate Scholarship Fund (2025), the DBC Staff Transition Loan Fund (2025), and the Capital and Acquisition Fund (2025). Contributions can be made as cash, securities, IRA distributions, beneficiary designations, charitable trusts, or estate gifts.
Adoption Ministry
The Adoption Ministry helps families who feel called to open their homes to a child. Through the Foundation's Adoption Fund, the church provides matching grants to defray adoption costs, with an Advisory Team that uses Promise 686 to vet applications and walk families through the process. Post-adoption expenses may also be eligible for reimbursement. Eligibility requires membership at DBC for at least six months, a marriage and parenting statement of beliefs, support letters, and a completed home study.
The Columbarium
At the end of the Chapel, a small columbarium provides permanent resting space for members and former members who wish to have their ashes kept on the church grounds. Each niche holds two urns and costs $2,750, with a perpetual-care fund set aside from the purchase price. The initial bank contains 150 niches, with room for six additional banks bringing the eventual total to 330. Members and their families select niches on a first-come, first-served basis.
What We Believe
The church's Articles of Faith run through twenty-two statements drawn from its history as a Baptist body. The Bible is accepted as God's infallible Word. Man is lost in sin, and salvation comes by grace through faith. Jesus Christ is the Virgin-born Son of God, the second person of the Trinity; His death atones for the sins of all, and His resurrection is literal. The church practices baptism by immersion and observes the Lord's Supper as the bread-and-wine symbols of His sacrifice. Marriage is a lifetime covenant between a man and a woman. Heaven and Hell are real. Believers are sealed by the Spirit and called to good works. Mission work at home and abroad is commanded by Christ, and the church expects His return.
The statement also affirms that every person, made in God's image, deserves compassion, love, kindness, respect, and dignity. Anyone wishing to explore Christian faith, worship, and fellowship is welcome at DBC.
Practical Information for a First Visit
Worship services are on Sundays at 8:30 a.m. in the Chapel and 11:00 a.m. in the Worship Center. The campus sits at 1445 Mt. Vernon Road in Dunwoody, Georgia. Office hours are 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday. The church office can be reached at 770-280-1200 or info@dbc.org.
Children's ministry is offered at all three Sunday morning hours (8:30, 9:45, and 11:00). Middle and high school small groups meet at 9:45 in the Student Cafe; student worship on Wednesdays runs 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Celebrate Recovery meets Sundays at 6:00 p.m. The Dunwoody Young Adults gathering is on Sunday nights at 7:00 in the Student Cafe.
Services are livestreamed online. Recordings stay available through the Church Center app and social media. Subscriptions to weekly emails and a weekly prayer list are offered through the Church Center. Online giving runs through Church Center as well.
Anyone considering membership is invited to Discover DBC, a relaxed, discussion-style gathering with pastors that covers the church's beliefs, the meaning of membership, baptism, and next steps. Lunch and free childcare are provided.
The DBC Foundation accepts estate gifts; the Sports Center takes reservations; the Fitness Center takes memberships; and the columbarium sells niches. Each of these conversations can start at the church office or with the specific ministry.