First Baptist on Fifth sits at 501 West Fifth Street in the heart of downtown Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where a copper-domed sanctuary built in 1925 still rises over the city block. The congregation, founded in 1871 as the first Baptist church in the twin towns of Winston and Salem, calls itself "a community in the heart of the city called by Jesus to practice bold love of God and neighbor and boundless compassion for all people." That vision, paired with the words "Bold Love. Boundless Compassion." used as a tagline, has come to define the church's public identity and its reputation as one of the most progressive and engaged Baptist congregations in the region.
The Church House with the Spire
Members of First on Fifth, as the congregation often calls itself, refer to their building as the "church house" rather than the church itself. The current sanctuary, with its distinctive copper dome and 150-foot spire, replaced earlier structures and was dedicated on November 8, 1925. Dr. George Truett, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, gave the dedicatory sermon, opening with the words, "I'm glad to be in another Progressive Baptist Church!"
The building has a story of its own. The original plans called for a dome but no tower, until church leader D. Rich declared it needed a "finger pointing upward to God." When the building committee questioned the cost of adding the spire to an already over-budget project, Rich replied that he had found the cost would be $50,000 and that he knew a "good woman" who would pledge that amount. The "good woman" was his wife. Inside, the Sanctuary was last refreshed in a 2007 renovation, and outside, the bell in the tower rings on the hour every day, a gift from the Pass family in 2006 that has become a familiar downtown sound.
Several rooms carry the names of people whose generosity shaped the building. The Ammons-Lolley Commons, just outside the Sanctuary, was given by Lenwood Ammons in memory of his wife Doris and named in honor of their long friendship with Pastor Randall Lolley and his wife Lou. A children's stained glass window, dedicated in 2022, lives down the hall from the Sanctuary and tells the story of Daniel Tran Foskett Hudgins, an Eagle Scout, Subaru enthusiast, and Mars Hill University graduate who was born in Vietnam and died at 21; the window holds stars, an eagle, a mountain lion, a river, and two dogs, all references to his life.
A Boundless Home: The 2018 Building Project
By 2015, two of the church's three buildings - the 1954 Children's Center and gym, and the 1963 educational building - had aged beyond practical repair. After years of study, the congregation voted overwhelmingly in 2017 to take a dramatic step: demolish the two aging buildings, replace every roof including the copper dome, restore the masonry on the steeple, install new mechanical and electrical systems, and add a ramp on the Poplar Street entrance. The work was funded by a $5.4 million capital campaign called A Boundless Home: Building Beyond Walls, and was completed in 2019. The decision has drawn national attention among churches wrestling with the cost of maintaining historic sacred space, and Pastor Emily Hull McGee has become a frequent speaker and writer on the topic, including an essay in the 2021 book Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy titled "Bricks and Mortals: Sacred Space and the Faithfulness of Letting Go."
Worship on Sunday Morning
Worship in the Sanctuary is the gathering point of the congregation's life. Each Sunday at 11:00 a.m., members and visitors fill the curved pews of the domed sanctuary. The service follows a participatory rhythm of gathering, confessing, proclaiming, and sending, with the congregation praying, singing, and offering themselves in conversation with one another and with God. Pastor Emily's benediction, a Sunday staple, ends each service with the words, "we end this form of worship to begin again the worship that is our very lives."
The music is led by the Sanctuary Choir, the Chancel Ringers handbell choir, Choral Scholars drawn from area college students, and a long list of guest musicians. Director of music is Associate Pastor David Williamson, supported by Organist and Music Associate Jake Hill, a graduate of Appalachian State University with degrees in organ performance and sacred music. Worship is also livestreamed each Sunday on YouTube and Facebook, with online attenders welcomed into a separate monthly Zoom gathering to build community beyond the screen.
The full Sunday rhythm looks like this: Bible study for all ages begins at 9:30 a.m. in person and at 9:00 a.m. on Zoom, Coffee and Conversation fills the Ammons-Lolley Commons at 10:30 a.m., and the Sanctuary service begins at 11:00 a.m. On the first Sunday of the month, the church holds "Joining Sunday," when new members are received during the morning service. Sunday Bible study classes for adults include the Converge Class (mostly college students and young adults), the Community Class (early-middle-aged adults), the Conversations Class (mostly 50s-70s), the Connections Class (30s-60s), the Friendship Class (senior adults), and the Covenant Class (60s-80s).
The Four Fragile Freedoms and the Confession of Identity
First on Fifth is, by name and conviction, a Baptist church, but it is not a Southern Baptist church. Under the long pastorate of Dr. David Hughes (1991 to 2013), the congregation left the Southern Baptist Convention over theological and political differences and became a founding member of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in 1991 and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina in 1994. The congregation's Baptist identity rests on what historian Walter "Buddy" Shurden called the four fragile freedoms: Bible Freedom, Soul Freedom, Church Freedom, and Religious Freedom. The church affirms the priesthood of all believers, the autonomy of the local church, religious liberty for all, and the freedom of every Christian to read and apply Scripture under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
In November 2021, on the occasion of its 150th anniversary, the church adopted a Confession of Identity, written over fourteen months of congregational conversation and affirmed by an 87% vote. It is not a creed or a doctrinal test but a snapshot of the church's spirit and commitments, written as a Baptist alternative to formal creeds. The Confession lifts up bold love of God and neighbor, calling the church to "welcome, affirm, and celebrate all people in the fullness of who they are: beloved for their differing ages and races, sexual orientations and gender identities, means and sufferings, physical and mental abilities, levels of education and backgrounds, cultures and nationalities, doubts and beliefs." It states plainly that any person who professes faith in God through Jesus can share in the gifts of full membership, including baptism, communion, marriage, ordination, teaching, and pastoral care, a public commitment that includes LGBTQ members. In the fall of 2025, the Deacons and pastors added an Addendum to the Confession, affirming that the 2021 words still shape the church and that the congregation has grown in number, in diversity, and in its depth of commitment to downtown.
Pastor Emily Hull McGee
Rev. Emily Hull McGee became the church's twelfth pastor and the first woman to lead the congregation in its 150-year history when she was called in March 2015 and arrived in July of that year. A graduate of Wake Forest University School of Divinity, she came from Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, where she had served as Minister to Young Adults for six years. She is a third-generation Baptist pastor, a former opera singer with Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in Voice Performance from Furman and Northwestern, and the author of essays in Crisis and Care and other collections. She serves on the Board of the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership, mentors first-time pastors through Baptist Women in Ministry, and serves on the Executive Committee of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. She and her husband Josh, owner of the Y'all Company sauce business, are raising three children in the area.
Children, Youth, and Young Adults
Children from birth through fifth grade are described by the church as "among the most significant bearers of God's image in this world." Sunday morning for the youngest members includes a staffed nursery on the first floor for infants through age three, and a Children's Loft on the third floor for PreK through fifth grade, divided into a downstairs space and an upstairs space. Children's Music is taught one Sunday a month during the Sunday School hour. Each elementary student is paired with a senior adult through the Prayer Partner Ministry, an intergenerational covenant of prayer that runs the school year. The Associate Pastor for Children, Senior Adults, and Pastoral Care, Rev. Dr. Amy McClure, leads the ministry and oversees the Child Development Center, which was established through a bequest from B.F. Huntley in the 1960s and continues to offer daycare with scholarships for families with limited income.
Middle and high school youth meet for Sunday School, regular weekend outings such as hikes and meals, and a transformative week each summer at Passport camp. They serve in the life of the wider church, including a regular Sunday outing to The Dwelling, a ministry to those experiencing homelessness, where the youth help serve lunch to more than 200 people. The youth are led by Associate Pastor Kyle Caudle, who also oversees adult ministry and missions.
Young adults, defined as college students and people in their twenties and early thirties, gather for Sunday morning small groups and regular fellowship. As one young adult quipped in the church's own description, "if you pay for insurance but don't understand it, or if you refer to your pet as your child, then you qualify as a young adult." They are led by Associate Pastor Mary Kaylor.
Music and the Arts
The Arts Ministry encourages the development of creative gifts in music, drama, visual art, film, and dance, and brings them into worship. The Sanctuary Choir rehearses on Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m. and prepares special music for Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, and the annual Lessons and Carols service each December. The Chancel Ringers, a handbell choir for older teens and adults, rehearses on Wednesdays from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. and rings on a 3-octave set of Malmark handbells and a 4-octave set of Schulmerich handbells. SPIRE Ringers offer the same experience to children and youth. The Choral Scholars program brings college students into the life of the choir with a stipend, while guest musicians regularly enrich services with vocal solo spirituals and other offerings.
The Mission Footprint: Local and Global
First on Fifth takes its identity as a downtown church seriously, listing four missional priorities that guide its work: cultivating the well-being of children, mitigating poverty in the community, becoming a teaching and learning church, and growing in number and faithfulness. The church has helped found or shape some of the most prominent nonprofits in Winston-Salem, including Crisis Control Ministries, Samaritan Ministries, Habitat for Humanity, and the Winston-Salem Center for Education and the Arts (WSCEA), which was birthed in 2014 out of the church's desire to provide rent-free space to organizations serving the city's margins. Today, WSCEA operates in the John 3:16 Building and houses the Winston-Salem Street School, Dress for Success, Authoring Action, and Leadership Winston-Salem.
More than twenty mission partners share in the church's funding and volunteer energy. Members deliver Meals on Wheels, build ramps with Habitat for Humanity, sort clothes at Dress for Success, work the front desk at Crisis Control, walk alongside women in the Flourish and Pivot programs, serve neighbors at The Dwelling, and support immigrant neighbors at Una Bendición. The church maintains a long-standing partnership with Mission Emmanuel in the Dominican Republic, including a beans and rice program, and a newer relationship with Amani Sasa in Kampala, Uganda, led by CBF field personnel Missy Ward Angalla, which provides wraparound services for refugees.
The church's denominational giving flows through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and CBF of North Carolina. It also partners with Baptist Women in Ministry (both the global organization and the North Carolina chapter) and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and supports the Baptist Student Union at Wake Forest University.
Care for the Soul: Mental Health, Pastoral Care, and Benevolence
Nearly twenty-five years ago, a church member named Glenn Butner left a sizable gift designated for mental health counseling. The Butner Fund for Mental Health now provides financial assistance to more than 100 individuals and couples for counseling, with the church covering the balance after the individual's copay and insurance. The Fund also supports the Trinity Center in downtown Winston-Salem and Trellis Hospice Care. All Butner Fund information remains confidential; inquiries go to Amy McClure.
Deacons serve as the church's primary lay caregivers. Each active member is assigned a Deacon who commits to being a regular presence of love, marking birthdays, anniversaries of loss, illness, and the births of new babies. Pastors and Deacons visit hospitals, pray before and after surgeries, and call members experiencing hardship. A Care Notes Ministry gathers on the first Tuesday of every month at 10:00 a.m. in the Ammons-Lolley Commons to write cards to home-centered members, new members, and those who have been away. A separate Home-Centered Ministry team visits members who can no longer easily attend in person, and a dedicated group takes Sunday worship online to residents of Brookridge Baptist Retirement Home each week.
The John 3:16 Benevolence Fund, guided by the pastors and the Missions Committee, helps people in crisis with rent, mortgage, and utilities assistance, primarily directed to downtown neighbors, and has been used to create food and personal care bags for those experiencing homelessness and to assist with medical debt situations.
Learning Together: Classes, Studies, and Books
Bible study is at the heart of the church's growth, with classes for every age and stage. Adult classes meet on Sunday mornings, and many other small groups meet during the week. Recent spiritual formation offerings have included a churchwide Lenten devotion series composed by staff and members, Midweek Meditations by the pastoral team on social media, and faith conversations on the First on Fifth podcast. Monday morning Devotional Classics is a longstanding gathering that meets at 7:30 a.m. in the Ammons-Lolley Commons.
The church's scholarship program includes the Blackwell Memorial Fund Scholarship for North Carolina students preparing for ministry in the Baptist tradition, and the Ida Tilson Scholarship for students at institutions of learning and study, including vocational training. The John 3:16 Innovation for Ministry Fund, established with a $60,000 anonymous gift, offers New Ministry Initiative and Partners in Ministry mini-grants of up to $1,500 for teams of at least three church members, with rolling deadlines and a focus on the church's four missional priorities.
Older Adults and the Affinity Groups
Older adults at First on Fifth gather monthly on the second Tuesday for fellowship, hymn singing, and outings to local restaurants and parks, with seasonal day trips and regional fruit pickups. The senior adult ministry is also the backbone of the Prayer Partner program for children, and many older adults lead and teach in the life of the church.
Affinity groups have grown into a distinct layer of the church's life. The Downtown Walking Affinity Group meets weekly on Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m., the Board Games Affinity Group meets on Thursdays at 7:00 p.m. in the Baraca Room, and the Older Adult Lunch and Learn meets on Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m. in Kelly Auditorium.
A House That Hosts the City
The church house, as the building is lovingly called, is shared generously with the wider Winston-Salem community. The sanctuary has hosted the 50th anniversary celebration of Crisis Control Ministries, featuring a visit from Bishop Michael Curry, presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church. It has welcomed Bookmarks Festival keynotes with authors including Celeste Ng, Jason Mott, Stacey Abrams, Anne Lamott, and TJ Klune, and has served as the venue for Authoring Action's summer intensive, new Street School graduations, art installations, and high school choral concerts.
Safety, Accessibility, and Welcome
The church takes seriously the safety of every person who walks through the doors. All paid and volunteer staff who work with minors undergo background checks, screening interviews, and annual training. The 2023 summer training included CPR and first aid for every teacher and staff member who works with children and youth. A defibrillator and first aid kits are centrally located, and a team of volunteer medical professionals stands at the ready.
The building is fully wheelchair accessible. An elevator on the Poplar Street side reaches every public level, and an exterior ramp from Poplar Street provides Sanctuary-level access. All restrooms are family or gender neutral, and most include changing tables. A t-coil hearing assist system is being added in the Sanctuary, and a real-time closed captioning app called Otter AI is being introduced for worship. Seven paved accessible parking spaces sit adjacent to the church house, with street parking available on Poplar and Spruce and additional parking nearby.
Come as you are is the spirit of the morning, and a dress code is not enforced. On any given Sunday one will find suits, dresses, and sneakers all sharing the same pews.
Where the Money Goes
Members and friends support the church through bank drafts, online bill pay, online giving, gifts of stock or IRA rollover, and mail. The primary fund, called the Ministry Funding Plan, supports the regular ministries and missions of the church, including over twenty-seven mission partners around the world. Designated funds include the Anniversary Endowment Fund, the FBC Missions Fund, the FBC Ministries Fund, the FBC Music and Worship Fund, the Benevolence Fund, the Building Maintenance Fund, and the John 3:16 Innovation for Ministry Fund.
A Heritage That Stays in the City
First Baptist on Fifth is the oldest Baptist church in Winston-Salem, born in 1871 when five Baptists gathered at the courthouse and hired Rev. F. M. Jordan to preach twice a month. The early years were marked by smallness and sacrifice, with members giving from their land, their labor, and even mortgaging their homes to build the first house of worship. The long pastorate of Dr. H. A. Brown, from 1877 to 1917, quadrupled the membership and gave rise to daughter congregations across the city, including Salem, Southside, North Winston, and Broad Street, the latter renamed Brown Memorial in his honor.
The 1935 merger with Brown Memorial doubled the membership again, and the mid-twentieth-century pastorates of Dr. Ralph Herring and Dr. Randall Lolley added the Children's Building, the Educational Building, a child development center, a televised and radio-broadcast worship service, and a spirit of bold community ministry. The decision in 1991, under Dr. David Hughes, to align with the newly formed Cooperative Baptist Fellowship set the course for the present-day identity.
Through it all, one thread has held: a commitment to stay in the heart of the city. The church is bordered by 500 West Fifth, a hub of business leadership, to the front, and Crystal Towers, a high-rise of affordable housing for elderly and disabled residents, to the back. The Benton Convention Center is to one side and the West End neighborhood and the Winston-Salem Center for Education and the Arts to the other. First on Fifth, the people say, is not just a city block on which a building sits; downtown Winston-Salem has become the place that shapes their priorities, resources, relationships, and imagination. Here, they are from. And from here, they are sent.